We had planned to go in to New York to see Gustavo Dudamel conduct the New York Philharmonic. He was conducting Mahler's Fifth, one of his signature pieces, and one of my favorite works, so the concert was eagerly anticipated. Alas, fears and concerns over the weather interfered with our plans.
We did however make ti to our Sunday afternoon concert, the first concert of the Howland Chamber Circle's Piano Series, featuring Gilles Vonsattel.
I was not disappointed. We never are at this venue. I was completely unfamiliar with the opening work, "Les Soires de Nazelles" by Poulenc. It was lovely although rather a frivolous indulgence, not the way I think of most of Poulenc's work. G did not like it.
It was the second half of the concert that I found the most fabulous. Vonsattel began with Nico Muhy's Booklet, which was something of a tour-de-force. I really don't know anything about Muhy, but I certainly want to hear more. Often with modern works I feel one needs to listen over and over until one has almost absorbed the music before it really begins to make sense, but I think perhaps this piece reaches out to the listener a little sooner. There seem to be hidden echoes of early church music in this otherwise very modern composition, or at least so it seemed on this my first listening. I have an impression of an interesting and moving combination of massively pounding and dominant waves of sound contrasted with the very delicate and almost frivolous. The work combined pedal octaves with a very loud, at times massively pounding, toccata-like structure played with the left hand, while the right was tripping along with soft harmonies and melodic bits. This is a work I would dearly love to hear again.
The Muhy was followed by Ravel's Gaspard de la Nuit, another technically demanding work but completely different from the Muhy. I would have liked to be in a position where I could have watched the pianist playing, but that might have also distracted from my pure enjoyment of the music. Sitting in the back, my head resting on a pillar behind my chair, letting the music of Ravel wash over one is a perfectly fine way to end a Sunday afternoon.
So, we had a fabulous concert, followed by a lovely little dinner, and an absolutely horrendous drive home in a combination of slow and sleet with about 1/2 inch of slushy slippery stuff on the roads and very little visibility.
Comments
2 responses to “First Concert of 2009”
This sounds like a wonderful concert and a lovely evening, minus the driving conditions. I know nothing about Muhy either. Intriguing!
Sounds wonderful — I was just thinking this morning about how I could build more concert-going into our schedules — there’s a Brahms series scheduled I thought might work. Right now, it feels as if I have to let so much pass us by altho’ we have at least committed to the opera season’s tickets the last two years. Somehow, if you make the commitment, you get there, but otherwise, planning just doesn’t make it so.
Do you ever read Think Denk, Jeremy Denk’s blog about his life and experiences as a concert pianist. Posts are not so often but they’re very entertaining and . . . novel!