"Kadosh, Kadosh and Cursed" - the Israel Contemporary Players, conductor: Zsolt Nagy, perform new, prize-winning works of Yitzhak Yedid, Keiko Devaux and Yotam Haber

 

"Kadosh, Kadosh and Cursed", the Israel Contemporary Players' concert on December 12th 2021 at the Jerusalem Music Centre, was a festive event, presenting the Israeli premieres of  works of the 2020 Azrieli Music Prize laureates - Yitzhak Yedid (Azrieli Prize for Jewish Music), Yotam Haber (Azrieli Commission for Jewish Music) and Keiko Devaux (Azrieli Commission for Canadian Music).  All three composers were in attendance. Conducting the Israel Contemporary Players was Zsolt Nagy, the ensemble's principal conductor and artistic advisor as of 1999. Soloist was contralto Noa Frenkel. The world premieres of all three works took place at the Salle Bourgie of the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts in 2020, with Lorraine Vaillancourt conducting Le Nouvel Ensemble Moderne.  The Azrieli Foundation was established by David Azrieli in 1989 as a philanthropic effort based in both Canada and Israel. Established in 2014, at the initiative of the Azrieli Foundation, the prize aims to discover and promote new music, encouraging ensembles to perform and celebrate current composers.

 

Born in Jerusalem in 1971, pianist-composer Yitzhak Yedid today makes his home in Perth Australia, teaching at Griffith University, but retains a strong emotional connection to Jerusalem. "Kadosh, Kadosh and Cursed" (2020) speaks of Jerusalem of today, the work "inspired by the Temple Mount in Jerusalem – that holy yet explosive place, sacred to Muslims and Jews alike… a documentary of sorts, about a blessed place (Kadosh Kadosh), which is also a locus of curses, of intra-religious violence. Kadosh, Kadosh and Cursed is therefore a conflicting homage to my hometown, Jerusalem." From its confrontational clamorous opening sounds, the bi-partite piece draws the listener into the multi-dimensional and highly charged tableau, one rich in associations with Arabic music and in music of both Sephardic and Western Jewish communities, an almost visual collage of peoples and cultures, wrought of massive tutti, heavy piano clusters, screeching glissandi, at times, dancelike rhythms, also gentler, homophonic utterances, beguiling solos and soothing, even otherworldly effects. As with many of the composer's other works, its style is both modern and multi-ethnic. The underlying element running throughout this work, however, spells tension and that is Yedid's message as he creates the 14-strong instrumental medium with masterful panache and ingenuity. "Kadosh, Kadosh and Cursed" is experiential, moving and real.

 

In 2019, the AMP created a new prize - the Azrieli Commission for Canadian Music. The inaugural winner of this award was Keiko Devaux with the work she calls "Arras". Here, Devaux (b.1982, British Columbia), a Montreal-based composer currently pursuing a doctorate in music composition and creation at the Université de Montréal, takes a new approach in her writing: "Arras" is the first piece in which she actively explores her Japanese-Canadian heritage. In an interview with Camille Kiku Belair, the composer explains: “I feared, being a woman composer of half Japanese Canadian heritage, that my profile as a composer would be more focused on my identity rather than my explorations and voice as a composer". "Arras" (the term for an elaborate French tapestry or wall hanging) scored for a 14-instrument ensemble, presents a timbral weave of various textures, creating a work in which a noble, modal, lengthy-phrased melody is surrounded by constantly shifting textures, some strident, others cushioned in lyrical dissonance. A piece mesmerizing in its sonic layering, delicacy and sense of infinitude, "Arras" is a positive work crossing cultural borders, inviting the listener to probe the many timbres created of Devaux' alluring world of instrumental colour and evoked by the mixing of different sections of the chamber orchestra. 

