Octopus, the Israel Pianists Quartet, performs works from Norway, Russia, Czechia, Hungary and a new Israeli work at the Mormon University, Jerusalem

Meir Wiesel,Ifat Zaidel,Tavor Gochman,Bart Berman (photo:Maxim Reider)

“40 Fingers around the World” was an apt title for the latest concert of Octopus - Israel Pianists Quartet - at the Sunday Evening Classics series of the Jerusalem Center for Far Eastern Studies on January 13th, 2019. Featuring four pianists playing on two pianos, Octopus was founded in 2013. Its eight hands are those of Ifat Zaidel, Bart Berman, Tavor Gochman and Meir Wiesel. Certainly a rare combination, the ensemble’s players are of diverse ages, hailing from Holland, Morocco and Israel. Much of their repertoire consists of arrangements; however, some new works have been written for the ensemble by Yosef Bardanashvili, Eran Ashkenazi, Naama Perel, Tzvi Avni and their own Meir Wiesel. Octopus will be performing at the Novi Sad Festival (Serbia) in July 2019.

The artists opened with a magical, picturesque reading of Edvard Grieg’s Peer Gynt Suite No.1 Op.46, as arranged by Adolf Ruthardt. Their delicate, evocative rendition of “Morning Mood” presented Grieg’s description of sunrise over the Moroccan desert, its melody singing over long-held, static bass notes and unfolding mysteriously. Following the artists’ buoyant and incisive playing of “Anitra’s Dance”, with its seductive melody and playful chromaticism, their rendition of  “The Death of Ase”, majestic yet intimate, ascribed  Peer Gynt’s mother more respect than did Gynt himself! Then to the underground palace “In the Hall of the Mountain King” and its dark caverns, its grotesque, hopping course and richly dissonant music becoming more and more menacing as it grew in volume and drama to an epic finale.

The piano arrangement of Alexander Glazunov’s orchestral fantasy “The Sea” Op.28 (1889) was penned by the composer himself, actually creating the vast seascape in no-less impressive dimensions than the orchestral version. The Octopus players’ descriptive presentation of the work, now decidedly pianistic, had the audience perched at the edge of their seats. Its rich agenda of nature’s moods, from squalls soaring to dramatic, tumultuous proportions, to moments of almost visual brightness and of restored serene tranquility, called forth the many facets of the sea, its beauty and its power. Glazunov’s own attached program, read by Wiesel, explains that the work depicts what is seen by a man looking out from the shore over a vast seascape; Glazunov adds his own personal message, claiming that  "everything the man had seen and all that he had felt in his soul, he recounted later to other men."

And to the world premiere of Meir Wiesel’s programmatic one poem “Ostinaton”, dedicated to fellow musician Bart Berman on the occasion of his 80th birthday. Wiesel set the scene with his eloquent narration of the work’s agenda: “Imagine you are walking in space. Everything is quiet, but, from time to time, interruptions occur. Aton, the Egyptian god of the sun, is watching you…” In an eerie, otherworldly manner, the chordal work evokes the person’s steps in chords some of a tonal nature, some with added dissonances, the ever-present steps occasionally diverting from rhythmic regularity, at others, punctuated by disturbing, grotesque comments (strange creatures?) or echoes. It’s quite a journey! Wiesel’s work creates a unique atmosphere, both beguiling and disturbing, as he takes the listener on a walk through infinity.

Back on terra firma, to Anton Dvořák’s Slavonic Dance in E-minor Op.46 No.2. Before orchestrating his two sets of Slavonic Dances, they were written as piano duets (one piano), indeed remunerative for both composer and publisher. The Slavonic Dances were arranged for eight hands by German music editor Robert Keller, who worked for the N.Simrock music publisher.  In dealing with his own native idiom, Dvořák did not use existing folk tunes in his dances, but created his own themes in the authentic style of Eastern European traditional  music, creating superb, idealized examples of their genres. The E-minor Slavonic Dance, in the form of a Ukrainian dumka, was performed with moments of lyricism and nostalgic yearning alternating with hearty, carefree sections. An infectious and  beautifully crafted performance. Remaining in Eastern Europe, Octopus concluded its world tour with a hearty Konzertstück - Liszt’s Hungarian Rhapsody No.9, also known as “Carnival in Pest”; this, like the work before it, has also undergone a number of transcriptions, from  the original piano version, to a version for orchestra and for piano duet. Meeting Emil Kronke’s setting of it for eight hands at eye level, the players gave vivid expression to the work’s various tableaux, its Hungarian dances, its personal moments and its marvellously extravagant finale.

A fitting encore for their Jerusalem concert, the Octopus pianists performed Bart Barman’s artistic and sensitive arrangement of “Jerusalem of Gold” (Naomi Shemer), with its subtle  sprinkling of harmonic caprices. This was followed by their bold, zesty and high-spirited  playing of Aram Khachaturian’s  “Sabre Dance”. With its repertoire of various styles, the Israel Pianists Ensemble has much to offer its audiences, but it is the close collaboration of its members and their addressing of music’s smallest details that produce the quartet’s distinctive transparency- and beauty of sound.

