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Juilliard Orchestra Perform at Lincoln Center

Details: Parent Category: Film and the Arts; Category: Reviews; Published on Tuesday, 05 December 2023 14:45; Written by Jack Angstreich

Thomas Wilkins conducts Juilliard Orchestra, photo by Claudio Papapietro

At Lincoln Center’s Alice Tully Hall on the evening of Monday, November 20th, I had the wonderful opportunity to attend a superb concert featuring the excellent musicians of the Juilliard Orchestra, here under the impressive direction of Thomas Wilkins.

The program began auspiciously with a thoroughly engaging account of George Gershwin’s marvelous, enormously popular An American in Paris from 1928.The composer commented interestingly upon it that, “if it pleases symphony audiences as a light, jolly piece, a series of impressions musically expressed, it succeeds.”

Four admirable soloists—Paige Quillen, Carys Sutherland, Emily Howell, and Colby Kleven—then took the stage for a pleasurable rendition of Robert Schumann’s fine, too seldom performed Konzertstück for Four Horns and Orchestra in F Major, Op. 86, from 1849, played here in the early 2000s arrangement by Kerry Turner which, in the program note by Sutherland, is described as “audibly indistinguishable from the original for the audience,” adding:

Schumann’s original manuscript gives nearly every virtuosic passage to only the first horn, with the other players mostly serving as backup harmony. This arrangement divides the high passages between the first and second horns, and the third and fourth horns dazzle in the Romance while the first two take a much-needed rest. The overall result is that the players are equally involved technically and melodically, making this truly a four-horn concerto.

The spirited initial movement has a Mendelssohnian quality that persists throughout the work as a whole, while the slower Romance that follows is contrastingly elevated and the very fastfinaleis exuberant and propulsive, returning to something closer to theethosof the first movement. The artists earned vigorous applause.

The second half of the event was even stronger, a sterling realization of Florence Price’s extraordinary, recently rediscovered Symphony No. 3 in C Minor from 1940, which reverts to an approach involving popular idioms that is closer to that which characterizes An American in Paris. The opening Allegro—which has a solemn, Andante introduction—is frequently boisterous—but with echoes of Gershwin and Aaron Copland that can seemingly be discerned elsewhere in the piece as well—and ends abruptly. The ensuing movement, marked Andante ma non troppo, is more inward in orientation while the buoyant and playful third movement is anAllegrowith some placid moments that iscast in the form of thejuba,explained by the annotator as:

...a style of dance originating from Kongo slaves in the pre-Civil War South. Because drums were forbidden on many plantations, the dance involved clapping and stomping, and may be the origin of modern tap dance...

Thefinale—aScherzo—is ebullient with dramatic passages and closes powerfully. The performers were rewarded with an enthusiastic ovation.

Off-Broadway Play Review—David Adjmi’s “Stereophonic”

Details: Parent Category: Film and the Arts; Category: Reviews; Published on Monday, 04 December 2023 23:33; Written by Kevin Filipski

Stereophonic

Written by David Adjmi

Directed by Daniel Aukin

Through December 17, 2023

Playwrights Horizons

416 West 42nd Street, New York, NY

Playwrightshorizons.org

The cast of Stereophonic (photo: Cherice Parry)

Dramatizing the creation of a new album by a rock quintet in 1976 that bears a distinct resemblance to a mega-popular ensemble from that era, David Adjmi’s play Stereophonic spends three-plus hours immersing the audience in the group’s recording sessions: the playing, the arguing, the drinking and drug-taking, the banal chatter, the boringly idle time in between working on the music. At times incisive, but quite often excruciatingly dull, Stereophonic plays like a less entertaining version of the Beatles’ Get Back, where at least we get to experience real musical genius on display in between the dull bits.