 

Born in Holland in 1976, Yotam Haber grew up in Israel, Nigeria and the USA. Today, based in Kansas City, Haber is associate professor of Composition at UMKC Conservatory and artistic director emeritus of MATA, the non-profit organization founded by Philip Glass dedicated to commissioning and presenting new works by young composers worldwide. The work designating him as a 2020 laureate of the Azrieli Commission for Jewish Music is "Estro Poetico-Armonico III" for mezzo-soprano, 15 musicians and playback, the of a series of song cycles Haber began in 2012. The work's title derives from Benedetto Marcello’s Psalm settings, a collection composed after the Italian Baroque composer had attended and transcribed liturgical chant melodies of the Venice synagogue. Haber, who has made a study of ethnomusicologist Leo Levi's recordings of the music of Jewish communities in Italy, takes inspiration from the hope that such an ancient oral tradition can withstand time and change. In Haber's words: “Like the Telephone Game {Chinese whispers}, where children whisper messages from one ear to the next, a purely oral tradition will mutate. My own Estro is a sort of Telephone Game, with my own re-hearings and re-casting of the past." To each of the five movements, Haber has paired one of Leo Levi's recordings with an Israeli poem, thus evoking the reality of modern life in Israel in a kind of representation of the country's history, at the same time, shedding light on traditions of Italian Jewish liturgical singing. The result is an emotional three-dimensional fabric consisting of recorded Italian singers, the instrumental ensemble with audio playback and mezzo-soprano Noa Frenkel's singing of the five songs. A versatile artist with an affinity for many musical styles, Frenkel's performance was both powerful, convincing and moving as she traversed vocal registers with ease, colouring gestures with her accessible range of dynamics and emotions, fine diction and clean intonation. The ICP instrumentalists gave vivid expression to Haber's score. Here, as in the two former works, Maestro Zsolt Nagy addressed each filigree musical thread and gesture with the painstaking detail, attention, depth of understanding and dedication for which he is known. 

Yotam Haber,Noa Frenkel,Keiko Devaux,Maestro Zsolt Nagy,Yitzhak Yedid (Yair Yedid) 

The Glory of Venice: Caldara, Lotti, Vivaldi - Ensemble PHOENIX (director Myrna Herzog) hosts The Madrigal Singers and soloists in a program of sacred and secular Italian Baroque music

Photo: Yoel Levy

 

When music-lovers speak of the splendour of the Baroque, Venice is quick to come to mind, in particular, the musical establishment of the Basilica of San Marco and Claudio Monteverdi, who produced the two surviving operas of his maturity there. It was in Venice that the first public opera house opened in 1637. The city’s plazas were alive with the sounds of religious processions and carnival celebrations, prosperous merchants and aristocrats hosted private musical soirées in their palazzos and the "ospedali" (charitable religious institutions caring for orphans and other wards of the state), where Vivaldi was employed, gave their charges such exclusive musical education that many went on to become impressive performers. In a recent concert "The Glory of Venice: Caldara, Lotti, Vivaldi", Ensemble PHOENIX offered audiences a glimpse into the magnificence of the music of Baroque Venice, music both sacred and secular. Conducted by PHOENIX founder and artistic director Myrna Herzog, a small instrumental ensemble on period instruments was joined by The Madrigal Singers (director: Itay Berkovich) and soloists Tal Ganor, Monica Schwartz (sopranos), Rona Shrira (alto), Yonathan Suissa (tenor), Hagai Berenson (baritone), Noam Schuss (violin) and two soloists from the Madrigal Singers - Omri Aizenbud (tenor) and Matan Gendelman (bass). This writer attended the concert on December 9th 2021 in the chapel of the Monastery of St. Vincent de Paul (Jerusalem), an impressive 19th century ecclesiastical structure.

 

