Reviews

GSA Faculty Recital
Songs by Poulenc and Coxe, Chamber Music by Raskatov and Shostakovich
GSA Orchestra Studio, January 11, 2018
Review by John Campbell

Four works were presented in the warm, clear acoustic space of the Governor's School for the Arts Expansion Orchestra Studio. All performances were by current GSA faculty.

Vocal Music Instructor mezzo-soprano Adriane Kerr and pianist Stephen Coxe presented Tel jour, telle nuit (Such a day, such a night), a setting by Francis Poulenc (1899-1963) of poems by French Surrealist poet Paul Eluard (1895-1952). These nine songs were designed as a unit that should always be sung together. They tell of love as a transcending force, not just a passing sensuality. Eluard's surreal images allowed Poulenc's natural lyricism to find great expression. The cycle moves through a single day from happy optimism tinged with melancholy at dawn through the urgency of lovers turning out the lights in the last song. The moods expressed range from well-being to mystery, despair, drama, desire, ephemerality, intimacy, denial and finally resolution. Ms. Kerr's rich voice captured succinctly the vast range of emotional expression with bursts of power, fast choppy expressions of hurricane force, quiet moments, expanding joy and a soft enfolding of lovers at close of day, all delivered to involve the audience. Dr. Coxe was the perfect partner in this extravaganza of vocal passion.

Next came Whitman Songs (2014) composed by Stephen Coxe who accompanied Musical Theater Vocal Tech mezzo-soprano Suzanne Oberdorfer. These four texts by Walt Whitman (1819-1892) were set in memory of Lee Teply (1953-2014) and premiered in December 2014 and January, 2015. Poet Walt Whitman had a big heart and traveled widely throughout the country, capturing the energy of what our country was and could become.

Ms. Oberdorfer sang the vernacular American speech just right. The story told in On the Beach at Night is that of a little girl and her dad. As Whitman says “Something there is” in their relationship that will outlast the sun and stars. The second song, That Shadow, my Likeness, explored self knowledge.

In From Montauk Point, the poet speaks of seeing sea and sky from an eagle's eye (like we've now seen on PBS) and the waves are still breaking. The fourth song, A Clear Midnight, is a meditation on the soul's taking flight by focusing on the poet's best loved themes, night, sleep, death and stars. Ms. Oberdorfer's crystal-clear delivery of text and the composer's piano worked together beautifully.

A charming instrumental duet new to this listener was next. Dolce far niente (The sweetness of doing nothing), written by Russian composer Alexander Raskatov (b. 1953), was played by cellist Jeff Phelps and pianist Coxe. The stage was set with a stand for bells in a mesh bag by the piano and a wind chime beside the cellist's chair. It all began very quietly with pauses between cello notes and sounds of distant percussion produced by the piano and gently rustled bells by the pianist. A skipping bow across cello strings interrupted the meditative mood, followed by dramatic, slow-paced piano chords, interrupted by the tinkling bells as the pianist whistled sweetly.

Echoes of musical phrases passed between the players and the disconnected flow continued until three detached piano notes and rustled bells by turn led to the sound of chimes to end. Composer Raskatov has avoided the stylistic orbit of his Russian musical elders, creating his own musical language—one of “humility and exquisite civilization“—offering refined attention to detail balanced by an attractive emotional openness. He delights in boyish high spirits. Personally, we hope that his theatrical works for Moscow percussionist Mark Perkasky will soon be added to one of Stephen Coxe and Friends evenings of chamber pieces.

Who knew that a young, world-class violist was now teaching at GSA? After intermission the 35 minute Sonata for Viola and Piano, Op. 147 (1975) by Dmitri Shostakovich was played by Laura Seay, viola with Dr. Coxe at the piano. Her superb playing of the complex sonata seemed effortless, smoothly coordinated with the piano.

Dr. Seay's bachelor's and master's degrees are from Juillard and her doctoral degree is from the University of Colorado. She has performed with Itzak Perlman, Paul Katz, Jeremy Denk and others. In 2003 she appeared on Live from Lincoln Center with Perlman and members of the Pearlman Music Program. She came to Hampton Roads with her husband, a Navy pilot.

