Off-Broadway Review—Jessica Goldberg’s “Babe” with Marisa Tomei

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Parent Category: Film and the Arts

Category: Reviews

Published on Monday, 09 December 2024 04:12

Written by Kevin Filipski

Marisa Tomei in Babe (photo: Monique Carboni)

Paavo Järvi Directs the New York Philharmonic at Lincoln Center

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Parent Category: Film and the Arts

Category: Reviews

Published on Wednesday, 04 December 2024 15:04

Written by Jack Angstreich

Photo by Chris Lee

At Lincoln Center’s wonderful David Geffen Hall on the night of Thursday, November 21st, I had the considerable pleasure to attend an exceptional concert presented by the New York Philharmonic under the superb direction of Paavo Järvi.

The event started splendidly with a sterling performance of Ludwig van Beethoven’s extraordinary Piano Concerto No. 3 in C minor, Op. 37, featuring the celebrated Yefim Bronfman as soloist. In a useful note on the program, James M Keller comments that “the composition of this work ended up stretching over a good three and a half years, not counting preliminary sketches, which reached back to 1796 — plus a further year, counting the time it took him to actually write out the piano part, and yet another five beyond that till he wrote down the first-movement cadenza.” The initial, Allegro con brio movement—which finishes powerfully—has a quiet urgency at the outset, with the piano entering forcefully after the music intensifies; a general solemnity is maintained throughout and even the composer’s own cadenza has a somewhat brooding—at times even insistent—quality. The Mozartean Largo that follows is more reflective but also lyrical, while the Rondo finale, marked Allegro, is more dynamic and also dramatic—although there are lighter passages—but concludes affirmatively. Enthusiastic applause elicited an excellent encore from the pianist: the Andante second movement from Franz Schubert’s Piano Sonata No. 14, in A minor, D.784.

However, it was the second half of the evening that was the true highlight: an absolutely brilliant realization of Carl Nielsen’s marvelous, too seldom played Symphony No. 5, Op. 50. In an interview preceding the premiere of the work, the composer observed:

I've been told that my new symphony isn't like my earlier ones. I can't hear it myself. But perhaps it's true. I do know that it isn't all that easy to grasp, nor all that easy to play. We've had many rehearsals of it. Some people have even thought that now Arnold Schoenberg can pack his bags and take a walk with his dissonances. Mine were worse. I don't think so.

The somewhat hushed, Tempo giusto opening has a slightly cerebral quality but subsequently the music becomes march-like, even martial, before a more tentative and questioning episode; a complex development leads to a thrilling climax before this Adagio non troppo section ends softly. In a description to a pupil, Nielsen said:

A solo clarinet ends this large idyll- movement, an expression of vegetative (idle, thoughtless) Nature. The second movement is its counterpole: if the first movement was passivity, here it is action (or activity) which is conveyed. So it's something very primitive I wanted to express: the division of dark and light, the battle between good and evil.

The Allegro beginning of the final movement is turbulent and the music remains agitated until a slower, more subdued—if somewhat querulous—section with some dance-like rhythms; this eventually becomes fugue-like, but then placid, while the closing Allegro section is weightyand ultimately triumphant. The artists deservedly received a standing ovation.

Dai Fujikura & More Performed by New York Philharmonic

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Parent Category: Film and the Arts

Category: Reviews

Published on Tuesday, 03 December 2024 16:30

Written by Jack Angstreich

 Photo by Brandon Patoc

At Lincoln Center’s David Geffen Hall on the night of Saturday, November 30th, I had the exceptional pleasure to attend a superb concert—continuing a strong season—presented by the New York Philharmonic under the brilliant direction of Kazuki Yamada in his debut performances with this ensemble.

The event started very promisingly with an outstanding realization of Dai Fujikura’s striking and powerful, impressively scored Entwine, which received its New York premiere with these concerts. In a useful note on the program, Lara Pellegrini provides some background on the composition’s genesis:

Dai Fujikura's Entwine was born of a particular moment, the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic. In November 2020 the director of the WDR Symphony Orchestra reached out to the composer — who was living with his wife and daughter under lockdown in their tiny London flat — with an urgent request. Could Fujikura, in the midst of the ongoing crisis, compose a miniature that spoke to some part of our global experience? The catch: the work was to be premiered later that season, an unusually quick turnaround for an orchestral piece. 

“It was before the vaccine,” recalls Fujikura, winner of the 2017 Silver Lion Award for musical innovation from the Venice Biennale. “We didn't know anything. We didn't know when the pandemic would be over — or if it would be over.”

Fujikura explains:

While everyone else said, “We don't know what we are going to do; we don't know if our orchestra will even exist by the end of the year,” the countries of Europe had a different understanding. I am especially touched by this commission because, in this critical time, they had the capacity to think about creating something new. It is remarkable, and it is very brave.

He has commented further:

I was asked to write a five-minute orchestra work expressing the current world situation and to do it as soon as possible so that the WDR Symphony Orchestra Cologne could premiere it in 2021. 

I started thinking. I began to see that the topic of this orchestra work should be about touch: the physical touch we can no longer take for granted, and how we can feel socially awkward now by stepping out of the door and having to make sure we are standing far enough away from the other people in the street. 

I wanted to create an orchestral work where musical materials pass from one instrument to another, like one hand to another: sharing, gathering, even ending up in a crowd. Something we have all missed since the beginning of 2020, and something which we now realize is what all humans need to live from one day to the next. 

To do this musically, the orchestra is the perfect conduit. I am hoping the piece will express the dream which we are all missing right now, and whose importance we now truly realize.

An amazing soloist, Yunchan Lim, then entered the stage for a dazzling account of Frédéric Chopin’s extraordinary Piano Concerto in F minor, Op. 21. Much of the initial, Maestoso movement—which finishes on a triumphant note—has a meditative—even moody—quality along with exquisite, lyrical passages, but there are more forceful and passionate moments. The ensuing Larghetto opens and closes softly and is even more inward and song-like; it has a brooding ethos but also episodes of great delicacy, while the Allegro vivace finale is effervescent and dynamic, although again with reflective interludes—it ends spiritedly. Enthusiastic applause elicited a terrific encore from the pianist: Variation 13 from Johann Sebastian Bach’s incomparable Goldberg Variations.

The second half of the evening was even more memorable: an enthralling rendition of Sergei Rachmaninoff’s magnificent Symphony No. 2 in E minor, Op. 27. The first movement’s Largo introduction is somewhat lugubrious in tone, its primary motif seemingly expressing a deep longing that pervades the movement; its main body has dramatic elements but also an intense emotionalism—after a stormy climax, it becomes more affirmative, finishing optimistically. The second movement is playful and propulsive with more plaintive measures; it becomes suspenseful and then largely more celebratory, closing very quietly. The Adagio that follows is hauntingly beautiful, dominated by a melody of unsurpassed loveliness—it concludes dreamily. The finale, which is exuberant at the outset, is sunnier in outlook on the whole, with a serene, pastoral interlude superseded by exciting music with a greater momentum; it ends vigorously. The artists deservedly received a standing ovation.