Keys to the Future:
Joseph Rubenstein, Artistic Director and piano,
Lisa Moore, piano, Blair McMillen, piano,
Greenwich House Music School,
New York
City, 07.11.2006 (BH)
Howard
Skempton:
8 short works (1980-92,
U.S. premiere)
The Keel Row
(1989)
Interlude 2
(1989)
Of Late (in
memory of John Cage)
(1992)
Una Barcarola eccentrica (1989)
Trace (for
right hand)
(1980)
The Cockfight
(a traditional song)
(1989)
Toccata (in
memory of Morton Feldman)
(1987)
Well, well
Cornelius
(1982)
Leo
Ornstein:
Solitude (1978)
Henri
Dutllleux:
Le jeu des contraires (Prelude No. 3) (1989)
Bruce Stark:
Ode to “Ode to Joy” (1997,
U.S. premiere)
Radiohead
(arr. O’Riley):
Let Down (1997)
Fred Hersch:
24 Variations on a Bach Chorale (2002)
Kudos
to Joseph Rubenstein for imagining three evenings of nothing
but contemporary music for solo piano, and then attracting
some of the best talents in town to the intimate, salon-like
room in Greenwich House Music School. I only wish
I could have attended the remaining two evenings, each
as attractively assembled as this one.
Rubenstein
kicked off the proceedings with eight glassy miniatures
by the British composer Howard Skempton, who learned his
craft from Cornelius Cardew in the 1960s. Of the
set chosen and assembled by Rubenstein, the glistening
Toccata (in memory of Morton Feldman) might well
serve as an overarching metaphor for Skempton’s pristine
style. Often delicate as raindrops, each of these
is quite short, with consonant harmonies ever-so-slightly
altered by a stray note or wrinkle in the rhythmic pattern.
Anyone who admires Feldman should get to know these, and
Rubenstein gave them a focus as tight as if they were
models of new complexity, coupled with a light hand at
the keyboard totally in keeping with their character.
The
temperature rose slightly with Leo Ornstein’s Solitude,
whose flourishes wouldn’t be out of place in Liszt or
Scriabin. Those who know the more breathless Ornstein
might be surprised at the more casual, sensual side of
him here. Lisa Moore, the Australian pianist known
for her fiery readings of Rzewski and Ligeti, gave Ornstein’s
romantic interlude a bit of a swagger. It made a
graceful ramp up for Le jeu des contraires, Henri
Dutilleux’s third prelude, packed with an astonishing
range of tempo fluctuations and timbres. Dutilleux
is one of the world’s supreme colorists, and the plumage
he extracts from the piano is exciting indeed. Chords
are separated by multiple octaves, and then collapse into
tight, close-knit clumps of sound. Moore’s prodigious
technique was exploited at every turn by this free-floating
collage of glittering moments. She ended with Bruce
Stark’s mad rampage through Beethoven’s “Ode to Joy,”
a sort of fantasia on the well-known theme, but compacted,
perhaps as Stark were exploring all the options simultaneously.
The famous melody was often submerged in a forest of chords,
barely (but still) distinguishable in Stark’s riot of
orchestration. Bundled with the Ornstein and the
Dutilleux, these three disparate works made an intriguing
little recital on their own.
After
intermission Mr. Rubenstein returned with “Let Down” from
Radiohead’s OK Computer, arranged by pianist Christopher
O’Riley (who has released two discs of his versions of
their songs). Although if truth be told I somewhat
miss the electronics of the original, there is no denying
O’Riley’s skill in translating these into a more straightforward,
monochromatic medium (relatively speaking), heavy on the
pedal to help recreate the band’s dreamy sonics.
Rubenstein deftly caught song’s ache, making it ring with
a sad beauty.
A
polite beast of a work closed the program, drawing on
Blair McMillen’s considerable skills to the point that
he was clearly sweating through much of Fred Hersch’s
grueling 24 Variations on a Bach Chorale.
Hersch keeps his explorations short – the entire 24 take
roughly 25 minutes – but many of them are designed to
show off a pianist’s agility, speed and power. To
my ears, Hersch is perhaps overly diplomatic here in uniting
classical and jazz idioms, but some heroic playing by
McMillen added extra ferocity.
Bruce
Hodges