Israeli audiences may not be aware of the importance of the influence the compositional styles of Antonio Lotti and Antonio Caldara had on such composers as Bach, Handel and Mozart. In fact, some view Lotti's Requiem as the most important Requiem before Mozart’s. Opening the concert was Lotti's Requiem Mass in F major, a work written essentially in the late Baroque idiom, but occasionally recalling certain of Vivaldi’s larger sacred vocal pieces. Characterising the PHOENIX performance were the many contrasts of mood from movement to movement, from a sense of urgency and fate, to plangent moments, to triumphant utterances, indeed, a musical canvas of theatrical gestures, complex polyphony, warmly captivating, up-to-date harmonic progressions and fluid melodies. The soloists, in various groups or solo, either configured against the choir or not, moved in and out of the weave. They gave personal expression to the texts - Jonathan Suissa's musical- and emotional involvement, Tal Ganor's sensitive, carefully sculpted melodic lines in the Mors Stupebit, Monica Schwartz and Rona Shrira's duetting in the tragic Lacrimosa and the interaction between Ganor with Noam Schuss (violin obligato) in the heart-rending Qui Mariam, to mention a few. Dr. Herzog chose to replace the trumpet with the rounded, warm, yet forthright cornetto (Alma Mayer); carrying the wind section splendidly, Mayer and oboist Amir Bakman heralded compelling statements, also folding in agreeably with the timbres of the small string ensemble. In fact, the Requiem's instrumentalization is beguiling, with rapturous solos here and there adding concertante and ripieno effects, striking harmonic effects and dramatic moments. Joining 1st violinist Schuss, Noam Gal's playing was well shaped and communicative. The Madrigal Choir's singing was mellifluous and coherent, its dramatic utterances never forced, its members' diction articulate. A demanding work, with not a weak moment.

 

Today, Antonio Caldara is not a name many would recognise, let alone regard as one of the Italian Baroque's celebrated composers; yet, during his own lifetime and long after his death, he was held in high esteem by composers and theoreticians alike. In fact, history has paid him a double-edged compliment in that his Magnificat setting in C became known by Bach, who re-arranged its Suscepit Israel movement in the early 1740s, thereby giving it a place in the catalogue of his works (BWV1082). At the PHOENIX concert, the Caldara Magnificat was performed as the composer had penned it. Although Caldara's score calls for a sumptuous orchestral force, the small ensemble at the PHOENIX concert, now including timpani: Evgeny Karasik, gave formidable expression to Caldara's compositional manner in a work typical of his mix of conservative and more modern writing. Among noteworthy moments were bass Hagai Berenson's fresh, rich singing and the Deposuit, in which Hila Heller wove a beautiful viola obligato around Rona Shrira's singing of the aria, and with a subtle touch of ornamentation. The choir's engagement in the two sacred works was both musical and profound. Under the attentive direction of Itay Berkovich, we are witnessing the Madrigal Singers becoming one of Israel's top-ranking vocal ensembles.  

 

If spring has traditionally been a time of light-headed revelling, Antonio Vivaldi begs to differ. The scene of the Allegro from "Autumn" (Four Seasons) opens on a country dance at a harvest festival. The music is crisp and uninhibited, the celebration and dancing fuelled by some good Italian wine. You can even hear the carousers falling asleep before re-joining the dance. Not taken at breakneck speed by Herzog (too often the case), she and Schuss transport the listener into the theatrical scene. Schuss peoples it with various rustic characters, delighting us with dramatic rubati, with her fantasy and the wink of an eye, also with her virtuosity and precision. And how supportive an imaginative continuo section can be (Guy Pardo-organ, Katharine van der Beek-Baroque 'cello and Evie Bloom-violone, making her PHOENIX debut) when presenting such a scene!

 

Here's a question: What is a bourgeois German opera composer like Johann Adolf Hasse doing on the secular Venetian scene?  It transpires that Hasse and his wife, opera singer Faustina Bordoni, found employment at the Dresden court in Venice, then in 1773 deciding to retire there to lead a quiet life with the composer, teaching and composing cantatas and religious music. The PHOENIX concert concluded with Hasse's setting of a Venetian gondola song "Mia cara Anzoletta (a far cry from his cantatas and religious music.) The Venetian Canzoni da battello or "boat songs" are quite a unique phenomenon in the musical panorama of the 18th century. These songs, sung in dialect and composed strictly anonymously, were quickly made popular throughout Europe, thanks to an edition by John Walsh who published a collection of them in London in 1742, attributing some to none other than Johann Adolf Hasse! "Mia cara Anzoletta", offering a glimpse into a risqué conversation between two women, was given a joyful, rollicking performance, the PHOENIX dancelike arrangement including all on stage, with Herzog on tambourine and verses portioned off to soloists, ensembles and choir.  

In "The Glory of Venice", Dr. Myrna Herzog and the musicians joining her in this concert paid homage to the golden age of Venice, shedding light on its wealth of sacred and popular music, in performance that was enlightened, exciting and masterful. 

