Sequenza21/The Contemporary Classical Music Weekly

Last Night in L.A. - Night Music for Piano

The Norwegian pianist Leif Ove Andsnes is in his last week of a "residency" with the Phil in which he performs two programs with the full orchestra, a chamber music concert and a new music concert with members of the orchestra. Last night�s concert in Disney was the program of contemporary music selected by Andsnes, and it was an engaging, attractive concert. Andsnes chose two composers, Gyorgy Kurt�g and Marc-Andr� Dalbavie, and perhaps with a little assistance from the orchestra�s consultant for new music (Steven Stucky) came up with a program which alternated and interlaced works of the two composers into a compatible evening. The two halves of the concert were balanced in weight and in musical approach, and the music of the two composers were compatible with each other and with the audience.

Andsnes began the concert with nine of the short selections from Kurtag�s "J�t�kok" [Games] (1973), a set originally written for a collection of piano music for children, but there�s nothing child-like in the pieces we heard, even less for children than Bartok�s "Mikrokosmos." You can listen to clips of the set here.

The set began with the third homage to Ferenc Farkas (sound clip 30), with its remembering of Stravinsky�s Petroushka, and ended with the second homage (clip 34); this Philharmonic site provides clips of six of the pieces Andsnes selected for his set.

The second work was Dalbavie�s, and Andsnes let Gloria Cheng have the showpiece of the night. This was Dalbavie�s "Axiom" (2004) for piano with clarinet, bassoon and trumpet. The work was written for last year�s Debussy project of Emanuel Ax, premiered by him at Carnegie Hall; for the culmination of his project, Ax had selected three composers for a work each to "complete" the set of six culminating chamber works envisioned by Debussy, works for which Debussy had only identified the instruments to be involved. The work is dedicated to Ligeti, and one can think of elements of both Ligeti and Debussy as influences for the work. While the piano does much of the work, with flurries of descending octaves turning into chromatic scales, the piece uses colors available in the other instruments; the trumpet, for example, uses five different mutes.

The first half ended with Kurtag�s Grabstein fur Stephan (1979/1989) for guitar and large chamber orchestra. Sound clips are available here and here, but they give absolutely no feeling about the work. It begins with quiet, slow arpeggios on the guitar, gradually accompanied by strings and a variety of keyboards (harmonium, harpsichord, celesta, pianino) with harp and cimbalon. Tympani and five percussions participate. Brass instruments seated around the hall (in our case in the organ loft and the back balcony) join as the work grows in force, erupting into near-anarchy with whistles and plastic horns (in our case in the right and left balconies, respectively). Then the work gradually calms, reversing its cycle until it ends with quiet arpeggio. The Phil�s assistant conductor, Alexander Mickelthwate, led the ensemble.

The second half began with Kurtag�s "Hommage � R. Sch." (1990) for piano, clarinet, and viola, with Andsnes at the piano. Clips of the five movements are here. The work refers to Schumann and evokes several of his compositions and his writings. The closing work was Dalbavie�s "Tactus" (1996) for piano (Andsnes) and eight other instruments. Salonen conducted. This is a work in five movements, each growing and subdividing from a single, repetitive pulse. Some of the movements grow and evolve into swirling scales, as in "Axiom". This is probably Dalbavie�s most-performed work so far, but I could not find a clip of the music.

The audience liked both composers, enthusiastically so. Dalbavie was present and was given a solo appearance for applause in response to audience reaction. Andsnes is a fascinating pianist, good to hear and interesting to watch. I didn�t realize that there were so many different ways of touching a keyboard to evoke a particular sound.

posted by Jerry Zinser 12/07/2005