Adjmi has rather baldly made his fictional band a dead ringer for Fleetwood Mac: drummer Simon, bassist Reg and keyboard player/vocalist Holly are all English, with the latter two in a rocky marriage. There are also two Americans: Diana, the pretty female singer and Peter, her beau, also a singer and the lead guitarist, who is grabbing the reins of the album’s production whether the others like it or not. The group is recording its followup to its current hit LP, which is peaking—along with its hit single, composed and sung by the American girl—just as the quintet starts on the new opus, which begins as a one-month session but drags on for more than a year, at an astronomical cost and at two studios.

Adjmi has fused the making of Fleetwood Mac’s mega-smash Rumours with its commercially disappointing—but more musically expansive—followup, Tusk, for the purposes of squeezing more drops of drama out of what is not very dramatic. David Zinn’s remarkably detailed set consists of the control room’s large 32-track recording console at center stage, where recording engineer Grover and his seemingly anonymous assistant Charlie (there are unfunny jokes made at poor Charlie’s expense) sit, surrounded by chairs, couches and rugs that the band members use; beyond, behind a large window, is the sound room. The entire play consists of conversations and confrontations on either side of the glass, with the group playing their new songs, sometimes in mere snatches and at other times in their entirety.

That the play clocks in at 3 hours and 10 minutes might be thought an act of mercy; after a fuzzy and unfocused, nearly two-hour first act, the second act is much tighter, flying by in a little more than an hour. It’s also where the drama of sorts comes to a head, as Holly and Reg break up nastily, Diana and Peter break up even more nastily, Peter knocks down Grover and briefly fires him for the sin of following Peter’s own directive regarding a new guitar section, and Diana informs Holly that she has been offered a solo album deal by their record label. The dichotomy between the banality of the dialogue and the naked intimacy among these characters yields occasional insights amid the dross.

Then there are Will Butler’s songs, which sound more like outtakes from the 1975 “debut” album by the real Fleetwood Mac lineup than the more incisively personal tunes that captivated the rock world on Rumours (not to mention the more experimental tunes on Tusk). And although the cast of five actors playing the musicians perform with appreciable gusto—particularly Sarah Pidgeon, who plays the Stevie Nicks-like Diana captivatingly and with a powerfully impressive singing voice—the songs themselves don’t deserve the time the play gives to them.

Aside from Pidgeon, Tom Pecinka (Peter), Will Brill (Reg), Chris Stack (Simon), Juliana Canfield (Holly), Eli Gelb (Grover) and Andrew R. Butler (Charlie) are excellent individually and as an ensemble. Daniel Aukin directs with a fine eye for the details Adjmi has written into the script, like the opening’s tantalizing layering of different conversations a la Robert Altman’s films. If only Aukin had trimmed more of the musical performances (as the group ponders doing in a climactic scene about the extra tracks they’ve recorded), Stereophonic would have been a more entertaining (and less literal) recreation of the bloatedness that began being baked into 1970s rock.

Armenian National Philharmonic Orchestra Plays Carnegie Hall, Presented by CLASSIC MUSIC TV

Details: Parent Category: Film and the Arts; Category: Reviews; Published on Monday, 04 December 2023 14:22; Written by Jack Angstreich

Photo from Classic Music TV.

At Carnegie Hall, on the evening of Wednesday, November 15th, I had the pleasure of attending a splendid concert—presented by Classic Music TV—featuring the Armenian National Philharmonic Orchestra under the distinguished direction of Edward Tophjan.

The program opened brilliantly with an exhilarating realization of three magnificent selections from the celebrated 1953 ballet score, Spartacus, by the Armenian composer Aram Khachaturian—this year is the 120th anniversary of his birth. The first excerpt, “Variations of Aegina and Bacchanalia,” is sparkling and dynamic, while the second, “Adagio of Spartacus and Phrygia,” begins lyrically but builds to a more emphatic statement, concluding serenely. The final section, “Dance of Gaditanian Maidens and Victory of Spartacus,” is evocative and mysterious, increasing in excitement and appropriately closes triumphantly.

