Author: Ken Shaw ★2017
Date: 2007-01-24 19:30
Woodwind Soiree at Juilliard
Juilliard presented a wonderful, and free, Woodwind Soiree last night in the Peter Jay Sharp Theater. The performers were faculty members plus students. The hall is spanking new, with 700 seats. From the first row of the balcony, the acoustics were perfect.
Festivities began with the Poulenc Trio for Oboe, Bassoon and Piano, played by Nathan Hughes (formerly Met Opera, now principal in Seattle), Judith LeClair (NY Philharmonic principal) and Jonathan Feldman. As you might expect, they gave a zippy performance, perfectly matching the character of the piece. Hughes has a lovely sound and a perfect, rippling technique, LeClair is as good a bassoonist as there is in the world, and Feldman was fully their equal.
Next came Thomas Kessler's Unisono for Three Clarinets, played by Alan Kay, Ayako Oshima and Charles Neidich. It was composed in 1978 and is a quasi-minimalist piece with the three players, as you might expect, in unison most of the way, with more and more diverging elements. At 10 minutes, it didn't outstay its welcome. The notes aren’t particularly hard, but the ensemble and tuning are really challenging. Charles Neidich said it starts out like a Gregorian chant and turns into "a Gregorian chant from the moon." The performance was very fine.
Next was Beethoven's Variations on "La ci darem la mano" from Don Giovanni for two oboes and English horn, played by Elaine Douvas (Met Opera principal), Christopher Gaudi (Met Opera sub) and Pedro Diaz (Met Opera English horn). This is great fun. The English hornist has the chance to steal the show, and Pedro Diaz did very well, but Elaine Douvas is too good to be ignored.
The first half ended with Janacek's Mladi (Youth), performed by the New York Woodwind Quintet (Carol Wincenc, flute, Stephen Taylor, oboe, Charles Neidich, clarinet, Marc Goldberg, bassoon and William Purvis, horn) with Ayako Oshima, bass clarinet. They are, of course, a set group, except for the bass clarinetist, and did it very well. It did sound, though, like they threw it together on only a couple of rehearsals.
The second half began with Glinka's Trio Pathetique, played by clarinetist Alan Kay, bassoonist Frank Morelli and pianist Jonathan Feldman. This is a gorgeous piece, far too seldom performed. I felt modified rapture about the performance, though. Alan Kay swallowed his phrase endings, and though Frank Morelli played beautifully, he and Kay could (should) have matched their phrasing better. As in the Poulenc, Jonathan Feldman was the star of the show, playing one perfect passage after another.
The *very* long concert concluded with the complete Mendelssohn Octet, arranged for double wind quintet by the eminent flutist Samuel Baron. The players were the New York Woodwind Quintet members with top Juilliard students (Lissie Okopny, flute/piccolo, Anna Steltenpohl, oboe, Nicholas Gallas, clarinet, Robyn Jutrys, bassoon and Tainxia Wu, horn).
The arrangement is excellent, but anything like this is a series of compromises. First, Mendelssohn wrote the Octet for a homogeneous ensemble -- a string symphony, not a double quartet. The varying woodwind colors spoiled that character. Also, the voices are constantly handed off. The 1st clarinet has the lead about half the time, and the 1st oboe and flute have the rest. The lead fits perfectly for violin, but it has to be traded off among the winds when it goes too high for the clarinet and too low for the flute or oboe.
Some things didn't work at all. The opening of the finale is seldom comprehensible even on cello, and tossing it back and forth between bassoon and horn made it that much less audible. However, the scherzo went beautifully, at least partly because Baron could use Mendelssohn's own orchestral arrangement (with winds) as a model. However, the fast parts there and in the finale require double tonguing. Charles Neidich does this with great facility, but even he had trouble keeping it on an even keel as the finale got faster and faster.
There was a significant difference between the professionals and the Juilliard kids. It wasn't as much technique as tone character and projection. The students could be just anybody. The pros were individuals. The exception was the clarinetist, Nicholas Gallas, who was phenomenal. Look for him in the future.
The Octet was certainly worth working up and performing, especially in a woodwind concert. However, I’d always prefer to hear it for strings.
Finally, the program notes, by James M. Keller, the NY Philharmonic and San Francisco Symphony program annotator, are the best I've ever read. They're copyrighted, so I can't scan and post them, but I may pick out the jewels and post them separately.
Ken Shaw
Post Edited (2007-01-24 19:36)
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