Myrna Herzog (Yoel Levy)

Beethoven's Triple - the Israel Camerata Jerusalem performs at the Jerusalem International YMCA, its new home venue. Conductor Dmitry Yablonsky; soloists Hagai Shaham, Hillel Zori, Arnon Erez

Maestro Avner Biron presents a baton to Jerusalem Mayor Moshe Leon (Yael Ilan)

The Israel Camerata Jerusalem's concert on December 2nd 2021 was a festive affair.The second concert of the current La Tempesta dei Solisti series celebrated the Camerata's move to the Jerusalem International YMCA's auditorium, the Mary Nathanial Hall of Friendship. Words of greetings were given by Ms. Rana Fahoum, the Jerusalem YMCA's chief executive officer, by Adv. Yair Green, chairman of the Camerata board of directors, Maestro Avner Biron, the Camerata's music director, and by Jerusalem mayor Moshe Leon, all of whom talked of the Jerusalem YMCA as a centre of co-existence in the capital. Indeed, the hall itself is rich in historical, religious and artistic features, those of Judaism, Christianity and Islam. Mayor Moshe Leon lit the Hanukkah candles, his fine singing voice resounding through the hall, after which Maestro Biron presented him with a conductor's baton, drawing parallels between the post of mayor and that of the orchestral conductor. "Beethoven's Triple" featured Moscow-born conductor Dmitry Yablonsky and soloists Hagai Shaham-violin, Hillel Zori-'cello and Arnon Erez-piano. 

Felix Mendelssohn wrote his twelve String Symphonies between 1821 and 1823, then adding a final 13th, the "Sinfoniesatz". The string symphonies were written when Mendelssohn was a pupil of Zelter. They reflect the conservative leanings of the teacher and Mendelssohn's own clear debt to earlier classical models. The opening work at the Jerusalem concert was Mendelssohn's String Symphony No. 10 in B minor. Rediscovered only after  World War II, among twelve similar opuses, it was written by the gifted 14-year-old as a composition exercise to be played at one of his family’s reunions. Whether the single surviving movement was followed by two others is not known. Following its first somewhat Haydnesque slow B minor introduction, the dramatic dash that follows is, indeed, pure Mendelssohn, showcasing the passion and sophistication of the young composer. Yablonsky's reading of the work gave expression to its contrasting moods, sparkling melodies, innovative orchestration and vibrant dynamics. Too seldom heard in Israeli concert halls, Mendelssohn's String Symphonies make for appealing, accessible concert fare.

Here's a strange fact: despite its special qualities, Beethoven's Concerto for violin, 'cello and piano in C major Op.56, "Triple", has never enjoyed the success of the composer's other mature concertos. Early critiques were unfavourable, the work being referred to as a "piano trio with orchestra". Well, this is not entirely incorrect, since there is not the dialogue between the orchestra and the soloists to the extent that there is in other concertos, and the three soloists carry virtually all of the musical argument themselves. But how brilliant it is that the trio itself becomes the soloist in a concerto, a role in which has not been cast by any other great composer before, nor has it been since, and the concerto is probably performed less frequently due to the extraordinary requirements for three virtuosi. The reason Beethoven took on the daring venture is said to have been to provide Archduke Rudolph, then a 16-year-old student of the composer, with a setting that would "not be as demanding as a solo concerto"... but whether the duke ever managed to play the ambitious role is unclear. Much of the success of performing this work depends on the soloists. This was clear when hearing it in the hands of Hagai Shaham, Hillel Zori and Arnon Erez, all soloists and chamber musicians (Shaham and Erez perform as a duo), all musicians of the same generation and all professors at the Buchmann-Mehta School of Music, Tel Aviv (as is Dmitry Yablonsky). Each gave individual, personal expression to the fine details and gestures of Beethoven's writing, not just because of the different nature of each instrument, the latter, however, also being an interesting aspect of the work. The soloists took on the extraordinary bravura and grandeur of the outer movements with pizzazz, but also with refinement and good taste, as they attentively tuned in to each other, avoiding the excesses sometimes heard in performances of the Triple Concerto; their playing wove delicacy, lyrical beauty and affecting expressiveness through the brief slow movement. With these unconventional forces, Yablonsky maintained a poised balance between orchestra and soloists. Completed in 1803, the Triple Concerto, a work radiant with joy, is a concerto to hear, to observe and to experience together with the musicians performing it.