An admirable soloist, Sergey Khachatryan, then joined the artists for an impressive account of the same composer’s Violin Concerto in D minor from 1940—a work that, like the music for Spartacus, deserves a more prominent place in the repertory. The initial, ambitious Allegro con fermezza is energetic—even agitated at times—but with meditative moments and it has both an exotic quality as well as, especially in the cadenza,avant-gardeelements. The Andante sostenuto that follows is reflective and melodic—seemingly with Eastern folk motifs—but is not without intensity and ends quietly. The Allegro vivace that completes the piece is restless, even turbulent at times, but with sprightly passages and it finishes dramatically.

The second half of the event was also memorable, comprised of a compelling rendition of the marvelous Symphony No. 2 of Sergei Rachmaninoff, whose sesquicentennial anniversary is also this year. The main body—marked Allegro moderato—of the complex first movement—which has a solemn, Largo introduction that becomes more soulful—has a largely passionate, even urgent, character but sometimes is almost bucolic and the Allegro molto that succeeds it is propulsive, playful and suspenseful but with emotional passages. The famous, haunting primary theme of the Adagio that ensues is impossibly beautiful while the Allegro vivace finale is exuberant with some subdued episodes. A very enthusiastic ovation was rewarded with a delightful encore: the famous Waltz from the 1944 Suite drawn from the incidental music Khachaturian wrote for the Mikhail Lermontov play,Masquerade.

November '23 Digital Week III

Details: Parent Category: Film and the Arts; Category: Reviews; Published on Friday, 01 December 2023 02:46; Written by Kevin Filipski

4K/UHD Releases of the Week

The Expend4bles

(Lionsgate)

The latest installment of this agreeably slight adventure series about a group of mercenaries who go out on all sorts of dangerous missions hits the usual action and narrative beats, as their leader (Sylvester Stallone, natch) is presumed dead and the others have to deal with that and track down terrorists looking to start a nuclear war.

It’s explosive in all senses, and director Scott Waugh keeps things fast-moving for 100 minutes, although the best performance comes from Megan Fox’s tattoos. There’s a first-rate UHD transfer; extras include Waugh’s commentary and two making-of featurettes.

The Fugitive

(Warner Bros)

The old TV series starring David Janssen was updated effectively in this 1993 blockbuster, which becomes quite exciting when it concentrates on the accused doctor’s escape from custody and attempts to track down his wife’s real murderer, all while he’s being frantically pursued by a federal marshal.

Harrison Ford is his usual entertainingly stolid self as the hero, Tommy Lee Jones makes a formidable adversary and director Andrew Davis stages and paces the action beautifully, ensuring the film is a well-oiled thrill machine. The 4K transfer looks excellent; extras are an intro by Ford and Davis, commentary by Davis and Jones, and three making-of featurettes.

Oppenheimer

(Universal)

Christopher Nolan’s take on Robert J. Oppenheimer and the Manhattan Project is typically Nolanesque: very long, very loud, very overblown and very shallow. This three-hour behemoth is loaded down with visual and aural pyrotechnics from the start: I wouldn’t be surprised if Nolan’s noise is louder than actual atomic explosions. Ludwig Göransson’s ludicrously bombastic score is smeared over virtually every scene—I hope he got paid by the minute—including moments where ostensibly important dialogue can’t be heard. Cillian Murphy is properly intense but he’s overshadowed by Nolan’s self-importance.

Aside from Robert Downey and Matt Damon, who make an impression despite Nolan’s singlemindedness, the starry cast is forgettable: Gary Oldman is a cartoonish Harry Truman, likewise Tom Conti as Albert Einstein; poor Florence Pugh, usually a formidable actress, is reduced to a nothing role comprising several gratuitous nude scenes. The film, of course, looks stunning in UHD; extras comprise the 70-minute The Story of Our Time: The Making of Oppenheimer, the NBC News documentary To End All War: Oppenheimer and the Atomic Bomb, and a Trinity anniversary panel discussion with Nolan and others.

