Samuel Barber\u2019s three mid-century concertos \u2014 for violin, piano and cello \u2014 formed a centerpiece of this summer\u2019s Aspen Music Festival Theme, \u201cBeing American,\u201d the final two coming in featured orchestra concerts over this past weekend.<\/p>\n
The concertos present huge challenges for the soloists and, no less, for the conductors and orchestras behind them. The festival\u2019s music director, Robert Spano, led two of them, and Sunday\u2019s cello concerto was in many ways the most satisfying of the three. Alisa Weilerstein brought everything in her arsenal to bear, from brilliant technique to soulful execution of Barber\u2019s lyrical writing for the cello\u2019s highest register. An artist in total command of her instrument and the musical line, Weilerstein carried the day.<\/p>\n
Spano kept the orchestra in balance for most of it. The Andante, where the cello, flute and oboe pass around the melody against soft flowing harmonies, was a suave, delicious gem. The more rambunctious outer movements moved with purpose, and mostly highlighted the soloist.<\/p>\n
At Friday\u2019s Aspen Chamber Orchestra concert, Johannes Zahn stepped in for Alondra de la Parra, who canceled for medical reasons the week before, in Barber\u2019s complex piano concerto, one of the trickiest concertos in the repertoire. Winner of the 2018 Aspen Conducting Prize, Zahn\u2019s reward was to serve as assistant conductor for the festival this season. Usually that means working behind the scenes, but he navigated the concerto\u2019s rhythms and give-and-take with the soloist, and controlled the orchestra\u2019s role with presence.<\/p>\n
Even if the density of the sound could have benefited from more transparency in the outer movements, the central Canzone, the slow movement, melded around the piano smoothly, and the byplay with the woodwinds revealed its charm.<\/p>\n
Pianist Inon Barnatan\u2019s playing in the Canzone had a jewel-like sheen. His work throughout the concerto was dashing and mostly precise. He shaped the roiling outer movements with real expressiveness, not just propulsion, and the nonstop rush of the finale was exhilarating. For an encore Barnatan attacked the finger-busting finale of Barber\u2019s piano sonata with similar gusto, not letting up until the final gestures.<\/p>\n
The second halves of both concerts brought mixed results, however.<\/p>\n
Zahn caught the Latin sway and idiomatic Mexican intensity in the opening work, Danz\u00f3n No. 2 by Arturo M\u00e1rquez, and kept the Barber concerto firmly on the rails. But Leonard Bernstein\u2019s \u201cWest Side Story\u201d Symphonic Dances was another matter.<\/p>\n
The familiar jazzy gestures fell flat through the piece, although yeoman efforts from the percussion section came close to compensating for the stodgy syncopations from the orchestra. Whenever a jazz feel was needed the orchestra just didn\u2019t swing, and its attempts at Bernstein\u2019s Latin dances paled next to the first half\u2019s M\u00e1rquez. Much better was the sweet, romantic music derived from the song \u201cSomewhere,\u201d so at least the piece ended nicely.<\/p>\n
Sunday\u2019s second half, Mahler\u2019s Symphony No. 7, had its moments. Spano kept the momentum going steadily, except in the quicksilver central Scherzo, which tended to plod. And the sprawling work\u2019s repetitiveness required a defter touch to bring out Mahler\u2019s subtle tweaks on the many returns of familiar music. Each climax seemed to reach the same intensity.<\/p>\n
The unalloyed highlight was Edward Stephan\u2019s jaw-dropping gymnastics on timpani. Principal horn John Zirbel was consistently golden even when brass fanfares didn\u2019t always achieve a silvery sheen. But the jubilant final pages sent everyone out into the clear, sunny evening with fanfares and chimes ringing in their ears.<\/p>\n
