Concert Review: The Young Magician's Guide to the Piano

Seong-Jin Cho plays Pictures at an Exhibition.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

The South Korean pianist Seong-Jin Cho returned to Carnegie Hall on Tuesday night.
Photo by Harald Hartmann.

The pianist Seong-Jin Cho is a fast-rising star on the international virtuoso circuit. On Tuesday night, regular programming at Carnegie Hall resumed with Mr. Cho's second recital at that venue. He came to play, armed with a formidable program of works by Schubert, Debussy and Mussorgsky.

Concert Review: It is of Endings I Wish to Speak

Mathias Goerne and Daniil Trifonov in a liederabend at Carnegie Hall.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Daniil Trifonov and Matthias Goerne brought their lieder collaboration
to Carnegie Hall on Wednesday night. Photos © the artists websites, assembly by the author.

Of all of the forms that the presentation of so-called "classical"music takes, it is the liederabend that is probably at the greatest risk. One singer, and one piano, presenting a carefully curated selection of songs by one or more composer seems quaint by the standards of this frantic century. On Tuesday night in Stern Auditorium at Carnegie Hall, bass Matthias Goerne and pianist Daniil Trifonov demonstrated that in some ways, the old ways are best.

Concert Review: An Orchestra of Ten

Marc-André Hamelin returns to Carnegie Hall. 
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Marc-André Hamelin and his orchestra.
Photo by Canetty Clarke © 2017 Hyperion Records.

The Canadian-born Boston-based pianist Marc-André Hamelin is not the biggest star to play his instrument. He doesn’t gyrate on his bench, flail his arms or wear short skirts that scandalize traditionalists. No. On Wednesday night, he came to Carnegie Hall, programmed unbelievably difficult stuff, and then blew the audience through the back wall of Stern Auditorium.

The sad part is, this hallowed venue was only half full to hear a musician of this caliber.

Concert Review: The White Tiger Returns

Dmitri Hvorostovsky in recital at Carnegie Hall. 
by Paul J. Pelkonen

He'll take Manhattan: Dmitri Hvorostovsky.
Photo by Pavel Antonov for Hvorostovsky.com

On Wednesday night, Dmitri Hvorostovsky returned to Carnegie Hall for a program of Russian songs and lieder by Richard Strauss. On paper, this would seem a normal yearly recital, part of the yearly routine of an international opera star. What is unusual though is that Mr. Hvorostovsky (who last appeared at the Met in Il Trovatore last fall. is in the middle of a long battle against brain cancer. His diagnosis was announced in June of 2015. Since then, he has cancelled performances,  undergone hospitalization and suffered through prolonged, presumably painful treatment.

Concert Review: Gowns, Gods and Generals

Lisette Oropesa opens  2016 recital series at the Armory.

by Paul J. Pelkonen 

Lisette Oropesa (right) and pianist John Churchwell at the Park Avenue Armory.
Photo by Da Ping Luo © 2016 Park Avenue Armory.

Lisette Oropesa is rapidly advancing to the front rank of sopranos that sing lyric repertory on the world’s operatic stages. Now 32 and a decade out of the Metropolitan Opera’s Lindemann Young Artists Program, the willowy Cuban-American soprano appeared this week at e Park Avenue Armory, with two concerts to open that institution’s 2016 series of recitals in the historic Board of Officers Room.

Concert Review: He Died For His Art

The Ullmann Project launches at Merkin Concert Hall.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Doomed genius: Viktor Ullmann in 1924.

Image © The Arnold Schoenberg Center, Vienna.

Some composers are remembered more for the circumstances of their demise rather than the extraordinary achievements of their respective lives. Of those, Viktor Ullmann stands out. A songwriter, a piano composer and a creator of opera, he looked death in the face and laughed, creating the anti-Nazi opera Der Kaiser von Atlantis while interred in the Theresienstadt prison camp from 1941 to 1944. A fairy tale where Death takes a much-needed vacation in the face of total war, it was quickly banned. Ullmann was then killed at Auschwitz.

Concert Review: Flash of the Titans

Yefim Bronfman in recital at Carnegie Hall.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Determination: Yefim Bronfman in concert. 

When the pianist Yefim Bronfman made his entrance at Carnegie Hall on Friday night, it was the start of a heroic confrontation between the burly Russian-born artist and the black Steinway: his vehicle to play sonatas by Haydn, Brahms and Prokofiev.

Concert Review: Virtuoso, Underground

The piano hammers of Hamelin.
Photo © Hyperion Records/Marc-André Hamelin

Marc-André Hamelin in recital at Zankel Hall.
The French-Canadian pianist Marc-André Hamelin is one of the most prodigious exponents of 19th century keyboard repertory playing today. In a series of recordings for Hyperion, Mr . Hamelin has delved into the music of obscure composers like Alkan, Henselt and Godowsky, breathing new life into neglected works and playing them with technical flair and rich, emotional pianism. He has also written and recorded his own set of Etudes, expanding the repertory of virtuoso piano music and bringing works by these "lost" composers to the ears of the public.


Wednesday night featured Mr. Hamelin at Carnegie Hall's  Zankel Hall performance space, giving an intimate recital of works that spanned three centuries of knuckle-busting pianism. The program opened with Haydn's E Minor sonata, in a brisk reading that evoked the formal gardens and raked paths of Esterhazy, the country castle of Haydn's patron. Mr. Hamelin played with lyricism and light humor, evoking Haydn's personal warmth over the three movements.

