Heavy on the Brahms

Don't want to let too much time pass before I mention a pair of morale-boosting concerts I attended over the weekend. On Saturday, pianists Rollin Wilber and Kasia Salwinski presented another of their signature theme programs at the gemütlich Ivy Hall in Philadelphia. The subject this time out was "musical fantasies," a catch-all that covers a lot of different kinds of music. 

Kasia Salwinski and Rollin Wilber
performed a program of musical fantasies
March 24 at Ivy Hall. The program was
repeated at the Ethical Society March 25.

(In her introductory remarks, Kasia said the fantasy has been a favorite form of hers since she was a student, though, really, the word refers to a lack of form. A fantasy is something composers of bygone eras wrote when they tired of limitations imposed by the sonata, which as early as the time of Chopin had come to seem somewhat academic.) 

The program began with Schubert's F minor Fantasia for four hands and ended with Mozart's Fantasia No. 2, also in F minor, also for four hands, a delightful work, yet surprisingly substantial for something originally written for a musical clock. (That's Mozart for you.) In between, we heard Chopin's F minor Fantasy Op. 49, Mendelssohn's F-sharp minor Fantasy Op. 28, Beethoven's "Moonlight" Sonata ("quasi una fantasia," in case you've forgotten), and Brahms's Fantasien Op. 116. The Brahms, sensitively played by Salwinski, affected me particularly, perhaps because I'm feeling rather melancholy these days. (Elliott Carter used to complain about what he called "the weepy side of Brahms." This is one of those  issues on which he and I part company.) 

As always with these two top-notch pianists, the program was varied yet unified, with much to enjoy and much to think about.

Sunday afternoon, the Elysian Camerata offered still more music by Schubert and Brahms in Bala Cymwyd -- the "Rosemunde" String Quartet and the String Quintet in G Major Op. 111. The Schubert was touching, and the "Rosemunde" theme always puts a catch in my throat. The Brahms, on the other hand, was a blast to hear live and in close quarters. It's a big, dense work that, from a few feet away, in the lively acoustics of St. Asaph's Church, felt almost symphonic.

My spirits could use many more weekends like this.

Classical Discoveries, Choristers

To mark the passing of Elliott Carter, Marvin Rosen has reposted the show he and I did on his "Classical Discoveries" radio program July 25. Those of you who missed it first time around can listen here. Those of you who didn't may want to listen again as a sort of memorial.

I hate that photograph, but the music is great, and I didn't embarrass myself too badly druing the interview.

The Chorister will present a wonderful concert of German romantic music this weekend in Upper Dublin, which I have written about. The program includes Brahms's of Liebeslieder Waltzes and three early songs of Richard Strauss sung by tenor David Hobbs. I attended the tryout performance last week in King of Prussia, of all places, and it was well worth the predictably hideous drive up Route 76. It even sustained me when, on the way home, my car broke down on the Roosevelt Expressway. First the radio died, then the headlights, then the engine. I rolled a stop not far from the Old York Road underpass, walked to the Walgreens on North Broad Street (I do not own a cell phone), and called for a tow at about 11:45 p.m. The truck, driven by Craig, my newest hero, arrived at about 12:35 a.m.

Problem was the alternator. Six days and hundreds of dollars in repairs later, my little red car is peppy again. Tomorrow it will, I hope, take me to hear Ives's Third Symphony at Arcadia University.

Brahms recordings, my two cents

To follow up on my previous post — my favorite recording of the Brahms Symphonies is by Bruno Walter and the New York Philharmonic. Not the one Walter did with the Columbia Symphony, which followed by about the decade. It's good, but no better than a dozen others by big-name conductors and orchestras. The NYPO disks were released in the early fifties. They're monaural, but electronically recorded. The sound quality is perfectly acceptable, and the readings are superb — brisk, tight, energetic. The approach is especially telling in the first two movements of the Symphony No. 2, which are faster here than in most other recordings. The music is often played as a pastoral daydream, but in Walter's interpretation, it sounds like Bach, with an emphasis on counterpoint and movement. Just thrilling. And the rest of the symphonies are of the same caliber. You know how with some pieces, especially the most familiar ones, you like to collect many different versions to compare them. Well, as regards the Brahms symphonies, once I acquired the Walter-NYPO disks, that urge went away.

