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Bartók, Mozart, & Dohnányi With the New York Philharmonic

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Parent Category: Film and the Arts
Category: Reviews
Published on Tuesday, 02 May 2023 14:08
Written by Jack Angstreich

Ivan Fischer conducts the New York Philharmonic with Artist in Residence András Schiff. Photo by Chris Lee

At David Geffen Hall, on the evening of Thursday, April 20th, I had the great fortune to attend a superb concert presented by the New York Philharmonic under the extraordinary direction of Iván Fischer, one of the finest contemporary conductors.

The most thrilling work on the program was its first, the magnificent, beautifully orchestrated but seldom performed Symphonic Minutes of the undervalued Hungarian composer, Ernő Dohnányi. The opening Capriccio movement is sprightly and charming while the ensuing Rapsodia is sumptuous. The unusual Scherzo is stirring, followed by a lyrical Theme and Variations and a closingRondothat is propulsive and exciting.

The renowned soloist, Sir András Schiff, then joined the musicians for an outstanding account of Béla Bartók’s powerful if difficult Piano Concerto No. 3. The vivacious, sometimes playfulAllegrettothat begins the piece is challenging but captivating. The middle movement is much more interior and intense and the finale is vigorous, virtuosic and unpredictable, building to a striking conclusion. The pianist rewarded enthusiastic applause with a wonderful encore: Bartók’s The Swineherd's Dance from For Children.

The second half of the event was also remarkable, a masterly realization of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s incomparable “Jupiter” Symphony. The beginning Allegro vivaceis joyous although with an undercurrent of disquiet and the Andante cantabile that succeeds it is an appropriately song-likesarabandethat is both elegant and serious with a Trio section that communicates a greater urgency. The unsurprisingly dance-likeMenuettois the most ebullient of the movements, preceding afinalethat is simply astonishing in intricacy, complexity and majesty. The artists deservedly received a standing ovation.



April '23 Digital Week IV

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Parent Category: Film and the Arts
Category: Reviews
Published on Wednesday, 26 April 2023 19:35
Written by Kevin Filipski
In-Theater Releases of the Week 
Twilight 
(Arbelos Films)
Hungarian director György Fehér, an associate of Béla Tarr—whose use of slow tracking shots and stark B&W camerawork became ubiquitous in his films—made his debut with this strikingly composed procedural. Although he only made one more film (Passion, a 1998 adaptation of The Postman Always Rings Twice) before his death in 2003 at age 63, the accomplished Fehér has made a resonant exploration of a detective who investigates horrific child murders.
 
 
Instead of Tarr’s existential dread, Fehér zeroes in on society’s alienation; there are several extraordinary sequences—shot by master cinematographer Miklós Gurbán, who also did the grading of this brand-new, beautifully restored print—including very unsettling close-up “interviews” with two young girls.
 
 
 
Other People’s Children 
(Music Box Films)
Virginie Efira won the best actress Cesar (the French version of the Oscar) for her devastating performance in Revoir Paris (opening in June), which makes that film seem more penetrating than it is. Efira performs a similar miracle in Rebecca Zlotowski’s film, playing Rachel, a schoolteacher without children of her own who loves her boyfriend Ali’s young daughter Leila as if she is her own—until his ex-wife initiates a reunion that might squeeze Rachel out of their lives altogether.
 
 
Zlotowski’s delicate writing and directing provide Efira with another showcase for her emotionally shattering acting; ideally, she should have won the Cesar for her draining portrayals in both films.
 
 
 
Somewhere in Queens 
(Roadside Attractions)
Ray Romano has not gotten his hit TV show Everybody Loves Raymond out of his system, as this sitcom-ish feature he wrote, directed and stars in proves for 105 middling minutes. Multiple generations of a Queens extended family are always quarreling and eating—but always circling the wagons when necessary.
 
 
It’s amusing but rarely biting, providing little of substance for actors as good as Laurie Metcalf (who plays Romano’s cantankerous cancer-survivor wife) and Tony Lo Bianco (who plays Romano’s cantankerous father). Romano always falls back on stereotypes and clichés, wasting the usually delightful Jennifer Esposito (as a neighboring widow) and Sadie Stanley (as Romano’s son’s erstwhile girlfriend) in nothing parts.
 
