SEEN AND HEARD INTERNATIONAL

SEEN AND HEARD INTERNATIONAL FESTIVAL REPORT
 

Aspen Music Festival (11): Marc-André Hamelin, Yuja Wang, Simone Dinnerstein, Stephen Hough. 15.8.2010 (HS)


This has been a great summer at the Aspen Music Festival for soloists still in their 20s. Earlier we heard the violinist Julia Fischer play Bach with breathtaking transcendence, cellist Sol Gabetta touch on magic with a mesmerizing seven-minute encore, and pianist Joyce Yang deliver insights beyond her age in the Tchaikovsky concerto. Saturday night it was pianist Yuja Wang, who may be the most amazing of them all.

At 23, the Chinese-born Wang deploys mind-boggling technique. But beyond uncanny accuracy in the most challenging of passages, she can apply an array of colors and touches that always seem to add depth to the musical communication, not just interesting effects. The soft arpeggios that open Liszt’s piano transcription of Schubert’s song “Gretchen am Spinrade” floated from the piano like wisps of vapor, evoking the spinning wheel of the title. The rapid parallel chords in both hands that come at the apex of Prokoviev’s Sonata No. 6 fly by as easily as single notes. In piece after piece her balances highlighted the perfect line and fine-tuned textures. Under her hands the complex harmonies of Scriabin’s preludes and études coalesce and shift with so much ease that the mind simply registers the music instead of the dazzle of the technique.

Wang upped the ante on her program at the last minute, scrapping the Schumann Fantasiestücke and half of the Scriabin for Schumann’s Symphonic Études. The finale of that one was simply jawdropping. She may look awkward after finishing a piece, bowing quickly and nervously before escaping off stage, but once the music starts she is in her own world. It is our privilege to share it.

Simone Dinnerstein’s Bach program with the Concert Orchestra, which followed in Harris Hall, included the concertos in D minor and F minor, the latter with the famous “Air for G String” as the slow movement. In both of those, as in her solo performance of the English Suite No. 3, her supple, elegant work in the quiet moments satisfied much more than her sturdy, overly beefy approach to the fast music. Case Scaglione conducted with more elegance.

Conductor and pianist were on the same page Sunday in the tent for the Brahms Concerto No. 1 in D minor. Stephen Hough’s playing was dramatic within the bounds of musical restraint, impressive in its technical acuity and responsive to the conducting of Mark Wigglesworth. He returned the favor by leading the orchestra in an athletic and finely honed performance that is no mere accompaniment. The orchestra is a full partner with the soloist in Brahms’ concertos.

If the violins screeched a bit in the first movement of the Brahms, they got it together for some round, sonorous playing in the Sibelius Symphony No. 2 in D major. Every section distinguished itself, most notably the basses in the haunting opening bars of the second movement, timpanist David Herbert in the buildup to the finale’s climax, and the glorious sonorities of the brass in those ecstatic final chorales. Wigglesworth led an atmospheric and inexorably propulsive performance.

In Friday night’s Aspen Chamber Orchestra concert, Marc-André Hamelin gave a clinic on how to play Beethoven for all but the last couple of minutes of the Piano Concerto No. 4. His touch was crystalline. His sense of rhythm carried a spark. Runs unfolded with precision, every note pointing to the next, neither rushing ahead nor lagging behind. (It’s amazing how many renowned pianists can’t—or won’t—do this.) Phrases had a pulse and an arc. It was riveting.

Then came the final cadenza, and Beethoven got transplanted to another era. Hamelin gave us harmonies and chord progressions the composer never conceived. A few uncharacteristic technical splats aside, it was simply jarring. Other than that, however, the Canadian pianist and conductor Hugh Wolff gave us quick tempos and lucid, lean and wiry playing. The music pulsed with so much energy it seemed ready to climb Ajax in an hour.

Wolff opened the program with composer Steven Stuckey’s new Chamber Concerto. Stuckey has a knack for creating beautiful sonorities and rhythmic flourishes that never lag, but if there was an overall arch to the form or development to the musical ideas, it escaped me. In its 20 minutes, the piece caromed from one brief episode to another, often without any apparent link. In his pre-concert remarks, Stuckey said it was like “turning a corner and finding something new.” Messiaen did that, but he built giant edifices of sound in bold colors. This piece strung together pleasant moments, rather like playing a suite without pausing between movements.

Wolff concluded the concert with a lively run through Schumann’s Symphony No. 1 “Spring,” which did better in the fast sections than when the composer called for broader playing.

Harvey Steiman

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