Clarinet Virtuoso Katsuya Yuasa

On his tour as the winner of the Mu Phi Epsilon Foundation Performance Award clarinetist Katsuya Yuasa stopped by our local university for a recital, along with his accompanist Sakurako Kanemitsu.  He is both a skilled and an entertaining musician.

I was most interested in the chosen repertoire which went back only as far as 1899.

• Solo de Concours (1899) by Andre Messager is a post romantic piece whose life began as an academic exam requested by Gabriel Fauré.  I like for the romantic style to at least make a showing, and this was excellent.

• Flute Sonata, Op. 94 (1943), 1. Moderato, by Sergey Prokofiev is more modern, and was arranged for clarinet by Kent Kennan.  Prokofiev is supposed to have composed this in his free time.

• Premiere Rhapsodie (1909/10) by Claude Debussy strangely also requested by Fauré.  I admired his technique here but always feel that Debussy requires something more.

• Pocket Size Sonata (1957) in three short movements by Alec Templeton adds jazz to our clarinetist's broad range of styles.  He's very musical.

• Fuer Arvo (2018) by Ryan Suleiman was presented as a world premier.  The composer was present.  And yes, the Arvo is Arvo Pärt.  It is a response to one of the older composer's compositions.  I have taken the liberty of redating this piece from 2017, since music is normally dated on the date of the world premier performance.  This was minimalist like Pärt.

• Fantasie for Solo Clarinet (1993) by Jorg Widmann was for the clarinet alone.  This piece is for fun, to show off all the many things you can do with a clarinet, including slurs that I may only have heard in Rhapsody in Blue.  He has this stuff all down.

• Time Pieces, Op. 43 (1983) in four movements by Robert Muczynski finished the recital. 

I found that our performer's enthusiasm for performing along with his skill made this a very pleasing recital. Good luck in the future.

Sac Phil does Prokofiev and Brahms

Saturday evening the Sacramento Philharmonic and Opera performed at the Sacramento Community Center Theater.

Andrew Grams, conductor
Rachel Barton Pine, violin

Prokofiev Violin Concerto No. 1 (1923)

1. Andantino
2. Scherzo: Vivacissimo
3. Moderato – Allegro moderato

This might possibly be considered part of Prokofiev's neo-classical period.  Ask someone else.  Rachel Barton Pine plays a Guarneri with a lovely fat tone.  This piece is unusual but not particularly atonal.  She was impressive in this difficult piece.

She played her own theme and variations arrangement of the New Zealand national anthem as an encore.  One was reminded of Paganini.

Brahms Symphony No. 1 (1876)

1. Un poco sostenuto — Allegro – Meno allegro (C minor, ending in C major)
2. Andante sostenuto (E major)
3. Un poco allegretto e grazioso (A♭ major)
4. Adagio — Più andante — Allegro non troppo, ma con brio – Più allegro (C minor – C major)

It took him 20 years to write this.  Was it worth it?  The last movement works well.

The hall is being acoustically redesigned with panels that angle down over the orchestra.  I felt the orchestra sounded much more like an ensemble than in the past, so perhaps the redesign is working.

The Ying Quartet

You could call them The Ying String Quartet, I suppose.  They started out as a family enterprise, but now the first violinist is not a family member.  They are Janet Ying (violin), Phillip Ying (viola), Robin Scott (violin), and David Ying (cello).  For our final New Millennium Concert Series program at Sacramento State we enjoyed this excellent quartet.  They are my favorite of the recent chamber music groups I have heard.

String Quartet No. 2 in D Major (1881) by Alexander Borodin
This piece sounds familiar because a couple of the movements provided source material for the musical Kismet.  It's also just very beautiful music from the high Romantic.

String Quartet No. 2 in F Major Op. 92 (1941) by Sergei Prokofiev
This is pleasingly modern but not too modern since it's based on Russian folk tunes.

Quartet in C Major, Op. 59 No 3 (1808) by Beethoven
This is one of the Razumovsky string quartets commissioned by a Russian Prince Razumovsky, thus continuing the Russian theme of the concert.

The selection of repertoire is part of what made this concert particularly pleasing, along with the beautiful romantic playing.

Ewa Podleś

The one and only Ewa Podleś sings Prokofiev's Alexander Nevsky.

Fiery Angel

Conductor:  Vladimir Jurowski
Production:  Barrie Kosky

Ruprecht:  Evgeny Nikitin
Renata:  Svetlana Sozdateleva
Landlady:  Heike Grötzinger
Soothsayer:  Elena Manistina
Agrippa von Nettesheim:  Vladimir Galouzine

If you watch a lot of German opera productions, you probably expected something a lot wilder than this for Prokofiev's Fiery Angel from the Bayerische Staatsoper.  It starts as an ordinary hotel room, and the hotel theme carries throughout.

Renata had an imaginary friend as a child, only her imaginary friend was not another girl, or a giant rabbit, but an enormous fiery angel.  Puberty missed this up, since the angel didn't want to become a boyfriend.  Renata spends the rest of her life looking for him.

Our opera begins in the hotel room with Ruprecht musing and the hotel manager coming in for a talk.  Then Renata crawls out from under the bed.  This was my favorite part.  When did that ever happen?  Renata is completely mad.

After Act I, the rest of the scenes are interrupted by various groups.  Act II includes male dancers with lots of tattoos dressed in evening gowns.  Act IV is Faust and Mephistopheles holding their walpurgis nacht.  And finally Act V where people are supposed to be nuns, they are instead dressed as Jesus in his crown of thorns.

I kept thinking this was the perfect opera to follow our House of Usher duo, just to show how it is done.  Musically this is a spectacular piece.  All the singers were good, but Svetlana Sozdateleva was spectacularly wonderful.  Kudos.  She was perfectly cast for this very difficult role.

I am resisting the old person's inclination to reminisce about previous productions.

The Gambler

I went to see Sergei Sergeyevich Prokofiev's opera The Gambler (1929, during his exile from Russia), based on the novel by Dostoevsky. Until I saw it in the Metropolitan Opera's schedule, I didn't know it existed. Valery Gergiev was conducting. I liked The Fiery Angel (1927) and Betrothal in a Monastery (1941) quite a lot and thought I might like this, too.

I didn't. Musically I remember staccato trombones and tubas, heavy annoying voices and very little else. The plot is annoying if you have no interest in gambling. I made it only about half way through.

P.S. Further research tells me that Prokofiev's The Gambler was first performed in 1929, but it was written during World War I, before the October revolution. This makes it early Prokofiev. Contemporary with Fiery Angel made no sense at all.

Betrothal in a Monastery

I find this completely charming.

Young people are in love, as they inevitably are, and papa is standing in the way. He wants his beautiful daughter to marry his old rich fish merchant friend. He seems to think of her as a financial investment.

Daughter Louisa and her duenna find a solution in deception. The proposed bridegroom has never met Louisa, and the duenna proposes that if Louisa does not want him, she will marry him and his ducats herself. She likes beards, and she likes money.

They all find a monastery full of drunken monks who will happily marry all three couples--Louisa and her beau, Louisa's brother and his love, and the fish merchant and duenna. Everyone lives happily ever after.

We have purchased this dvd of Prokofiev's Betrothal in a Monastery from the Kirov Opera with Valery Gergiev because Louisa is sung by Anna Netrebko, our current fascination. All of the comic singing actors are delightful, especially the duenna and her fish monger, but it is Anna we love. The role does not really show off her voice--composers in the twentieth-century don't seem to understand how to do this--but her singing and acting are utterly charming. There is simply not enough Anna to go around.
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