Aspen Music Festival (15): Britten War Requiem; American String Quartet; Murry Sidlin solves the Mozart riddle; Vladimir Feltsman plays Mozart. 21.08.2006 (HS)

 

 

Any performance of Britten's War Requiem becomes a special occasion. To play it on the final day of the Aspen Music Festival only added to the glory. David Zinman conducted the Festival Orchestra plus a legion of additional musicians in 90 minutes of the most intense, powerful music-making of the summer.

The warfare in the world today only underlines the message in Britten's idiosyncratic interweaving of the Latin requiem mass with World War I poems by Wilfred Owen, who as a British soldier was killed just before the armistice in 1918. Owen channeled his outrage at the war into poems that stressed the humanity of the combatants. Britten's music makes us feel the emotions, and Zinman led a beautifully proportioned and deftly paced performance.

Tenor Anthony Dean Griffey, who sang superbly in Britten's Serenade only two weeks ago, lavished his warm, plangent sound on Owen's poetry. William Dazeley sang the poetry with great depth but without overacting. His baritone made a smooth fit with Griffey's tenor. This was especially apparent in their duet in the Agnus Dei, when their voices combined to represent the angel interceding on Isaac's behalf as Abraham prepares to sacrifice him.

That's one of the most moving moments in the piece. Owen changes the story in his poem. Abraham ignores the angel and sacrifices Isaac, which reflects the soldiers' sacrifice. That, and the glorious, quiet finish, in which Jane Eaglen's soprano sailed over the mixed chorus and orchestra on a final repeat of the Requiem stanza, had me choking back tears.

Eaglen, whose final scene of Salome last week was sabotaged by faulty balances with the orchestra, was perfectly audible this week as she sang the soprano's lines in the Latin mass with enviable purity and focus. She stood at the center front of the Colorado Symphony Orchestra Chorus, arrayed above and behind the stage. The Colorado Children's Chorale sang its music from offstage, piped through the Tent's sound system, with reverb. Whoever had the idea to do that should have reconsidered. An artificial sound is not what this piece needs. It's about humanity. It's real. And the rest of it hit that mark perfectly.

For their concert in the Tent Thursday, the American String Quartet turned to the quiet side, pieces that may not lead to standing ovations because they end softly, but demand attentive listening and, in the end, reward it. The menu included Haydn, Strauss and Shostakovich, but the grabber was Schoenberg's heart-on-sleeve sextet, Verklärte Nacht.

To complete the sextet for the Schoenberg and for the sextet from Strauss' opera Capriccio, student cellist Jaehee Ju and violist Sayaka Kokubo blended beautifully with ASQ's roster of violinists Peter Winograd and Laurie Carney, violist Daniel Avshalomov and cellist Wolfram Koessel. The quartet is in residence in Aspen the entire summer.

The event was lightly attended. Possibly the mere presence of Shostakovich and Shoenberg on the program scared off some, and a portion of the audience bolted for the exits before the Schoenberg, little realizing it was so lushly and unabashedly Romantic. The music came off with remarkably clarity and attention to detail.

They opened with the jaunty Haydn Quartet in E flat, Op. 76 No. 6, an interesting choice because of its surprising chromaticism. The piece modulates from key to key constantly, which book-ended the highly chromatic Schoenberg piece perfectly. As for the Shostakovich, the Quartet No. 3 is among his most engaging and easy on the ears, with its jolly first movement, sonorous Adagio and relatively quiet, haunting finale. The ASQ got into the sound world like chameleons.

Though not quite as gripping as his "Defiant Requiem" or his exploration of the psychological battle between Stalin and Shotakovich, conductor Murry Sidlin's concert drama on Mozart Friday had its moments. "Who Killed Mozart?" culminated in a seldom heard one-act Rimsky-Korsakov opera, Mozart and Salieri, but it was an uneven evening leading up to it.

We could have done without Misha and Cipa Dichter's ham-handed galump through Mozart's Concerto for Two Pianos in E-flat, which opened the show. That might have allowed more time for Sidlin to develop his theories of who might have done Mozart in, which actor Damon Gupton voiced in Part II. Gupton, who is also assistant conductor of the Kansas City Symphony, played a detective who offered seven suspects, each preceded by the "doink-doink" sound effect from the TV show "Law & Order." The reasoning may have been slippery, but the delivery was entertaining.

The best of Part II, however, were the orchestral excerpts, which included the first movement of the Symphony No. 40, the slow movement of Symphony No. 38 and the Overture to Don Giovanni. After so much obscure, often second-rate Mozart this summer, it was a pleasure to hear some real masterpieces, or at least portions of them, and beautifully played.

Both baritone Donovan Singletary, who played Salieri, and tenor Roland Sanz, who played Mozart, sang the English translation with great conviction in the semi-staged opera. Rimsky's music, which filters a Mozartean style through late 19th-century Russian sensibilities, was fascinating and lovely.

Pianist Vladimir Feltsman, who opened the festival with an all-Shostakovich program, book-ended it with a short but sweet all-Mozart affair Saturday night at Harris Hall. Where many Mozart players try to achieve a delicate ping to the tone and nimble rhythms, Feltsman seemed to aim squarely at the simplicity, grace and purity of the music. There was no artifice, and it was delightful to hear.

The short solo works, especially the Fantasy in D minor and the unusually charming Rondo in A minor, were more like warm-ups to the Violin Sonata in E minor and Piano Trio in E major. Feltsman and violinist David Halen were clearly on the same page for both, and Michael Mermagen added his attentive cello playing to the trio.

 

 

Harvey Steiman