For an encore, the soloists performed the second movement of Anton Arensky's Piano Trio No. 1 in D minor Op. 32 (1894), a peppy, light-headed, whimsical Scherzo, its sparse string textures played against a running piano part, with a warmly affectionate Slavonic-type waltz as a Trio. 

The Jerusalem Opera presents a concert performance of Giuseppe Verdi's "La Traviata"; conductor: Omer Arieli

Aaron Blake,Olga Senderskaya,Maestro Omer Arieli (Elad Zagman)

 

From its inception in 2011, audiences have delighted in the Jerusalem Opera's productions, the high performance standards the company maintains and in the fact that Jerusalem has an opera company moving from strength to strength. For the Jerusalem Opera's recent concert production of Verdi's "La Traviata" (producer: Slava Kozodoi), musical director/conductor Omer Arieli was joined by the Jerusalem Symphony Orchestra, the Jerusalem Opera Singers (director: Inbal Brill) and overseas and local soloists. This writer attended the performance on November 27th 2021 in the Henry Crown Auditorium of the Jerusalem Theatre

 

Revealing self-confidence and compositional maturity in his 40th year, Giuseppe Verdi takes a break from biblical stories and historical dramas to present audiences with an opera dealing with some of the great moral and social dilemmas of the 19th-century world - prostitution, disease and human passion. Violetta’s life of pleasure, Alfredo’s declaration of love, her escape with him to the country, her sacrifice of this new life due to the social outrage of Alfredo’s father and her death from tuberculosis come together to the sounds of the waltzes and polkas that had taken Europe by storm, evoking the pleasures of drink and sensuality. “A whore must always be a whore” was Verdi's furious response to the censors in Rome who had requested he modify the story of the Parisian courtesan Violetta to be more acceptable to the tastes of a conservative public. Indeed, "La Traviata" tells the story of a woman exploited by a male-dominated society and then cast aside when she becomes a threat to a bourgeois family’s status. Literally translated as "The Fallen Woman", "La Traviata" is the tragic tale of Violetta, who attempts to leave the life she knows behind, in an attempt to finally find true love.

 

From the moment the first scene opens with a grand party of singing and dancing hosted by Violetta, we are swept into the energetic, vital ambience of the Jerusalem Opera's performance. With orchestra and conductor occupying most of the stage, chorus and soloists appear at the front, making for direct communication with the audience and with each other. In performance that was both convincing and never overblown, the soloists were well cast: American tenor Aaron Blake as the tender and somewhat naive Alfredo, his timbral range and timing reflecting each stage of the unfolding drama, baritone Gabriele Ribis (Italy) as the sanguine, understated but resolute Giorgio Germont, bass-baritone Yuri Kissin as the kindly Dr. Grenvil, soprano Inbal Brill as Anina, Violetta's loyal maid, and soloists Oded Reich (Marquis d'Obigny), Esther Kopel (Flora Bervox), Marc Shaimer (Gastone, Visconte de Letorieres) and Dmitry Lovtsov (Baron Douphol).. Born in Yaroslavl, Russia, soprano Olga Senderskaya made for an outstanding Violetta, portraying each situation and emotion in articulate, communicative and dignified singing and body language, allowing for each shade of meaning of the text and music to shine through to the audience. She was exceptional!

 

With Verdi's music moving hand-in-glove with Francesco Maria Piave's libretto, Maestro Arieli and the JSO gave the music a sense of urgency and expectation, emphasizing how intertwined the orchestral score is with the opera's course and characters throughout, as the overtures poignantly conveyed the heartbreak awaiting Violetta and Alfredo. And one never tires of La Traviata's highlights, among them, “Sempre libera”, in which  Violetta laughs off the idea of true love and vows to live for pleasure, even when she hears the voice of Alfredo outside her window, .Alfredo’s bubbling "Brindisi" (drinking song), the symbol of the opera’s good times and joyous hedonism and "Addio del passato", Violetta’s Act III aria, its music harking back to the dances and festivities of Act I, her words, however, renouncing her youthful dreams of love to now accept her approaching death. 