Robert Schumann's Carnaval, a cycle of 21 piano pieces depicting the composer, his fiancee and their various associates, was played at an exhilerating speed. Listening to Mr. Hamelin play this music was like riding in a friend's car on a dark, twisty road at night, going at a dangerous clip but thrilled by the ride.

The second half of the evening began with the Ostinato by Stefan Wolpe, a 12-tone composition by this underrated modernist composer. Mr. Hamelin laid out the tone rows and proceeded to go to town in the harmonic development, adding layers of incredible complexity and showing the richness and variety that is possible with this complicated composing technique. This piece involved the most difficult piano playing of the evening, and Mr. Hamelin played with a fierce, fluent attack.


Mr. Hamelin then downshifted into a slower, more romantic mood for Gabriel Faure's Nocturne in d minor. Like Haydn, Faure is not known for his piano music, but this elegant Nocturne reveals that his music serves as an important bridge between the picturesque music of Saint-Säens and the impressionism of Debussy. Mr. Hamelin played with rich, elegaic phrasing, producing gentle tones that still required his formidable pianistic abilities.

After a short pause, Mr. Hamelin charged into the finale, giving a flashy, passionate performance of the "Reminiscences from Norma" by Franz Liszt, based on themes from the opera by Vincenzo Bellini. Liszt uses various themes from the opera as an opportunity for bravura display, adding repetitions and variations, arpeggiating chords and incorporating sweeping glissandos and difficult rhythms for the left hand.

For the most part, Liszt ignores "Casta Diva" (though you can hear it in a few bars) using the variations to cast brilliant new light on Bellini's work. Originally designed simply as a crowd-pleaser, Mr. Hamelin showed that there is depth and inspiration in Liszt's setting of this operatic masterwork, mining it for new musical material even as he made the upper part of the keyboard sing in a bel canto style.

The audience's appreciation was met a pair of stellar encores. First up, the Elegy from Turandot by Ferruccio Busoni. Although Turandot is a German setting of an Italian play set in China, Busoni chose to use this Elegy to experiment with the English folk-song "Greensleeves". He expands that simple tune into a dizzying set of variations, bending it into almost unrecognizable shape. Mr. Hamelin followed with Ondine, the first part of Ravel's Gaspard de la nuit. Before the performance, Mr. Hamelin confessed that he had not played this piecein front of an audiencce in many years. But judging from the reaction, the audience would have gladly stayed for Le Gibet and Scarbo as well.

Concert Review: The Alchemy of Handel

David Daniels and Dorothea Röschmann at Carnegie Hall

Soprano Dorothea Röschmann

Sunday afternoon's concert at Carnegie Hall paired two performers steeped in the repertory of the 18th century: the soprano Dorothea Röschmann, and the countertenor David Daniels. The two singers were expertly accompanied by the Juilliard 415 Ensemble in an all-Handel program that showcased each voice to mesmerizing effect.


In baroque opera, a strict division exists between recitative/plot development and emotional reaction. The latter is expressed through arias, which put an emphasis on development of emotional truth and embellishment second.

Ms. Röschmann, a singer heard often in Mozart, sang with stellar technique, soaring to heights with a clear, firm line that allowed equal balance between the meaning of the words and the starry flourishes that come in the recaptulation of the text. She shifted moods ably throughout the recital, from the erotic charge of "V'adoro, pupille" *from Giulio Cesare) to tragic loss in the excerpts from Rodelinda.

Countertenor David Daniels

Mr. Daniels first sang for New Yorkers as Arsamene in Handel's Xerxes at City Opera in 1997. Those performances, opposite the late Lorraine Hunt, triggered that company's renaissance as a haven for the performance of baroque opera. He then moved on to the Met, rising to heights with appearances in operas like Orphée et Euridice, a role that he will bring back to New York in May.

Although he sings from the "head", Mr. Daniels' voice is radically different from most countertenors. He is equipped with a round, viola-like resonance that is rare among his ilk: producing powerful, fully formed tones that never sound flutey or forced. This formidable technique was best heard on the elegant "Crede l'uomo ch'egli riposi", and the moving "Perfido, di a quell'empio tiranna" from Radamisto.


Jory Vinkour and Monica Huggett led the Juilliard 415 ensemble, which takes its numeric name from the tuning pitch of the note A (415) in baroque period performance. Using theorbo, hautboys, harpsichord, and old-style bassoons, the Juilliard musicians provided expert accompaniment to the arias, including the complex antiphonal passages from Giulio Cesare. The orchestra also had its time in the spotlight, playing engaging accounts of the Rodelinda overture, a Handel passacaglia and a lithe account of the second Concerto Grosso, Op. 3.

The individual excerpts were exceptional, but they paled compared to the molten alloy of these two voices together in the three duets on the program. The first was "Io t'abbraccio", which featured Mr. Daniels and Ms. Röschmann's voices melting together in a complex weave of sound. "Scherzano sul tu volto" (moved earlier in the program) and "Per le porte del tormento passan l'anime" showed that this fusion of voices was no accident. The encore too, featured a gorgeous duet: "Pur ti miro, pur ti godo" from Monteverdi's L'Incorinazione di Poppea, a perfect, intimate end to an extraordinary afternoon.