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With the news of Maestro Riccardo Muti’s collapse during rehearsal today, I must comment on the whether he’s the one to lead the CSO into the 21st century. Although I like what I’ve heard him say about his attitude about the Chicago opportunity and his direction for the symphony, I see a rather frail and perhaps temperamental man who might not measure up to his predecessors. Dan Barenboim was a stubborn and arrogant. Geo Solti was a literally “stiff neck” emperor. But I don’t remember either of these guys calling in sick.
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Bruce Oltman – 2/3/2011

Back in June, during The Taste of Chicago I blogged about “Chopin’s Concerto #1 for Piano and Helicopter” because the Chicago Police ‘copter was ever vigilant over the park while concert-goers attempted to draw in the beautiful strains of this concerto. See below for quirks this time.

Sunday night, 11/7, PianoForte Foundation held a concert of Chopin piano concertos #1 and #2 arranged for piano and string quartet played by Daniel del Pino with the Iberia String Quartet: Andres Ortiz, violin; David Otto, 2nd violin; Maria [five names] Angeles Herrero Suarez-Barcena, viola; and Alvero Llorente, cello. The reduced sonic environment of an accompanying string quartet made these concertos ever more brilliant and transparent than their orchestral counterparts.

And like the helicopters, there was a bug in the ointment. The Steinway on stage developed a squeak in the sustain pedal sometime between rehearsal and performance time. So every time Daniel lifted off the pedal there was a hi-C telegraphing to the audience that the dampers were coming down. Everyone seemed to get over it and gave the ensemble their due credit for a wonderful performance.

Bruce Oltman

My eyes were well rewarded at Fulcrum Point’s multi-media performance Friday, 11/5, at the Cultural Center’s Claudia Cassidy Theater. Here’s the reasons why:

1. Mischa Zupko’s “Shunt” for piano and soundtrack was a delight filled with very seamless interplay between Mischa playing live and the echoing counter-poised recorded sound. Once the accompanying video by The Luftwerk’s Petra Bachmier & Sean Gallero got passed some perfunctory B/W shots of leafless trees, the montage stimulated all the right pixels in my retina.

2. Stephen Burns reprised his performance at the Harris Theater of “Metallics” for trumpet and electronics by Yan Maresz, but this time accompanied by wonderfully mesmerizing video by John Pobojewski with silvery rings all rotating about . Stephen’s various trumpet mutes and timbers made much more impact in my altered state while watching the visuals.

3. Delving down to a more gut-wrenching level was a violin solo played by Rika Seko with a projected mini-documentary film by Mary Harron and John C Walsh about Tibetans in exile with music by Randall Woolf. The mix of live violin, Tibetan chant and seeing these refugees go about their daily lives was very compelling, if not tear-jerking.

4. And as an antidote to compassion for the Tibetans, the final piece by Jacob Ter Veldhuis (Jacob TV) was an in-your-face rap collaboration with Jan Willem Looze called “Grab It”. As Stephen introduced it, and it proved to be true, we’d be hit with many “F-bombs” and “M-F-bombs” because this was a portrait of street life. But the language was not a major distraction. The very acidic performance by Jeff Handley (drum set), Jeremy Ruthrauff (sax) and Larry Kohut (bass guitar) with B/W footage of losers and prisoners got me “Scared Straight”.

Bruce Oltman

Friday at the noon-time first Friday PianoForte Foundation recital, Laura Fenster performed two Chopin Mazurkas and all 12 Etudes Opus 25 with her unusable right foot in a plastic boot. Due to that broken ankle, the sustain pedal was operated by her left foot! Fortunately she compensated by playing softer when the soft pedal would’ve been called for. The quality of the artistry was totally appreciated by audience.

Kudos to Laura for being so ambi-foot-dextous (bi-pedal?) and for making the show go on.

Bruce Oltman

Saturday night, 9/25 there was possibly the finest performance I’ve heard in a long while. It was a men’s a-cappella quartet called “Barbara Furtuna” http://www.barbara-furtuna.fr/. This was part of the World Music Fest in Chicago and took place right down the block at the 2nd Presbyterian Church http://2ndpresbyterian.org/arthistory/. These guys sung up a storm of sacred and a few secular pieces, and some with guitar, despite their a-cappella billing.

In the anteroom of the church, I congratulated them, but left the brie and goodies for them to enjoy.
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Bruce Oltman

This Saturday I spent an enjoyable afternoon at the Chicago Amateur Piano Guild’s get-together and playing exposition held in the Fazioli Salon (#825) in the Fine Arts Building. The dozen-or-so players were very enthusiastic to show off the new works they’ve worked on. The playing was wonderful and on the verge of being professional. There were only two or three players who had restarts on a last messed-up bar.

One interesting episode involved a player who left his score at home on the piano. He was directed to a sheet music store on the 10th floor to find the music. He returned later with loaner of Mozart’s sonatas in-hand (not to be folded bent or mutilated) to finish up the session!