 

The Jerusalem Opera's concert performance left one feeling that La Traviata's portrayal of the superficial glamour of 19th-century Paris, as contrasted with scenes of great intimacy, then culminating in the heart-rending final act, were intense and meaningful without any need for stage sets and backdrops.

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Miri Shamir

Trio Noga returns with a program of Mozart, French music and Israel composer Matan Serry's arrangement of a song by Sasha Argov

Idit Shemer,Shira Shaked,Orit Messer-Jacobi(courtesy Trio Noga)

 

Trio Noga is back with a new program. As most befitting to salon music, the recital on November 24^th 2021, the first of an Israeli concert tour, took place at a private home in Jerusalem. Members of the trio are Idit Shemer-flute, Orit Messer-Jacobi-'cello and Maggie Cole (US/UK)-piano. With Maggie Cole unavailable for the current series, Shemer and Messer-Jacobi were joined by Israeli pianist Shira Shaked. 

 

Trio Noga's program opened with W.A.Mozart's first mature work of the piano trio genre, the Divertimento in B-flat major K.254 (1776), a work representing the unquestioned supplanting of the harpsichord by the pianoforte (actually, the fortepiano), this resulting from important technical advances in piano-building in Vienna. Here, the violin part was substituted by flute (Shemer), and most effectively too. From their buoyant reading of the opening Allegro assai, to the delicate, singing Adagio movement with its somewhat unsettled middle section, to the charming Rondo:tempo di menuetto, the artists gave engaging expression to Mozart's small, lightweight gestures, the work's passing minor dramas and to its many dialogues between piano and flute. 

 

Written originally for piano four hands, Claude Debussy's "Petite Suite", L.65, has undergone many transcriptions. Here, hearing 'cellist/composer Doron Toister's setting, we were immediately drawn into the water-borne serenity and languor of "En bateau" (Sailing), as inspired by a poem of Paul Verlaine, its text describing a sensual ride in a boat on a dark lake at dusk. The instrumentalists recreated the spry canvas of "Cortège" (Retinue), a saucy piece endorsed with a touch of Commedia dell'Arte frivolity and alluring harmonic turns. The final two movements, "Menuet", with its pastoral sensibility and "Ballet", brimming with Parisian joie-de-vivre, delighted the audience with the trio's lightness of touch and rhythmic badinage, with Shemer's poignant, nostalgic and sparkling playing giving voice to the music's mostly pastel, French flavour.

 

Then, to music of French flautist/conductor Philippe Gaubert (1879–1941), often referred to as a "weekend" composer, whose 80-or-so works include several for flute that have become an important part of the instrument's repertoire. Despite his prominence as a conductor and soloist, it is his flute-oriented compositions for which Gaubert is best remembered. Shaked and Shemer played "Deux Esquisses" (Two Sketches for Flute and Piano). In the first, "Soir sur la plaine" (Night on the plain), opening with a fleeting association of Debussy's "Syrinx", a piece rich in fine writing for both instruments, in lyricism, chromaticism and complex rhythms, piano and flute take on independent roles, creating a captivating weave, albeit transparent. "Orientale", another fine concert piece, its piano part at times evoking bells, offers a suggestion of the mysterious and exotic East. Almost orchestral at times, indeed, characterized by sweeping 'cello melodies and long phrases, Trio Noga's playing of Gaubert's "Pièce romantique" emerged collaborative, spontaneous and sensitive. 

 

The house concert concluded with young Israeli composer Matan Serry's arrangement of Alexander "Sasha" Argov's "The Purple Dress" (lyrics: Chaim Hefer), a setting written especially for the Noga Trio. One of the preeminent composers of modern Hebrew song, Argov composed songs that remain an important body of works in the canon of Israeli music, his unique and complex musical language integrating popular- with classical elements. Serry's arrangement is lush, imaginative and suave, offering each of the players the opportunity to shine. Leaving a taste for more, I would suggest Serry arrange two or three more of Argov's songs to produce a congenial group of pieces. 

 

A delightful evening of house music. Kudos to Shira Shaked for contending with the challenges of performing on an electric piano. Trio Noga was established in 2015, with the aim of offering its listeners a new, fresh approach to a well-known and much-loved repertoire, as well as introducing new and rare works to its audiences.