In between those programs, Saturday night\u2019s recital in Harris Hall featured Jeremy Denk, literally a genius, a title he earned with a MacArthur Fellowship in 2013. Another descriptor might be \u201cmercurial,\u201d for both his presentation and late switches to the program.<\/p>\n
His lineup focused on Schumann\u2019s Fantasy in C major, a half-hour rumination inspired by Beethoven. But a week before the concert Denk decided to replace the rest of the program. A savory mix of a J.S. Bach English Suite and pieces by Ligeti, Liszt and Berg disappeared, replaced by a collection of offbeat variations by Beethoven, John Adams and Mendelssohn.<\/p>\n
With the program notes moot, Denk extemporized oral introductions, more personal than anything written. His depth of knowledge and casual wit emerged, and these same attributes underlay his musical performance. Less than virtuosity, it was about his mind. Moment-to-moment impulses seemed to inspire him to unique interpretations as the music unfolded. The audience could feel that sense of improvisation, and the Schumann Fantasy was exhibit A as to why.<\/p>\n
If the crashing chords of the second movement did not ring with clarity, as they do under the fingers of prodigies, Denk matched the twists and turns of Schumann\u2019s feverish mind with his own unique approach. The slow final movement, invoking Beethoven\u2019s own sonorous, heartfelt andantes and adagios, sang with unexpected power.<\/p>\n
An opening set, variations on \u201cRule Brittania,\u201d nodded to Beethoven the marketing man, refreshing for its lightweight jokiness. A short set of jazz waltz variations by John Adams, alluding to Bill Evans, had a winsome charm. After an earnest walk through Mendelssohn\u2019s \u201cVariations s\u00e9rieuses,\u201d Denk then pulled and twisted at Beethoven\u2019s own variations on a tune the composer used most famously in the \u201cEroica\u201d symphony, putting his own stamp on the music.<\/p>\n
For an encore Denk offered a transcription of mid-20th-century jazz artist Donald Lambert\u2019s brash stride piano version of the \u201cPilgrim\u2019s Chorus\u201d (the one from Wagner\u2019s Tannha\u00fcser). Though Denk played it with less transparency than Lambert did, it produced a three-minute-long grin that came out of left field. Mercurial.<\/p>\n
How folk music gets interpreted by \u201cserious\u201d composers was the underlying theme to Saturday afternoon\u2019s chamber music. Vijay Iyer\u2019s elaborate \u201cRahde Rahde: Rites of Holi,\u201d from 2013, used elements of Indian music against an impressionist film by Prashant Bhargava. Filtered through the colors of western instruments \u2014 there wasn\u2019t a sitar or tabla in sight \u2014 its repetitions packed plenty of flavor.<\/p>\n
Flutist Brook Ferguson ran with Edwin Schulhoff\u2019s 1925 glosses on tuneful folk music in the composer\u2019s Concertino for flute, viola, and bass. Violinists Paul Kantor and Laurie Carney teamed with Daniel Avshalamov (Carney\u2019s seatmate in the American String Quartet) for a tangy romp through Kod\u00e1ly\u2019s Hungarian-inflected Serenade (1920). The \u201cfolk music\u201d in Steve Reich\u2019s Mallet Quartet might have been the jazz harmonies the composer injected into his complex minimalist energy. Colin Courie\u2019s green mallets made the vibes he was playing awfully clangy, but the red mallets in the softer middle section produced a soulful sound.<\/p>\n
NOT TO MISS IN COMING DAYS<\/p>\n
Harris Hall is the happening place this week. A new opera, \u201cProving Up,\u201d about pitfalls of pioneering America, makes its Aspen debut Tuesday. Pianist Daniil Trifonov explores the pungent, juicy side of music from the past century in a far-ranging recital Wednesday, and Thursday soprano Renee Fleming joins the Emerson Quartet for Andr\u00e9 Previn\u2019s last work, the song cycle \u201cPenelope.\u201d<\/p>\n
Harvey Steiman has been writing about the Aspen Music Festival for 24 years. His regular reviews appear Tuesdays and Saturdays in The Aspen Times.<\/p>\n