Opus 147 completed Shostakovich's catalog of works; he did not live to hear his Viola Sonata performed. The angst in the first movement is mostly lyrical and resigned but the viola does cry out with plucked strings that are sometimes whimsical and at other times mysterious. The second movement offers a folk dance-like forward thrust, all propulsive energy. This cools into repetitive piano chords in the left hand with occasional excursions in the right, only to return to the wild, folk dance before it ends. Shostakovich characterized the finale of the third movement as “radiant music,” an adagio in memory of Beethoven. The piano opens with a quote form the Moonlight Sonata and the viola opens with the sweetness of Schubert but before the classical ending there is a raucous middle that is typical Shostakovich.

Once again Stephen Coxe has anchored an evening of intriguing, well-played chamber music that included a large portion of art song. Only his presence and willingness to program seldom heard works makes it possible to hear this kind of program in Hampton Roads. A big thank you to all the talented performers and staff of GSA for getting the new year off to a terrific start.

GSA Orchestra with Soprano Stephanie Marx
Roper Performing Arts Center, January 16, 2018
Review by John Campbell

After two snow delays the Governor's School for the Arts Orchestra was able to offer their January concert of music by Bernard Herrmann, Tchaikovsky and Richard Strauss. There was a great sense of anticipation as the 80 piece orchestra assembled on stage and Concertmaster Joshua Castro led the orchestra in tuning. Deborah Thorp had welcomed the audience and percussionists Chloe Carpenter and Keoni Chavez told us about the $55,000 challenge grant from the E.K. Sloane Piano Fund of the Hampton Roads Community Foundation for a new Steinway piano. Donations are needed to complete the 50% matching funds. Contact Deborah Thorpe at GSA for details.

Conductor Jeff Phelps appeared on the podium and gave the downbeat for Vertigo Suite by Bernard Herrmann (1911-1975) . This three-movement suite drawn from the original score for director Alfred Hitchcock's 1958 movie Vertigo had energized the film and at times provided the main narrative force and suspense as the story unfolded. Prelude offered inner drama, holding us in thrall as the movie's hero has a near-fatal fall from a rooftop. The second section, Nightmare, offered music colored by castanets and tambourine rhythms of the heroine's suicidal obsession with her tragic Spanish ancestor. Edgy string playing in the third movement, Scène d'Amour, creates a sense of vertigo. It begins quietly with an open sound that blooms into a lush romantic tune.

The Hamlet Overture-Fantasy (1888) was commissioned for use in the play but Pyotr Tchaikovsky (1840-1893) missed the deadline and instead wrote this colorful tone poem. Instead of portraying events he gives a musical character sketch of the deeply disturbed Hamlet. In this 17 minute piece we hear powerful, rich, romantic music. In this brilliant scoring, the orchestra shone in a theme beginning in the low strings and passed in a circular motion to the violins in a quadraphonic effect repeated again and again. The horns played softly and gave the effect of being far away and moving closer. Joined by the entire orchestra, the sound built to a spectacular brass climax. A pretty string melody led back to romantic loveliness—a waltz that swelled, then subsided. It is followed by a marching tune that speeds to a gallop. The playing was uniformly precise, building with dramatic energy, then to a quiet ending.

For several months we had anticipated the prospect of hearing local soprano Stephanie Marx sing Richard Strauss (1864-1949) Four Last Songs (1948) . We were privileged to be present for her first run-through with the GSA orchestra in early October and were excited to hear the final product since this is one of my most beloved orchestral song cycles. The music is written so that at times the voice is embedded in the overall orchestra sound—just another instrument—only to emerge with great power and beauty. The long, lyrical lines can be a great challenge for smaller voices, but with power to spare, Ms. Marx gave us a glorious experience, accompanied by what she termed “the best high-school orchestra I have ever heard.”

The texts of the first three songs, by poet and novelist Hermann Hesse (1877-1962), titled Früling (Spring), September and Beim Schlafengehen (When Falling Asleep), appear in English translation in the program. The cycle travels from the awakening of life and light in spring to the closing down of nature in fall toward the sleep of winter. Here the poet shifts from speaking for all of nature to a single individual standing by the last rose of summer, longing for rest. The very last song, Im Abendrot (At Sunset) by poet Joseph von Eichendorff (1788-1857), is about an old couple walking hand-in-hand in nature as darkness comes on, sweetly enfolded in the beauty of the natural world and their fulfilled love. The beauty of music and voice was overwhelming. Growing weary of wandering, the couple wonder ”... is this perhaps death?” Who needs a heavenly choir when you have this music by Strauss.

A closing note: nine of the players were GSA alumni, three were GSA faculty and four were guest artists needed to fill-out a full, Strauss orchestra. Kudos to all for this beautifully realized and very musically demanding concert.