 

The 2021 Jerusalem Piano Festival concludes with a concert featuring three Mozart piano concertos. Conductor: Keren Kagarlitsky

Maestra Keren Kagarlitsky (Rami Zarenger)

 

The Jerusalem Theatre was abuzz with people attending various events of the 9th Piano Festival taking place there from November 10-13 2021. Under the artistic direction of Prof. Michael Wolpe, this year's Piano Festival marked 230 years of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's death. With the Henry Crown Auditorium filled to capacity, the concert concluding the festival was played by the Jerusalem Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Keren Kagarlitsky. On the program were three Mozart piano concertos, these featuring five soloists. 

 

Soloist in Mozart's Piano Concerto No. 9 in E-flat major K.271 was Ishay Shaer.  A work known as the “Jeunehomme,” this was the first of Mozart's piano concertos to appear in print. The work was dedicated to a certain Victoire Jenamy (1749-1812), the daughter of a famous 18th-century ballet master. Tailor-made to Shaer's easeful, clean playing and sensibility, this concerto requires a delicate touch together with superior technical facility, its weave comprising singing melodies decorated with turns, grace notes, and other galant-style gestures, these details more challenging than would appear to the listener. Shaer played along with Mozart's cheeky subversions in the opening Allegro, the Andantino juxtaposing a mournful minor theme with a bittersweet major theme, with the subjects becoming increasingly embellished as the movement progressed. As to the Rondo movement, its spirited, breathless folk-inspired theme and episodes were unexpectedly punctuated by a courtly minuet, probably another case of Mozart’s inexhaustible wit. Who knows whether Mademoiselle Jenamy was capable of playing the concerto? Mozart evidently thought highly of the work, as he himself performed it several times. Shaer brought it off with elegance, vitality and attention to its filigree details.

 

The B-flat Concerto No.27, K. 595 is not only Mozart’s final work in the form but also the last piece he was to perform in public (on March 4, 1791. He died that December at age 35.) Although 1791 was a terrible year for Mozart, Concerto No.27 does not, however, reflect the ill fortune now dominating his life and, with no trumpets or percussion there to dazzle the listener, Mozart's frequent reliance on the winds enhancing its warmth of timbre emerges as a salient feature. Soloing in this concerto, Eitan Globerson joined Kagarlitsky and the JSO in a performance that was subdued, intimate and plainspoken. From the sotto voce piano entry into the gentle, graceful weave of the opening Allegro movement, Globerson's playing in the Larghetto was profound, his phrasing and shaping poignant and elegant. In the final Allegro rondo, his range of emotional pianistic colour amalgamated with yje movement's classical-style virtuosity in playing that was never muscular, its figurations never sounding mechanical, his performance remaining controlled, yet brimming in Mozartian charm and good humour. As to the cadenzas, Globerson's playing of them was radiant, imaginative and suspenseful.

 

Mozart's Concerto No.7 for three pianos in F major K.242 brought the event and, indeed, the 9th Piano Festival, to a glittering close. Written early in 1776, it was commissioned by Countess Maria Antonia Lodron, whose family (neighbours of the Mozarts) played a major role in Salzburg as art patrons. The countess hosted Salzburg's leading musical salon. Mozart tailored the work to the keyboard skills of the countess and her two daughters, Maria Antonia and her elder daughter Aloisia being gifted amateur players, with the younger daughter Giuseppa a less experienced pianist. At the Jerusalem concert, duo pianists Tami Kanazawa and Yuval Admony performed the more challenging roles, with Yaron Rosenthal playing that written for Giuseppa. From the very first notes of the Allegro, a movement characterised by its march-like opening, its lyricism, its minor, fleeting dramas and the cadenza playfully shared by all three pianists, there was a sense of camaraderie and musical connectedness between pianists and orchestra. The Adagio offered the audience bountiful magical moments, its feather-light gestures, velvety sonorities, personal expression and subtle dialogues alluring and wistful, to be followed by the noble Rondeau-Tempo di Minuetto, courtly in character and rich in its assortment of musical ideas, to be signed out with a droll coda deception, another Mozartian wink of an eye. A work to delight players and listeners, indeed, excellent festival fare, the viewing of its performance is, in my opinion, strategic to one’s full appreciation and enjoyment of it. This was clear by the enthusiastic response of audience in the Henry Crown Hall. 