Saw X

(Lionsgate)

There’s always an audience for torture, as the tenth installment of this franchise whose hook is “let’s torture people—innocent or deserving—in more creatively nasty ways” shows. John Kramer, torturer extraordinaire of previous Saws, is now a sad victim of a fake cancer-miracle cure and who—of course—returns the favor on those who scammed him.

Of course, you already know whether this is for you; even so, there are a couple uniquely gross ways of torturing, and director Kevin Greutert even partly succeeds in making Tobin Bell’s Kramer kind of sympathetic. Now that’s an original achievement. The film looks pristine in 4K; extras include a commentary, deleted scenes, and making-of featurettes.

Blu-ray Releases of the Week

Le Cérémonie

(Criterion Collection)

One of his very best, Claude Chabrol’s 1995 melodrama is a cracklingly good study of manners, mania and murder as a cleaning lady is befriended by a local woman who prods her to target the family she works for. Chabrol’s precise direction moves things along slowly but surely, so that, by the final violent outburst, we are literally left shaken at its horrible, ironic logic. This taut chamber piece is enlivened by the spectacular acting of Sandrine Bonnaire, Isabelle Huppert, Jacqueline Bisset and Virginie Ledoyen as well as the felicitous music of Matthieu Cahbrol, the director’s son.

Criterion’s excellent hi-def transfer makes Chabrol’s compositions look crisp and clear; extras include Chabrol’s select-scene commentary, intro by director Bong Joon Ho, making-of featurette, and archival interviews with Bonnaire, Huppert, Chabrol and co-writer Caroline Eliacheff.

South Park—The Streaming Wars

(Paramount)

In the South Park duo’s latest “special” two-episode event, the town’s water supply is dwindling thanks to an evil corporation whose head honcho, ManBearPig, has separated it into streams. As usual, Trey Parker and Matt Stone combine astute satire with crude parody and cheap jokes (Cartman gets breast implants) into a stew only they can concoct: somehow, a metaphor for the proliferation of streaming services—including Paramount +, which shows South Park—emerges with eviscerating swipes.

The episodes run about 100 minutes total, so it’s like getting four or five South Park episodes for the price of two, which is sort of a bargain.

In-Theater Release of the Week

Down in Dallas Town

(First Run Features)

Sixty years on, the assassination of President Kennedy remains a singularly mortifying event in American history, and Alan Govenar’s documentary returns to the scene of the crime—Dealey Plaza in Dallas—to interview several people who were there that day to jog their still-vivid memories.

Hearing them speak after so long is quite touching, and Govenar supplements this with plaza interviews that serendipitously occur on the same day as a nearby mass shooting, as U.S. and international visitors discuss gun control. Illuminatingly, Govenar features mournful songs written by bluesmen and others in response to the JFK tragedy, as he shows more recent footage of ongoing gun violence and homeless people that is quintessentially—and sorrowfully—American.

CD Release of the Week

Ottorino Respighi—Orchestral Works

(BIS)

Italian composer Ottorino Respighi (1879-1936) was one of the most original musical voices of his day, combining romantic sensibilities with a love for the past that brought him fame and fortune with several beloved works, including his Roman trilogy, The Birds, Three Botticelli Pictures and his three suites of Ancient Airs and Dances, all of which are staples for any orchestra worth its salt. All of these works, of course, make up a big part of this 8-disc set of Respighi’s orchestral works, but even though the Sao Paolo Symphony Orchestra (Roman trilogy) and Orchestre Philharmonique Royal de Liege (everything else) under conductor John Neschling give vigorous, well-oiled readings of them, the real gems are several works that are not nearly as well known.

For example, there are Sinfonia drammatica, Brazilian Impressions, Church Windows and Il tramonto, in which Italian soprano Anna Caterina Antonacci provides a dreamy, lovingly rendered account. Too bad there’s not more of his wonderfully offbeat operas other than the overture of Belfagor, but hoping it will spur listeners to further explore Respighi’s world, operatic and orchestral.

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