David Geffen Hall at Lincoln Center. Orchestra (Seat K114, $52.50).
Pre-Concert Recital
Sonata in E minor, Hob. XVI:34 (c. 1780) by Haydn.
Daisies, Op. 38, No. 3 (1916) by Rachmaninoff.
Etude-tableau in D minor, Op. 39, No. 8 & 9 (1916-17)
by Rachmaninoff.
Yi-Nuo Wang, Piano
Program
Overture in D manor (1777) by Haydn (1732-1809).
Piano Concerto No. 2 in F major (1957) by Shostakovich
(1906-1975).
Moz-Art a la Haydn (1977) by Schnittke (1934-1998).
Ruggero
Allifranchini and Laura Frautschi, violins
Symphony No. 35 in D major (“Haffner”) (1782) by Mozart
(1756-1791).
The main concert has two classical pieces bookending two
pieces by Russian composers. One usually
doesn’t associate either Shostakovich or Schnittke with Haydn or Mozart, but
the Annotator definitely made a plausible (albeit short) case for such a
sentiment.
The very short (5 minute) overture is probably
interesting in its own right, and it also allow the (not too) late-comers a
chance to be seated.
If the program didn’t state the composer of the piano
concerto was Shostakovich, most people in the audience probably wouldn’t be
able to guess the authorship. For one,
the melodies were easy to get, and quite traditional in their tonality and
singability. The piano sounded
percussive quite often, and produced a “pitter-patter” effect that was
interesting and pleasant. It wasn’t an
easy piece by any measure, and Osborne dispatched the notes with ease. The interplay with the orchestra was good,
although the orchestra was mostly in the role of accompanist. As far as I could tell, there was only one
cadenza (by Shostakovich), which sounded like a flourish by the soloist. The
short concerto consists of three movements: Allegro, Andante, and Finale:
Allegro.
Steven Osborne after performing Shostakovich's Second Piano Concerto.
The audience’s enthusiastic applause ended after a couple
of curtain calls. As people were getting
ready to take a break, Osborne came out to do a piece that had quite a bit of
jazz element to it. And the piccolo
player – who usually got little work as second flutist – certain earned her pay
on this piece.
Our first encounter with Osborne was in Singapore, where he played the Britten piano concerto. That was 2013.
If I connect my iPod to my car the first song that comes
up would be a violin concerto by Schnittke (by virtue of his first name being Alfred). I didn’t know he was Russian. The 12-minute piece had only string players
(maybe 15?) with Allifranchini and Frautschi listed as the leads. It began in complete darkness (well, the Exit
signs are always lit) with only Langree visible. I don’t know how to describe Schnittke’s
violin concerto, and I must have heard it many times. I won’t even attempt to describe this
one. Visually the violins and violas
move about, with one episode where the leads scared the others back to where
they were originally. And the piece
ended with the violins and violas exiting the stage. Somehow this reminded me of something I had
written about, and a search of my blog found an entry on the same piece in
2014, with same cast of characters. I
must say that writeup was better than this one, getting lazy with age here.
Langree with Allifranchini and Frautschi.
Allifranchini’s violin actually sounded very good,
Frautschi’s was a bit weak.
The Haffner Symphony was distilled by a serenade Mozart
wrote for patrons in Salzburg after he moved to Vienna, in celebration of the
Haffner family being elevated to aristocracy.
Mozart subsequently reduced and modified the score to this symphony; I
guess he was also a recycler, although not nearly as much as Haydn did, from
what I can tell. The movements are
Allegro con spirit, Andante, Menuetto, and Presto.
I expected better from the orchestra, especially under
Langree. The whole thing just sounded muddled,
which in my view is the cardinal sin in a Mozart performance. To be fair, there were quite a few enjoyable
moments as Mozart music genius came through nonetheless.
The whole cast for Mozart's Haffner Symphony.
For my German class (Freshman in college) we had to read
these simple biographies on people like Mozart and Goethe. I still remember Mozart getting a cold
shoulder from Haydn when he first moved to Vienna. The Playbill describes the two as “two
composers strongly linked by personal friendship, …”
We managed to see all MMFO performances this season. The overall season didn’t quite meet the high
hope I had at the beginning of the first concert; however, they were worth
going to, and we lucked out with weather and traffic this season.
The pre-concert pianist Wang was born in Beijing and
started piano lessons at four. She is
now a student at Julliard. The Haydn
sonata was about 10 minutes long and consists of Presto, Adagio, and Finale:
Molto vivace. The Rachminoff pieces were
performed without pause, so I had trouble telling when one stopped and the
other began.
Yi-Nuo Yang was the pre-concert recitalist.
Summer Friday afternoon traffic into New York can be
brutal. We took the train in, and the
concert ended early enough that we caught the 9:38 pm train back to New Jersey.
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