 
 
Blu-ray Releases of the Week
Scare Package II: Rad Chad's Revenge 
(Shudder)
For those waiting with bated breath for the sequel to Scare Package, it’s finally arrived: I haven’t seen the original, but it seems obvious that the sequel trods pretty much the same ground, using a thread of a plot—the death of Rad Chad, a horror movie buff whose funeral becomes a series of death traps for the attendees—as an excuse for an anthology of short genre parodies.
 
 
The sequences, directed by Aaron B. Koontz, Alexandra Barreto, Anthony Cousins, Jed Shepherd and Rachele Wiggins, are tongue-in-cheek homages that are definitely hit-or-miss, as these sorts of things tend to be. The package itself is presentable: there’s a fine hi-def transfer; and the extras are a directors’ commentary; making-of; bloopers and deleted scenes; and other cheeky bonus material. 
 
 
 
Time of Roses 
(Deaf Crocodile)
Hot on the heels of the label’s last resurrection, last month’s The Assassin of the Tsar, Deaf Crocodile now unveils another restored, rarely-seen film: Finnish director Risto Jarva’s brooding 1969 sci-fi opus, set in the then near-future of the year 2012.
 
 
It’s an antiseptically perfect world whose key word is “progress,” so when a journalist looks into the death of a nude model a half-century earlier for his TV program, he belatedly discovers that this perfect world is not nearly as progressive as he thought. It’s a thought-provoking concept that comes across onscreen as less than full formed; still, Jarva—who died in a 1977 car accident at age 43—made a major contribution to aesthetically interesting sci-fi. The film has been beautifully restored in hi-def.
 
 
 
Tosca 
(C Major)
In Giacomo Puccini’s classic—and tragic—love triangle, the intense emotions in the music are put across superbly by the trio of singers who take on these roles in Davide Livermore’s traditional but gripping production at Milan’s La Scala in 2019.
 
 
Francesco Meli as Tosca’s lover, the painter Cavaradossi, Luca Salsi as the evil antagonist, Scarpia, and Anna Netrebko as the heroine, Floria Tosca, are all startlingly effective under conductor Riccardo Chailly’s baton, as are the La Scala orchestra and choir. There’s first-rate hi-def video and audio.
 
 
 
CD Release of the Week 
Thomas Adès—Dante 
(Nonesuch)
For choreographer Wayne McGregor’s ballet based on Dante’s Inferno/Purgatorio/Paradiso trilogy, Thomas Adès has composed a fantastically visceral, marvelously elastic score that is mirrored by the lithe movements of London’s Royal Ballet dancers on the recently released Blu-ray video.
 
 
This recording allows one to concentrate on the music as Adès shrewdly consolidates his early avant-garde leanings, like his operatic success de scandale, Powder Her Face, with his later, more sophisticated work like the Shakespearean opera, The Tempest. This remarkable score is given a remarkable performance by the Los Angeles Philharmonic under music director Gustavo Dudamel.

Art Review—“Beyond Van Gogh” on Long Island

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Parent Category: Film and the Arts
Category: Reviews
Published on Monday, 24 April 2023 13:04
Written by Kevin Filipski
Beyond Van Gogh
Through May 14, 2023
Samanea New York, 1500 Old Country Road, Westbury, NY
vangoghlongisland.com
 
Beyond Van Gogh
 
I must admit that the prospect of immersing myself in a famous artist’s works has never been appealing; that’s why Beyond Van Gogh—different versions of which have set down roots seemingly everywhere, including in Manhattan recently—became my first such experience when it opened just a 15-minute drive from my home.
 
My skepticism came about from my familiarity with Van Gogh’s work—I’ve seen hundreds of his paintings in the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam and the Kröller-Müller Museum in rural Holland, along with the obvious masterpieces at the Met, MOMA and other collections—and knowing that looking at real artworks is much more satisfying. Still, it must be admitted that the multimedia Beyond Van Gogh is a different way of looking at an artist: visual and thematic connections are shown to viewers through reproductions of several similar paintings—like a lineup of Van Gogh’s famous self-portraits—as well as replicating the atmosphere of the settings of his well-known works, including an outdoor café, a bedroom or wheat fields.
 