It was very interesting to hear everything from Mozart, Beethoven, Ravel and Albeniz played by ordinary people who take their music seriously.
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Bruce Oltman

Wednesday evening Fulcrum Point held their season opening fund raiser. There were some typically interesting FP pieces on the bill.

After opening with a brass “fanfare” not noted in the program, eight more very interesting pieces followed. The ones I’ll remember best were a piano and electronics work by the FP’s new composer-in-residence, Mischa Zupko, Mary Stolper’s rendition of Liz Brown’s “Arcana” for flute and electronics and the Woodlawn Elementary School kids on African drums playing a piece by Jeff Handley and John Knecht.

Mischa played a very staccato accompaniment to the mostly piano-sampled sound track. The audience, myself included, were all in awe of the composite sound.

Mary’s flute piece was very different. It was more Legato and in some places you couldn’t determine where the live flute left off and the sound track took up.

And when the Woodlawn kids took the stage I was sure something fun was going to happen. The six of them had African drums between their legs and looked very giddy to be on stage. Jeff was playing a balafon, the African predecessor to the Marimba http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balafon. Hey, after the performance the kids took well deserved bows which were charmingly a little uncoordinated.

Of course, the other music on the program wasn’t to too shabby. Randy Woolf had two pieces performed. A string quartet tribute to Franz Schubert that was not-too-Schubertian, but very enjoyable, and a violin solo (changed from the program, so I can’t name it) featuring the young violinist from the Merit School, Julia Ghica. Wang Wei on Pipa accompanied some very Asian dance moves all over the stage and main floor by Thodos dancer Molly Mock. Steve Reich also surfaced in “Nagoya Marimbas” played by Jeff Handley and Brandon Podjasek. More brass closed us out with “Metal” by Stefan Freund.

Is that a lot of music packed into one evening? Yes, Yes, Yes.
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Bruce Oltman

At his week’s Dame Myra Hess concert the violin and piano duo of Soran Sophia Lee and Tyler Wottrich performed works by Wieniawski and Faure.

In the piece by Henryk Wieniawski, Soran displayed all the fireworks and nuances called for by the late 19th century composer. I could see her catching her breath for short breaks while the piano took charge.

And this was the second Fauré piece played this week at the Cultural Center. An arrangement of his Pavanne was played on Monday by the Metropolis Oboe Quartet. That concert also included a Krommer’s Quartetto I, Mozart’s Quartet in F Major and Britten’s Phantasy Quartet.

Today the duo played the Sonata for Violin and Piano in A Major. At least two of the four movements were familiar to me and after the coda most of the audience was on their feet to applaud this vibrant violinist.

BTW, the PianoForte concert series starts this week with performances by Naomi Kudo a Chopin specialist, Thursday night and Friday at noon – http://www.pianofortefoundation.org/
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Bruce

One of the few interesting concerts I saw on the Ravinia calendar was the one by Mexican guitar duo Rodrigo y Gabriela which happened last night. They were full of energy and the sound of dueling acoustic guitars (even though they had wireless mics in them) was awesome. I had a pavilion seat, so I could see them moving around stage, but there was also a videographer shooting in black & white with visual effects projected on the park jumbotrons.

The opener was very interesting too. Rocco DeLuca plays amplified Dobro http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dobro and sings up a wicked evil-sounding storm. He wore a metal slider-thing on his left pinkie and there was also some masking and/or duct tape across the strings down by the bridge. The sound was not your Uncle’s folksy Dobro.

The Metra ride home was awful. I’ve never been to Ravinia for a pop concerts and the place was packed. The first train was standing-room only, so I had to wait for a second train that got me to Ogilvie at midnight. I think there was probably a third train judging by the number of people waiting to get on.
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Bruce

The Dame Myra Hess concert today, 8/25, was played to a standing-room-only house in Preston Bradley Hall. The guest artists were a trio from the International Chamber Artists, Elizabeth Choi violin (why do they always get 1st billing?), Jocelyn Butler cello and Patrick Godon piano.

The program they selected for today was made up of two pieces rarely played (if ever in my experience) by Turina and Villa-Lobos, the Trio #2 in b minor (Op 76) and Trio #1 in c minor respectively.

The Turina was a mystery. Opening with a slow and beautiful Lento, followed by a more energetic Molto Vivace and finishing with another contemplative Lento. Along with me, most of the regular Hess concert-goers were probably thinking “why have I missed this before?”

It’s hard to believe the second piece was by Villa-Lobos. I didn’t hear any Brazilian themes etc, but it had it’s own mysteries. I can’t quite put my finger on it, but not unlike some works by Ravel, there were segments of peace and calm followed by aggitato. The coda was cool and calm.

I congratulate the ICA Trio for introducing this wonderful music to so many Chicagoans packed under The Dome.
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Bruce