Dror Semmel, Ron Trachtman and Michael Zartsekel perform Russian piano music at the Eden-Tamir Music Center, Ein Kerem, Jerusalem

In the Eden-Tamir Music Center’s Piano Entertainment series, “A Russian Celebration” was performed by pianists Michael Zartsekel, Dror Semmel and Ron Trachtman at the Ein Kerem venue on April 7^th 2017.

Performing on three pianos, the artists opened with Sergei Rachmaninoff’s Romance and Waltz in A-major, composed 1890/91 written to be played by the three Skalon sisters when the composer, in his late teens, was still a student at the Moscow Conservatory. It is thought that Natalia Skalon wrote the theme for the Waltz. Playing the pieces on one piano is entertaining to watch, but there was much to be said for playing them on three, with the artists presenting the works’ fine details, Romantic charm and fragility, creating true magic and with clarity.  Rachmaninoff’s love for Vera, the youngest of the sisters, might well have been the inspiration for the tenderness of the Romance.

Michael Zartsekel then performed two pieces from Tchaikovsky’s  “The Seasons” (1876), a set of 12 pieces relating to the 12 months of the year. The collection, published in instalments in the monthly musical-theatrical journal “Nuvellist”, would have been suited to the new Russian bourgeois lifestyle of the amateur home pianist, the works’ benchmark however being Tchaikovsky’s own solid pianistic ability. With each piece bearing a programmatic title, the pianist would draw inspiration from each of the various seasons in Russia; familiar to Zartsekel (b.1980, Rostov, Russia), this was a fine choice for him.  He opened with cantabile, personal and gently flexed playing of “June” (Barcarolle), its stormier central section only a temporary hiatus from its sweetly melancholic mood, then to continue with his pensive, moving reading of “October” (Autumn Song), its tristful melodiousness exquisitely shaped. Zartsekel also performed two of Rachmaninoff’s op.23 Preludes (1901-1903). His playing of the gently meandering Prelude in D-major op.23/4 offered the seamless weaving of gorgeous melodies with articulacy, his use of the sustaining pedal never blurring, as he guided the listener through the many keys of the essentially Romantic Rachmaninoff’s agenda.  The B-flat major prelude op.23/2, on the other hand, is all energy, representing Rachmaninoff the towering pianist. (His large hands were able to reach a twelfth on the keyboard.) Rich in lavish chords and runs, even the subdued middle section moves relentlessly forward, Zartsekel gave expression to its rich layering and joyousness.

The program also included Rachmaninoff’s two suites for two pianos. Of the two suites Dror Semmel writes that they "are among his best works and his writing for two pianos is absolutely remarkable. Truly amazing textures and sonorities. Not easy..." In No.1 (Fantasie-Tableaux) in G-minor for two pianos op.5 (1893), each tableau was inspired by a different poem. Ron Trachtman and Dror Semmel presented the scenes in a kaleidoscope of richly-coloured musical textures, not in a programmatic sense but certainly descriptive and alive with such effects as rippling water (Barcarolle), bird calls (The Night…the Love) and bells (Easter). The third movement – “Tears” -  never fails to amaze with its uniquely canonic play of teardrops, falling singly or cascading down.
‘Tears, human tears
You flow both early and late —
You flow unknown, you flow unseen
Inexhaustible, innumerable —
You flow like torrents of rain
In the depths of an autumn night.’ (Fyodor Tyutchev)
Trachtman and Semmel’s performance of “Easter” concluded the work with a vibrant, intense and festive canvas of large, powerful Russian Orthodox church bells, as “all the booming air rocks like the sea…” (Alexei Khomyakov).

Performed by Semmel and Zartsekel, we heard Suite No.2 in C-major for two pianos op.17, written by Rachmaninoff in 1901,  its forthright opening March was followed by the frolicsome Waltz, so interwoven in its two-piano texture that the two piano parts could hardly be distinguished by the ear…one was drawn to following it visually. Then to the Romance, lyrical and introspective, peppered with a more impassioned middle section. The concluding feisty Tarantella, with its driving rhythms contrasting with its refined passagework, was a true tour de force, demanding staggering virtuosity on the part of both artists.

The concert ended with all three pianists performing Michael Zartsekel’s arrangement of “The Great Gate of Kiev”, the dazzling conclusion to Modest Mussorgsky’s “Pictures at an Exhibition”. Inspired by an architectural design for a gate in massive Russian style, the constructional project never saw the light of day. Scoring his arrangement for three pianos means that Zertsekel, using massive, muscular chords, large musical proportions and a good dose of sustaining pedal for Mussorgsky’s noble chordal melody and victorious tolling of bells, has his audience sitting at the edge of their seats as he evokes the grandness of the gate. For their encore, the artists performed Michael Zartsekel’s arrangement of the Waltz from Tchaikovsky’s “Sleeping Beauty”, bringing to an end a concert of outstanding performance.



