Musical Weekend: Cowell/ASO and Music from Marlboro at Peoples Symphony Concerts

I had two musical events to attend recently.  On Friday night, I heard an all-Cowell program performed by Leon Botstein and the American Symphony Orchestra at Avery Fisher Hall, Lincoln Center.  On Saturday night, I heard a group of young musicians traveling under the auspices of Music from Marlboro at Washington Irving High School, presented by Peoples' Symphony Concerts.  Both were enjoyable events worth reporting about.

Henry Cowell (1897-1965) was an important mover and shaker among American composers during the period between the world wars, promoting new music, writing innovative pieces, performing as a pianist and conductor, and propagandizing through his New Music publication.  His own music has largely faded from view, with few recent recordings and even fewer concert performancs -- just the kind of composer prime for exploration by Leon Botstein and the American Symphony.  The program included New York City premieres of two pieces: Atlantis for voices and orchestra (1931) and Symphony No. 11 (1953). They also performed Hymn and Fuguing Tune No. 3 (1944), Variations for Orchestra (1959), Symphony No. 2 (1938), and a Harmonica Concerto (1962) with soloists Robert Bonfiglio.

I think the most effective piece on the program was the Harmonica Concerto!  Few composers have bothered to write for this combination, the most notable being Villa-Lobos and Vaughan Williams, and Cowell makes the most of the novel sounds that the harmonica is capable of producing.  Bonfiglio is a leading virtuoso of the instrument, but very little of his work in classical music is documented on records.  An old recording of the Villa-Lobos concerto is still listed in the catalogue, but most of his available recordings are focused on jazz/pop.  I think this Cowell concerto is worth a recording...  Anybody listening?

Why has Cowell's music failed to gain a foothold in the repertory?  There an easy answer: he's not an inspired melodist, and when he gets hold of an interesting motif, he doesn't seem to know how to develop it in an interesting way.  His music tends to be emphatic but not particularly involving.  His orchestration is brash and occasionally colorful, but sometimes it is just harsh and insistent without much dramatic payoff.  I was most impressed by the two symphonies played in the second half, which are in a more conservative, tonal style than the music he was writing before World War II (and before his unfortunate incarceration for sexual improprieties).  In these symphonic works, Cowell comes closer to writing in a listener-friendly style emphasizing lyricism and melody, and especially calling up his Irish roots with some movements (finale of No. 2 in particular) that would not be out of place in a film score for a story set in Ireland. 

Botstein and the orchestra labored mightily through the lengthy program, but I thought perhaps there was not adequate rehearsal, since there were some ragged moments, not typical for this group.  They are used to playing programs of unfamiliar music, but perhaps this was just too much to absorb too quickly.  I would like to hear the 2nd Symphony, in particular, played by a major orchestra.  I discovered that the 11th Symphony is available in an ancient recording by Robert Whitney and the Louisville Orchestra.

Before leaving the ASO concert, I should mention what does not often get mentioned by critics: the extraordinary effort that goes into finding and assembling and preparing the music for programs like this.  Cowell's stuff is not "standard repertory," much of it is probably out of print, and so the orchestra's staff needs to put in quite an effort to track down scores and parts. Sometimes parts must be manufactured because only a score is available.  Sometimes finding these things requires quite a bit of detective work.  So the staff deserves much credit for assembling all of this difficult-to-find music, which is worth hearing at least once.

Turning to the Peoples' Symphony concert, I was struck as I am almost every year when they present a touring group from the Marlboro Music Festival at how many wonderful young musicians there are trying to break into the business.  Marlboro provides one venue for that, inviting talented young musicians to spend part of their summer in the New England countryside studying and rehearsing chamber music in groups with experienced musicians, and then getting further seasoning and exposure by heading out to the concert circuit with works they've prepared during the summer.

Last night featured two distinct ensembles.  The first part of each half of the program presented two young singers, soprano Hyunah Yu and tenor Nicholas Phan, with pianist Lydia Brown collaborating on vocal duets.  The second part of each half presented four young string players - Yvonne Lam and Ida Levin (violin), Jonathan Chu (viola), and Michal Korman (cello), in string quartets.  Opening and closing the evening with music by Joseph Haydn gave the concert a certain symmetry.

The vocal duets by Haydn and Schumann were strikingly different.  Haydn sounded like reductions from late baroque opera.  Schumann sounded like marvelous "house music" to be sung at a salon.  Schumann proved the more memorable writer for this format, at least on this occasion.  Both of the singers made good impressions with fine enunciation of the Italian and German texts, good intonation, and expressive phrasing.  They blended together particularly well in the Schumann.  Pianist Brown provided sympathetic accompaniments, carefully judged to avoid overpowering the singers.

The young string quartet was superb.  In the first half we had Bartok #2.  When I first became acquainted with the Bartok string quartets as a student, I found the last three easier than the first three to get to know.  The first three struck me as rather abstracted and amorphous, while the last three, having fully absorbed Eastern European folksong influences, seemed more listener-friendly.  Whether this was a problem of performers not yet having figured out how to present the earlier quartets or just me taking more time over the years to become comfortable with Bartok's earlier idiom, I cannot say.  But last night the Bartok #2 struck me as gorgeously romantic in the hands of these young musicians. 

For their finale, they played Haydn Op. 54, No. 1, with high spirits.  The final movement, with some tricky false endings, was particularly effective.  The violinists had switched desks between the Bartok and the Haydn, and on balance I found the ensemble more persuasive in the Haydn with Ida Levin at the first chair.  She was a more assertive leader than her compatriot had been in the Bartok, and the entire group took on a slightly different personality with her in that chair.  Interesting how the same combination of musicians can sound so different from one seat to another when the leaders chair switches.  Both performances were fine, but the Haydn seemed to me more special than the Bartok.

It is fascinating to hear these young musicians as they start their careers, and I'm delighted that Peoples' Symphony makes this possible by including a Music from Marlboro group each season. 

There was an announcement after intermission that the same group of Marlboro musicians will be playing the same program uptown shortly at the Museum of Modern Art, so anybody interested should make appropriate arrangements.  There was also an announcement that full season subscriptions remain available for PSC's Sunday Town Hall series, which begins on February 21.  This series is one of the great bargains of New York, presenting top-of-the-line performers at discount prices in the relative comfort of Town Hall, which was refurbished a few years ago and is a great place to hear chamber music.  The series: Feb. 21 - Takacs Quartet; Feb. 28 - Artemis Qt; March 14 - Leon Fleisher (piano); April 11 - American Quartet with Menahem Pressler; April 18 - Augustin Hadelich (violin); May 9 - Ingrid Fliter (piano).

The next Saturday night PSC program at Washington Irving is coming up in a week, Feb. 6, a sensational young pianist named Alexej Gorlatch.  Check out the PSC website for ticket availability.