 

The Israel Camerata Jerusalem opens its 2018-2019 concert season with a program of late Romantic Russian concertos

Maestro Uri Segal (jcamerata.com)

Taking place on October 6th 2018 in the Recanati Auditorium of the Tel Aviv Museum of Art, the first concert of the Israel Camerata Jerusalem’s 2018-2019 “La Tempesta dei Solisti” series presented a program of concertos by late Romantic Russian composers. Under the baton of Uriel Segal, the orchestra hosted three young visiting artists: Kristina Miller-piano (Russia/Germany), Sophia Bacelar-‘cello (Cuba) and Kristine Balanas-violin (Latvia). Prior to each concerto, the audience watched a short film in which the soloist introduced herself and her musical involvement.

 

The program opened with Sergei Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No.3. Premiered in 1909 in New York City with the composer as soloist, it was the first of many American triumphs for Rachmaninoff, who would ultimately make his home in the United States. The last of the great Romantic pianist-composers in the lineage of Chopin, Liszt, and Rubinstein, Rachmaninoff joined Brahms in the concept of the fusing of concerto- and symphony forms. From a musical family, Kristina Miller (b. Moscow, 1986) began her piano studies at an early age, soloing in Mozart’s Concerto No. 23 at the age of eight. Miller’s Tel Aviv performance attested to her great love- and respect of Rachmaninoff’s music. From the nostalgic Russian-type opening theme, her playing was lyrical, tender and poignant, her handling of the work’s more intense moments well controlled but never emerging muscular or showy. Also characterizing the Tel Aviv performance was the masterful interweaving of the work’s orchestral “solos” and those of Miller, as well as some haunting wind solos. Miller then gave a virtuosic and well contrasted performance of Rachmaninoff’s stormy Musical Moment No.4 in E-minor.

 

Resulting from Tchaikovsky’s love of 18th-century music, his Variations on a Rococo Theme, op. 33 reflect an ideal- if distant world for which Romantic composers felt great nostalgia.  Written for- and with the help of  Wilhelm Fitzenhagen, a German ‘cellist and fellow professor at the Moscow Conservatory, it was Fitzenhagen who gave the premiere in Moscow on November 30, 1877. At 22 years of age, Cuban-Chinese-American ‘cellist Sophia Bacelar is quickly gaining recognition in the world of classical music but she is also broadening the reach of her music by introducing it in alternative venues and through contemporary media. Playing on a historic ‘cello restored by her father, Bacelar is an artist of much temperament, presenting the variations’ different moods, displaying the ‘cello's ability to sing long lyrical melodies, then enlisting her consummate technique for variations of an extremely virtuosic nature, as she launched into grandiose cadenzas, spectacular trills and double stops, yet never losing sight of the work’s main theme. Her solo Spanish-style encore was a veritable tour-de-force.

 

A violinist in great demand on the international scene and considered one of the most versatile and inspiring violinists of her generation, soloist and chamber musician Kristine Balanas (b.1990) explores new repertoire as well as bringing young energy to the classics. The Israel Camerata Jerusalem’s Tel Aviv concert concluded with Balanas soloing in A.Glazunov’s Violin Concerto in A-minor op.82. Written in 1904, the concerto was dedicated to violinist Leopold Auer, who gave its first performance in 1905 at a concert of the Russian Musical Society, St. Petersburg. The Concerto's three movements are played without pause, the connections almost seamless from one to the next. Performing on a 1787 Antonio Gragnani violin, Balanas is an artist of sophistication and subtlety. Her sense of spontaneity lent natural, unimpeded flow to the Glazunov Concerto’s rich colourings, its large cadenza (Glazunov’s own) and to the work’s rhapsodic moods and expressive intensity, ending the finale with genial and extroverted rapture. For her encore, she performed Paganini’s Caprice No.17 with charm and whimsy.

 

All the concertos in the Israel Camerata Jerusalem’s current “La Tempesta dei Solisti” series have been arranged for chamber orchestra by Mordechai Rechtman (b. Germany 1926), a bassoonist renowned for his many arrangements for wind ensembles and of Classical and Romantic concertos. Rechtman was present at the concert.

 

Maestro Uriel Segal (b. Israel, 1944), conducting with a light touch, made for transparency of sound, well-delineated melodic playing, a lush symphonic sound and sensitive collaboration between orchestra and soloists. Segal conducts and records widely in Europe, Japan, the USA, Canada and Brazil. Laureate conductor of the renowned Chautauqua Festival in New York State, he is also laureate Conductor of Century Orchestra in Osaka, Japan, an orchestra he founded and led for eight years. He has served as music director of the Louisville, KY Orchestra, was principal conductor of the Philharmonia Hungarica and the Bournemouth Symphony, music director of the Israel Chamber Orchestra and principal guest conductor of the Stuttgart Radio Symphony. He has also been principal guest conductor at the Jacobs School of Music, Indiana University, Bloomington.