Michael Zartsekel,Ron Trachtman,Dror Semmel (Shmuel Semmel)

 


 

 

 

Swiss organist Marc Fitze at the Redeemer Church (Jerusalem)

One of the events of the 2012-2013 Israel International Organ Festival, under the auspices of the Israel Organ Association, was “Sound of the Animals”, a recital by Marc Fitze (Switzerland) on February 16^th 2013 at the Lutheran Church of the Redeemer in  Jerusalem’s Old City.  Installed in the Redeemer Church in 1971 the organ, built by Karl Schuke (Berlin), has 21 registers connected to two manuals and the pedal; it is an instrument rich in timbres and vitality.

Marc Fitze began piano- and organ studies in Bern, later moving to the New England Conservatory (Boston, USA) to study with Yuko Hayashi. He has won prizes for composition and organ and has given organ recitals in Europe, Mexico, the USA and Japan. His recordings include Saint-Saëns’ “Carnival of the Animals” on the new Fisk organ in the Lausanne Cathedral. Fitze has also specialized in the art harmonium, its repertoire and restoration of the instruments. Fitze is the organist of the Bern Heiliggeistkirche (Holy Spirit Church)  and is organ professor at the Bern Music Academy. This was the artist's first concert tour of Israel.

The program began with Fitze’s transcription of the first movement of Joseph Haydn’s (1732-1809) Symphony no.83 in g minor “The Hen”. Composed in 1785, the work is one of the “Paris Symphonies”. Opening with hearty sound, the movement is peppered with Haydenesque humor and joy. The fact that the composer’s scoring was for strings, flute, two oboes, two bassoons and two horns presented no problem to Fitze, whose transcription of the piece was a feast of colors and dynamic variety, the hen motif (introduced by the  oboe) making articulate entries in this spirited and somewhat theatrical (opera buffa?) movement.

Jean-Philippe Rameau’s 1728 “Nouvelles suites de pieces de clavecin” (New Suites for Harpsichord) includes nine genre pieces in the scale of “g” (major and minor), one of the best-known being “La Poule” (The Hen). With its repeated notes effectively imitating the clucking (or pecking) of chickens, Fitze’s reading of the witty work, complete with lively spreads, took on large changes of registration as the five repeated notes return continuously as if becoming more insistent. Remaining on the avian theme, the “Ballet of the Unhatched Chicks” from Modest Mussorgsky’s (1839-1881) “Pictures at an Exhibition” originally for piano (1874) describes a costume design by Victor Hartmann for “Trilby”, a ballet with music by Julius Gerber. Fitze chose a frothy, weightless and slightly muted timbre for the opening of the frenetic dance, moving into a more bell-like sound. After hearing the orchestration of Mussorgsky’s work, Fitze’s performance of it makes a valid case for playing it on the organ.

We then heard Swiss organist, composer and pedagogue Lionel Rogg’s “La Femme et le Dragon” (The Woman and the Dragon). Rogg, (b.1936, Geneva), is known to be a virtuosic organist and improviser; these qualities were, indeed, the basis of “La Femme et le Dragon”. Beginning with a melody played against a static cluster, Fitze gave a daring performance of a work that is uncompromising in intention and almost visual, bristling with intensity and unreserved effects – ominously low fortissimo sounds, noise, eerie buzzy melodies, some brighter moments and, finally, a tranquil, ethereal, remote and otherworldly soundscape created in long, held sounds. In his presentation of the work’s forthright utterance of power, anguish and struggle, Fitze cuts no corners.

Then, to Camille Saint-Saëns’ (1835-1921) “Carnival of the Animals” in Fitze’s own transcription for organ: in a series of whimsical vignettes reflecting the composer’s personal observations of the animal world (organists – originally pianists – included in the category!) Fitze literally re-orchestrates the small pieces in the most authentic manner.  His gentle subtle flexing of rhythms creates a sympathetic elephant waltz, punctuates the kangaroo’s leaps and conjures up a lush, European forest from the depths of which the cuckoo’s modest call is so moving. The aquarium of gliding fish is glistening and silvery and the aviary boasts birds in full throat in playing that is brilliant and vibrant with fine passagework. The fossils merge with “Twinkle, twinkle little star” and the regal swan, the water lapping around her, glides majestically in pastel “covered” sounds. Only the organists, worriedly practicing and trying to improve their scale-playing, are not at one with nature. The concert concluded with Fitze’s exuberant and virtuosic playing of the Finale. Throwing a new and highly creative light on the pipe organ’s range of possibilities, Marc Fitze uses color generously, yet addressing detail and precision.  He is an artist of rare talent.