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Keys to the Future - Spotlight on Four-Hand Piano: (various pianists) Mannes College Concert Hall, New York City, 9.2.2009 (BH)

Andrew List: Mystical Journey (2005)
Bruce Stark: Four (2008, world premiere)
Arvo Pärt: Pari Intervallo (1976/2008, U.S. premiere)
Doug Opel: Dulukkenjon (2002)
Steve Reich: Piano Phase (1967)
William Bolcom: Recuerdos No. 1 (1985)


As a preview of Keys to the Future, the annual festival devoted to contemporary piano music that begins in May, artistic director Joseph Rubenstein concocted this array of six works for two pianists each, in a compact evening of just over an hour.  Collaborating with Mannes College, Rubenstein found four young pianists and paired them with two veterans for this preview presented in the Mannes Concert Hall.  

Manon Hutton-DeWys and Evi Jundt got the ball rolling with Andrew List's Mystical Journey, written when the composer was in Amsterdam.  If the aftertaste was slightly sweet to these ears, the two pianists aptly caught its dreamlike qualities.  Bruce Stark contributed Four, a set of four variations in 4/4 time, using four phrases of four notes.  That may sound completely square, but Stark's result is more off-kilter, and pianists Karén Hakobian and Gabriel Escudero gave it a bit of swagger.

Ms. Hutton-DeWys and Ms. Jundt returned for the United States premiere of the piano version of Arvo Pärt's Pari Intervallo, originally written for organ.  The title refers to the music's two parts that move in parallel motion, maintaining a constant interval between them.  For those who eschew organ music (and we know who you are) Pärt has written a gentle alternative, gently played by the two pianists.  Hakobian and Escudero returned for Doug Opel's extravagant Dilukkenjon, a pummeling burst of steam that Opel adapted from his version for large orchestra.  Now and then a Bach chorale ("Erscheinen is der herrlich Tag" from Cantata BWV67) peeks through the composer's grandly rhythmic textures.

Stephen Gosling and Blair McMillen, two of the best-known pianists in New York playing contemporary music, gave a textbook example of how to manage Steve Reich's Piano Phase.  Reich's concept is simple but produces complex results: both pianists play a 12-note melodic line in unison, before one begins to move ahead slightly, going "out of phase."  As the work progresses, the players alternately interlock and then disengage, eventually returning to the opening but now with shorter versions of the initial one.  The abrupt ending requires great skill to bring off and usually generates a storm of applause when the audience realizes what has been achieved, and Gosling and McMillen deserved every bit of the ovation.

The two ladies returned with a charming piece by William Bolcom, Recuerdos No. 1, written in the style of a Brazilian folk song, an easygoing conclusion to what in some ways proved to be a model concert.  In a recent article for The New Yorker, Alex Ross commented on the huge number of live music events available to the public at extremely low ticket prices.  Exhibit A: this excellent one was free.

More information on Keys to the Future is here.

Bruce Hodges


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