I feel the same way about my recording of the two piano concertos, with Leon Fleisher and Szell conducting the Cleveland Orchestra. That's it for me. No others required. Desirable, perhaps, but not required.

Brahms in Bryn Athyn

... now ain’t that alliterative?

Got home about an hour and a half ago from a Sunday afternoon concert by the Bryn Athyn Orchestra. (The link to my preview article is at left.) Highlight for me was the finale, the Brahms Third Symphony, which Burnett James calls the most “echt-Brahms’ of the four, and “in many respects the most characteristic and illuminating of all his major compositions,” and, measure for measure, one of my favorite pieces of music. Even a passable performance is enough to put me in a great mood, and the Bryn Athyn performance was a good sight better than passable. One of course has to allow for glitches and intonation problems with any community orchestra, but all things considered, this was a taut, effective reading. One of the musicians afterward told me that Dan Kujala, the orchestra’s music director, “knows how to rehearse a group,” and the effort was well in evidence. The problems occurred more or less where I expected them to — viz., in the rapid string passages in the last movement — and the brasses squawked in one or two places, but none of the mistakes was enough to ruin my enjoyment, or even interfere with it. The woodwinds deserve special mention: they were quite warm.

Before the break, Bill Myers, whom I interviewed for Ticket, was the soloist in Alexander Arutiunian’s 1950 Trumpet Concerto, which I had never heard before. It’s not great music, but Bill was a confident soloist, and the firm, bright timbre of a trumpet out in front of the orchestra is an arresting experience. One of the string players told me later that the orchestra nearly came apart at one point, but still managed to pull through. I didn’t notice it. The soloist soaked up most of my attention, and he covered a multitude of sins.

The elation will probably last until I get to work tomorrow. I’d say the music was better than sex, but I don’t remember sex well enough to compare.

Goodbye Again - Brahms

Caught a fun little movie last Sunday on THIS, a subordinate digital station that piggybacks on WPHL-17, Philadelphia. Goodbye Again, released in 1961, concerns a middle-aged woman living in Paris who, taken for granted by her philandering boyfriend, gets involved with a young American lawyer. The woman is played by Ingrid Bergman, the boyfriend by Yves Montand, and the lawyer by Anthony Perkins. Euro-decadence is slathered on a bit thick, but the soundtrack relies heavily on Brahms, particularly the Third Symphony. (The film is based on the novel Aimez-vous Brahms? By François Sagan.) There's even a scene in a jazz club in which the Perkins character is being hit on by a singer (a very young, very delectable Diahann Carroll) while, in the background, the saxophonist plays a bluesy version of the Poco Allegretto.

It's not Casablanca, and it's not Psycho, but it contains two of the great joys of my life: Brahms and Ingrid Bergman - who was 45 when the picture was made and was never more beautiful. If I had been Anthony Perkins, I would have fallen for her, too, but then, I'm 54, so age is not a problem.

Selig sind die Toten

I don't intend to give a detailed review here, but I would like to acknowledge the two excellent choral concerts I attended in the past week. My compliments to John Sall and the Abington Symphony and Choir for A German Requiem April 10 and David Spitko and the Choristers for Dvorak's Stabat Mater in Upper Dublin April 16. Soloists in each were outstanding, and the choruses were glorious. I think the German Requiem is a more impressive piece of music than the Dvorak, which doesn't take longer by the clock, but seems longer. Perhaps that's only because I'm not as familiar with it. (The concert included three other pieces, too, which, though short, might have been overkill.)

My only complaint, besides some wavering tones in the strings of both orchestras, is that the Requiem was done in English. It didn't really detract from the experience for me, but as the bass soloist told me afterward, it just sounds better in German.

The Choristers are planning an evening of Americana next season to include Porgy and Bess and Copland's Old American Songs. I told David that if he programmed Ives's Harvest Home Chorales, I'd give him a thousand words in Ticket. He never got back to me.

No further concerts planned at present. All listening will be done at home, over speakers.