Beyond Van Gogh
 
Standing in the main room where the action, so to speak, takes place, viewers are surrounded by a riot of colors that morphs from mere sketches to full-blown, and impossibly vibrant, paintings, accompanied by music like instrumental versions of “Here Comes the Sun” and Don MacLean’s “Vincent” as well as voices intoning Van Gogh’s thoughts in his letters to his beloved brother Theo (in both English and French), some of which can be read on the walls. The effect is of a Cliff Notes version of an immortal artist’s life and art: although it doesn’t give the full sense of what makes Van Gogh such a singular artist, it’s certainly a diverting way to spend an hour or so.
 
Also worth attending at Beyond Van Gogh—for an extra fee—is the virtual-reality A Life in Letters. My first VR experience, it immerses (that word again) viewers in the landscape that the artist immortalized in his paintings and, as one listens to Vincent narrate excerpts from letters to his brother about making art and getting inspiration, one sees (and feels) the seasons flow by; the deep greens, blues, yellows and even winter whites all make vivid appearances. 
 
Akira Kurosawa's Dreams
 
While wandering around the exhibit, I thought of that memorable segment in Japanese director Akira Kurosawa’s 1990 omnibus film Dreams, where a man finds himself inside several Van Gogh’s paintings as he tries to find the artist himself (played by a strangely attenuated Martin Scorsese). While I’d prefer to get lost in Kurosawa's film, Beyond van Gogh will do nicely in the meantime.

"Strands" of Prokofiev With The National Symphony Orchestra

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Parent Category: Film and the Arts
Category: Reviews
Published on Thursday, 20 April 2023 19:41
Written by Jack Angstreich

Gianandrea Noseda Conducts The National Symphony Orchestra. Photo by Chris Lee

At Carnegie Hall on the evening of Tuesday, April 18th, I had the pleasure of attending an excellent concert presented by the admirable musicians of the National Symphony Orchestra under the superb direction of Gianandrea Noseda.

The program began promisingly with an impeccable performance of George Walker’s impressively orchestrated if dour—its opening is brooding and stormy—Sinfonia No. 4, “Strands,” a piece within the mainstream of High Modernism written in 2012 when the composer was ninety years old and which features music from two African-American spirituals. (Program annotator Peter Laki adds that Walker “won the Pulitzer Prize for his orchestral song cycle Lilacs in 1996.”) The author stated: “I wanted to compose a work that was more than an overture or extended fanfare.” He also said:

The Sinfonia begins with an introduction that consists of several sections before the principal theme is stated. This theme recurs several times. The quotation of the first spiritual provides a pensive relief from the proclamatory nature of the theme that precedes it.

The briefer snippet of the second spiritual is affirmative. The following section consists of a melodic bass line over which fragmented interjections are superimposed. A similar section recurs, combining with the opening phrase of the second spiritual played by the piano during the course of the work. The bass material appears briefly in the coda.

Even better was a remarkable account of Sergei Prokofiev’s challenging, eccentric but engaging—and brilliant in its way—Piano Concerto No. 2, with the renowned Daniil Trifonov as soloist, a piece that is also programmatically modernistic in character. The introduction to the first movement is meditative and strangely Romantic; the rest of the movement is disquieting in its dissonances but attains a stirring climax. The ensuing, brief, propulsiveScherzois appropriately and characteristically playful. The Intermezzo is a queer march that at least approaches parody. The Finale begins manically and excitingly and then becomes introspective, even lyrical, in maybe the concerto’s most beautiful passage; after a number of unexpected divagations, the movement rushes to a surprising conclusion. In response to the enthusiastic applause, Trifonov played a delightful encore (which the artist has also recored): Prokofiev’s Gavotte from Three Pieces from Cinderella, Op. 95.

Most extraordinary of all, however, was the second half of the event: a meticulous reading of Igor Stravinsky’s astonishing score for the ballet,The Firebird, which must be one of the most frequently performed works in the current repertory. After an uncanny introduction, dizzying music accompanies the appearance of the Firebird. Following the haunting emergence of the enchanted princesses, one of the loveliest sections occurs in the garden before Prince Ivan nears the evil sorcerer Kashchei’s castle. The music becomes agitated as “his minions charge the Prince” and becomes more ominous with Kashchei’s arrival. The “Infernal Dance” is thrilling and and anticipates the composer’sThe Rite of Springwhile the bewitchingBerceusemust be the most glorious part of the score. Prince Ivan’s wedding to the most beautiful of the princesses provides a stunning close. The audience rewarded the musicians with a standing ovation.

More Articles...

  1. April '23 Digital Week III
  2. April '23 Digital Week II
  3. April '23 Digital Week I

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