It will be hard to top the one-two punch this past week of pianist Nikolai Lugansky on Tuesday and violinist Augustin Hadelich on Wednesday. Both were magnificent, and whether it was intentional, the music of Debussy stood out for both.<\/p>\n
Beethoven\u2019s Sonata No. 4 in A minor and Brahms\u2019 Sonata No. 2 in A major were models of classical elegance, but Hadelich\u2019s program sprang to life when he and piano partner Orion Weiss made the Debussy\u2019s Violin Sonata into a rainbow of colors. The music emerged as if from a cocoon, starting quietly and simply, then gaining complexity naturally and gradually until it blazed at the finish.<\/p>\n
In the Sonata for Unaccompanied Violin in E major, which Eug\u00e8ne Ysa\u00ffe wrote in the style of the Spanish violinist Manuel Quiroga, Hadelich\u2019s ability to transcend the mind-boggling demands of playing the notes made it into a tour de force of sun-drenched brilliance.<\/p>\n
Weiss\u2019 solo spot in the second half brought technical clarity to Debussy\u2019s \u201cL\u2019isle joyeuses,\u201d and that set up an even more joyful romp with Hadelich on John Adams\u2019 \u201cRoad Movies,\u201d written in 1995 just as the composer started to break free of minimalism\u2019s formal constraints. That spirit of American energy spilled over into the encore, a bracingly effusive arrangement for violin and piano of \u201cHoe-Down\u201d from Copland\u2019s ballet \u201cRodeo.\u201d<\/p>\n
Lugansky\u2019s magic Tuesday leavened his muscular power by never letting the music get heavy, with a touch that avoided tipping his astonishing technical mastery over into brittleness. His program rambled through music by French composers who straddled the late 19th- and early 20th-century transition from high romanticism (C\u00e9sar Franck) to impressionism (Claude Debussy), then finished with a stunning early example of Aleksander Skryabin\u2019s mystical piano works.<\/p>\n
The pianist brought a depth of musicality to Debussy\u2019s \u201cDeux arabesques,\u201d contrasting the shimmering delicacy of the first with the grand flourishes of the second. He captured colors and textures \u201cImages, Series 2\u201d to paint the fluttering leaves against the chiming bells of \u201cCloches \u00e0 travers les feuilles\u201d (bells through the leaves) and the gauzy longueur of \u201cEt la lune descend sur le temple qui fut\u201d (moon setting over the temple that was), finishing with quicksilver darting music in \u201cPoissons d\u2019or\u201d (goldfish).<\/p>\n
To bookend the French part of his program Lugansky found a sustained feeling for what was originally an organ work from 1868 by Franck, \u201cPr\u00e9lude, fugue, et variation,\u201d in Harold Bauer\u2019s solo piano version from 1910. Likewise, \u201cPr\u00e9lude, choral, et fugue,\u201d which Franck wrote for piano, revealed Lugansky\u2019s ability to make complex works seem more direct than expected.<\/p>\n
As might be expected from a great Russian pianist, the Skryabin roared to life with its stormy opening movement, receded into soft colors in the second, turned sad in the third, and took magnificent upward leaps of ecstasy in the finale until the energy dissipated into resignation at the end. Brilliant stuff.<\/p>\n
Encores included a Rachmaninoff Pr\u00e9lude in G Major that made the pianistic flourishes feel inevitable and lovely, and Debussy\u2019s extroverted \u201cJardins sous la pluie\u201d from \u201cEstampes,\u201d which brimmed with exuberance.<\/p>\n
Sandwiched between these recitals was perhaps the Aspen Philharmonic\u2019s most important concert of the season Wednesday in the tent. It included the debuts of a big new concerto by the musical polymath Wynton Marsalis and the local debut of an extraordinary violinist, Nicola Benedetti. Between persistent rain that drowned out a good portion of the soloist\u2019s contributions, the 45-minute concerto revealed itself as a work of originality, humor and polyglot style that ranged from sweet lyrical song to dashes of Celtic flavor, blues and stomping jazz.<\/p>\n
The rain stopped early in the finale, a mashup of square dancing and broad gestures that called to mind Copland and Ives. The piece finished with a wistful song as the violin faded out. We could finally hear Benedetti\u2019s touch clearly here. She deserves a rain check.<\/p>\n
Robert Spano conducted with a feel for the various musical styles, drawing idiomatic playing from the all-student orchestra. The energy never dissipated, even if he tended to exaggerate dynamic contrasts in this work and Copland\u2019s Symphony No. 3. Spano got the orchestra to make its points.<\/p>\n
In her recital Thursday night in Harris Hall, pianist Simone Dinnerstein, another solo artist overshadowed by the splendor of Lugansky and Hadelich, focused on music of obsession. The centerpiece of the first half, Philip Glass\u2019 \u201cMad Rush\u201d (1973), kept returning to the same gestures. Two 18th-century Couperin miniatures and Schumann\u2019s familiar Arabesque in C major surrounded the Glass. Each work enlightened the next, all played with appropriate intensity.<\/p>\n
The second half, not so much. Following Satie\u2019s slight, abstract Gnossienne No. 3, Schumann\u2019s Kreisleriana might have paid dividends if Dinnerstein\u2019s pedal-heavy, stodgy performance had delivered more clarity and expressiveness.<\/p>\n
The percussion ensemble\u2019s daring program Monday evening in Harris Hall ended with a rousing go at George Antheil\u2019s surreal, ear-splitting, audacious \u201cBallet m\u00e9canique\u201d for four pianos and a percussion battery than includes an insistent doorbell and a (sound clip of an) airplane propellor. The raucous (and much less accessible) Percussion Quartet by Charles Wuorinen was a bear for both players and listeners.<\/p>\n
There were gentler moments, too. The concert began with \u201cDark Full Ride, Part 1,\u201d a piece by Julia Wolfe (a co-founder of Bang on a Can) for four percussionists playing with an incessant rhythm on (mostly) hi-hats. They got a range of sound from these cymbals mounted on poles and adjusted by pedals, a vivid demonstration of the range of music from untuned percussion.<\/p>\n
Inspired by Lou Harrison\u2019s midcentury concertos for violin and percussion, composer Kati Ag\u00f3cs surrounded violinist Jennifer Koh with pairs of mallet instruments \u2014 vibes, xylophones, marimbas and glockenspiel \u2014 and only made drums prominent in the finale. Once a student in Aspen\u2019s composition program, Ag\u00f3cs spun fluid and sometimes florid music for Koh over busy (and mostly soft-textured) ear-friendly harmonies and rhythms.<\/p>\n
Jaime Card\u00e9nas-Espa\u00f1a, a student percussionist from Chile, opened the second half by singing Chilean folk legend Violetta Parra\u2019s heartbreaking \u201cEl Gavil\u00e1n\u201d with his own glosses on a big marimba, an extraordinary nine minutes of fervent musical expression.<\/p>\n
NOT TO MISS IN COMING DAYS<\/p>\n
Sharon Isbin\u2019s annual recital Saturday night in Harris Hall enhances a program of Spanish guitar music with a group of songs by Richard Danielpour based on texts by Rumi, and sung by Jessica Rivera. The Percussion Collective performs \u201cDrum Circle,\u201d by Aspen composer-in-residence Christopher Theofanidis on Sunday with the Aspen Festival Orchestra in the tent.<\/p>\n
Harvey Steiman has been writing about the Aspen Music Festival for 25 years. His reviews appear Tuesdays and Saturdays in The Aspen Times.<\/p>\n