Attending an event of the "Seven
at 7" series of the Jerusalem Music Centre (Mishkenot Sha'ananim)
for the first time, there was no mistaking that this subscription series,
directed and presented by Prof. Ariel Hirschfeld, is a program with a
difference. Alongside the wide repertoire of classical chamber music, the
concerts might include jazz, Israeli songs or focus on one specific instrument.
"Between Viennese Inebriation and Orchestrated Gefilte Fish" (certainly
no conventional title for a concert) was performed by the Tel Aviv Wind Quintet
on April 12th 2022.
Professor Ariel Hirschfeld, researcher and cultural critic, served as
the head of the Faculty of Hebrew Literature of the Hebrew University of
Jerusalem from 2008 to 2012, where he himself had studied Musicology and Hebrew
Literature. He opened the evening's proceedings by expressing how happy he
was to be hosting the Tel Aviv Wind Quintet, adding that, in the Classical
period, there had been many small wind ensembles playing
"Harmoniemusik" - a particular body of music written from
c.1760-1837 - repertoire whose primary function was to provide social
entertainment. Harmonie ensembles provided dinner- and after-dinner music
for the emperor in Vienna, these ensembles also popular among the lower
aristocracy and wealthy middle classes, circles keen to have their own in-house
Harmonie. That being said, an appropriate work to open the concert was Viennese
composer Alexander von Zemlinsky's "Humoresque". Talking about the
composer and his originality, Hirschfeld feels that Zemlinsky's music is not
well-known enough. The Tel Aviv Wind Quintet gave vivid expression to this
short, sprightly and uplifting work, its
light-heartedness and charm quite a contrast from the usual depth and darker
themes explored in Zemlinsky's music.
Then, to two
contemporary pieces for wind quintet. Israeli composer Moshe Zorman (b.1952)
wrote his Suite (2021) for the TLVWQ, its stimulus being the isolation
constraints dictated by the Corona pandemic. In fact, the second movement,
titled "All in the Family", suggests a family argument (played out by
Roy Amotz-flute and Danny Erdman-clarinet) taking place in the fraught reality
of lockdown! Yet despite its tongue-in-cheek element, the work is a
sophisticated and challenging piece of writing for wind quintet, alive with
rhythmic interest, zestful textures and buoyancy, the third movement opening
with a bittersweet waltz offering some solos, then to close with a dejected-sounding cluster. Prominent composer, conductor and pianist, Moshe Zorman has composed operas as well as some one hundred works for symphony orchestra, chamber groups
and choirs.
There was no mistaking the genesis of "Kleztet" (2008) by
French composer, conductor and scholar Jean-Philippe Calvin. Producing the
work's bold canvas, the TLVWQ instrumentalists gave hearty, exuberant and
rapid-fire expression to the Hassidic wedding dances woven throughout, also
addressing the work's fragile touches of humour and moments of nostalgic,
Jewish melancholy, all these elements set into a collage of fast-changing moods
and textures. The players' joie-de-vivre was well conveyed to the audience in
this entertaining concert piece. Until 2014 Calvin served as professor and research
associate in Contemporary Music as well as the director and the founder of the
Variable Geometry Contemporary Music Ensemble at the Royal College of Music
(London), then becoming the Clive Marks research associate in Holocaust &
Jewish Music studies at World ORT, focusing on "Music, Memory & The
Holocaust - The Forgotten Music and the Songs of Sephardic Jews in Post-Ottoman
Turkey."
The only work on the program not
originally scored for wind quintet was Antonin Dvořák's 1893 String Quartet in
F major Op.96 (American), arranged for wind quintet by French oboist David
Walter. As to the work inspired by summers spent in the hamlet of Spillville
(USA) among Czech compatriots, where the composer was surrounded by nature and
friends, there has been much discussion regarding how much or whether there is
any American content in the music. Introducing the work, Prof. Hirschfeld
claimed there was "nothing not Czech about the work". What is unquestionably American here, however, is a motif in the third movement, one inspired by the repeated
call of the Scarlet Tanager, a native bird to evergreen forests in eastern
North America. Comparison with the work's string qualities aside, Walter's brilliant
transcription of the quartet was embraced wholeheartedly by the TLVWQ
players, who brought to the fore the music's melodic freshness and underlying
soulfulness with touching personal utterance, lyrical warmth, expressiveness
and the vivid timbral mix offered by the wind ensemble constellation.
The ensemble produced a concert of first-class, polished performance. For an encore, the TLVWQ performed Mordechai Rechtman's arrangement of
the "Badinerie" from Bach's Suite in B minor for flute, strings
and continuo, with Roy Amotz' performance of the flute solo convivial, dazzling and easeful.
The concert was followed by an informal discussion between audience and
players over a glass of wine.
The Tel Aviv Wind Quintet: Roy Amotz-flute, Nir Gavrieli-oboe (guest
player), Danny Erdman-clarinet, Itamar Leshem-horn, Nadav Cohen-bassoon.
No comments:
Post a Comment