 

Competently drawing orchestral players and soloists together at this festive event, young up-and-coming Jerusalem conductor Keren Kagarlitsky directed the proceedings with artistry, insight, discretion and clarity of concept as to Mozart's music, highlighting its "deep emotion with a touch of lightness, which is the most difficult thing to do", in the words of French conductor and composer Alexandre Desplat. 

 

The 2021 Piano Festival (Jerusalem) - Duo pianists Tami Kanazawa and Yuval Admony perform works of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and his sister Nannerl

Tami Kanazawa, Yuval Admony  (Yonatan Shlomo)

 

Under the artistic direction of Prof. Michael Wolpe, the 9th Piano Festival (November 10-13, 2021) taking place at the Jerusalem Theatre, marked 230 years of the death of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. At the centre of the festivities were several of Mozart's piano concertos, their solo roles performed by Israeli pianists of various ages. In addition to the concerto events, there were chamber music concerts, these also featuring little-known works of the composer, one of Mozart's sister Maria Anna (Nannerl), jazz (Guy Mintus Trio), vocal music and some new works performed by the Jerusalem East-West Orchestra. Prof. Wolpe gave two lectures. 

 

A recital on November 10th by duo pianists Tami Kanazawa and Yuval Admony turned out to be a family affair, starting with the fact that the two pianists, widely-performing artists, who have received prizes and rave reviews in the United States, Europe, Canada, Cyprus, Israel, Korea and Japan, are a married couple. They opened their recital with an arrangement of Mozart's Concerto for Piano and Orchestra No.15 in B-flat major K.450. Originally scored for piano, flute, two oboes, two bassoons, two horns, and strings, the K.450 has been quoted as being the composer's most difficult concerto. In a letter to his father in 1784, Mozart referred to Concertos Nos.15 and 16 as "concertos which are bound to make the player sweat", also pointing out the particular importance of the wind instruments in the two works, both elements to be reckoned with when hearing it as Hugo Ulrich and Robert Wittmann's arrangement for 4 hands (one piano.)  Admony (primo) and Kanazawa (secondo) presented the character of each movement - the charm of the Allegro, the dignified and serene variation-form Andante and the spirited Allegro finale, with moments of the latter's joyful rondo form a gentle reminder of Mozart's predilection for opera buffa characters. The artists' playing was crisp and buoyant. Admony felt the challenge of this setting to be the maintaining of clear dialogue between soloist and "orchestra" and the contrasting of intimate solos with tuttis. In the finale, he decided to split the main theme between the primo and secondo in order to evoke convincing dialogue between solo piano and woodwinds.

 

As children/teenagers in the 1760s, Mozart and his gifted older sister Maria Anna (Nannerl) greatly popularized four-hand playing all over Europe. It is thought by many that it was Nannerl who had written the Sonata in C major K.19d for four hands. In Mozart’s day, it was customary for the woman to play the primo and the man the secondo. Wolfgang and his sister always played this way, possibly instigating the custom. Indeed, at the Jerusalem Piano Festival concert, Kanazawa took on the primo role. Kanazawa and Admony's reading of the work sparkled in grace and elegance, their discriminating use of the sustaining pedal never clouding the work's singing melodiousness and charming naivete, its wistful and noble episodes and its understatement. Not to be ignored was the richness of the composer's ideas, moods and keys explored in the first movement's development section. Following the appealing, sweetly ambling Menuetto, with its somewhat more agitated F major Trio, Admony and Kanazawa invited the audience to join them on a romp through the final Rondo: Allegretto movement, its unexpected harmonic diversions appearing in the episodes, the sudden pause (always surprising!), the brief, searching Adagio and the final return of the principal theme. One is reminded of the painting of the Mozart family from around 1780 depicting young Nannerl and Wolfgang in cross-handed technique at the keyboard, their father standing by with violin, a portrait of their recently deceased mother behind them on the wall. From 1769 onward, having reached marriageable age, Nannerl was sadly no longer permitted to perform in public.

An appealing evening of salon music,leaving a taste for more!