Reviews

GSA Faculty Recital: Alan Fischer & Shelly Milam Sing Duets & Solos
Adriane Kerr Sings Ives
February 28, 2020, Miner Music Hall, Norfolk
Review by John Campbell

Tenor Alan Fischer, who retired as head of the Vocal Music Department of the Governor's School for the Arts in June, 2019, opened the program with three solo Neapolitan songs, with Stephen Coxe at the piano. Mr. Fischer capped his 25 years at GSA with a year as “consultant in residence” and with this memorable performance of Italian popular songs from Naples. He was greeted with shouts and applause as he appeared and sang Mama (1940) by C.A. Bixio. An adult son returns home celebrating his mother. Having a son who is a tenor is an advantage for a mother! In Passione (1934) by Valente and Tagliaferri Mr. Fischer holds out his hands offering the song to us. This and other subtle gestures expressed the passion he sang of. Later he leaned on the piano in cabaret fashion as the sentimental love song unfolded in light, sweet voice. He concluded with Ernesto de Curtis 1935 Non ti scordar di me (Don't Forget Me). “There is always a place in my heart for you” was the message and the audience reciprocated in spades! Mr. Fischer has moved to New Hampshire since the school year ended early due to the pandemic.

Violinist and GSA teacher Olivia Cottrell played Nocturne (1926) by Aaron Copland (1900-1990) with Dr. Coxe at the piano. Copland returned from Paris where he studied with Nadia Boulanger. To an apostle of dissonance, the sad, jazzy violin and somber piano were fine. It gave way to a melodious violin tune with spare piano accents, becoming meditative then hollow as the piano takes over with energy. The violin offers thin,high notes before the piece fades away.

Mr. Fischer returned to the stage with the current Vocal Music Chair, the stunningly beautiful and talented Shelly Milam, for a duet from the lyrical opera L'Amico Fritz by Pietro Mascagni (1863-1945), Suzel, buon di. Fritz and Suzel meet on a lovely spring day. He says hello and she offers him a bouquet of flowers and later fresh-picked cherries. He tries to woo her again and again. She resists. Eventually they hold hands as they extoll spring, love and flowers. Dr. Coxe gave them excellent piano support.

Ms. Milam and Dr. Coxe remained in place for a superb Knoxville: Summer of 1915 Op. 24 (1947) by Samuel Barber (1910-1981). The slow walking pace of the piano was perfect for the nostalgic text by James Agee describing a summer evening in Knoxville, Tennessee: “in the time I lived there so successfully disguised to myself as a child.” Ms. Milam's diction was precise and we could understand every word as she created the shades of emotion expressed in the text. Coxe offered vivid piano sections alone as well as backing the intimate singing. The greatest excitement came with these words: “By some chance, here they are, [his family] all on this earth; and who shall ever tell the sorrow of being on this earth, lying, on quilts, on the grass, in a summer evening, among the sounds of night,” leaving the adult existential question of being human hanging in the air as a shattering piano accompaniment explodes. The child is taken into his warm, loving home but "They will not ever tell me who I am." The piano returns to its opening theme, the sound blossoms, then closes gently.

In a total change of pace we were swept into a strange space by the popular Instrumental Music Department Chair Jeff Phelps on cello with Coxe performing Drei Kleine Stüke (Three Little Pieces) Op. 11 (1914) by Anton Webern (1883-1945). All of Webern's lifetime composition output can be played in less than 4 hours. The cello and piano piece we heard lasted less than 3 minutes. It is a great concentration of musical ideas. In the first piece, each wispy phrase of the shared melodic line evaporates into silence and only once moves forward into a brief climax duet. Every note in the piano part has a different dynamic or kind of attack. Every note in the cello has a different method of production—harmonics, pizzicato, arco, on the bridge, on the fingerboard and there is a mood of suppressed agitation in the breathless phrasing. This restlessness comes to the surface in the violent Allegro of the second piece (less than 15 seconds long) and subsides again into the serenity of the third movement—barely audible in an almost motionless Adagio. (CD program notes helped with this description).

Intermission gave us time to regroup for Adriane Kerr's deeply engaging performance of seven of American composer Charles Ives (1874-1954) finest songs. The dreamy piano opening with its dissonant edge in The Housatonic at Stockbridge paints a sound picture of hills and trees by the river in colors of September as it flows toward the sea. The nostalgic feeling in The Things Our Fathers Loved celebrates “the place in our soul” that music from daily life touches. The sappy sentimentality of old feelings relived in the text of Songs My Mother Taught Me was delivered matter-of-factly. Even though Charlie Rutlage is like a raucous children's game or a western movie for children, it was delivered as serious reporting.

Another remembrance of boyhood, The Circus Band tells of the annual visit of the circus to a small, New England town, personalized by a memory of “a lady all in pink who waved to me I think.” Once again a boy in small town America recounts his day in Tom Sails Away. His brother has left to serve in the Great War “over there.” Never to return? The reverent Serenity is ultimately a prayer for peace. Kerr and Coxe communicated perfectly the special moments Ives had in mind.

Maurice Ravel's (1873-1937) Sonata No. 2 for Violin and Piano (1923-1927) was the concluding piece. Johnathan Spence was violinist with Steve Coxe. They demonstrated Ravel's belief that the sounds of violin and piano are incompatible and promoted an interplay of tension as Ravel intended. Early on the sound is ragged. The mood is somber and later a vibrato, like salt-spray on electric wires near the ocean, is heard in the violin.

In the second movement, Blues. Moderato, the blues are expressed as a crying sound in the violin. The third movement, Perpetuum mobile. Allegro, opens with a repetitive piano round that the violin repeats, and the chase is on. The muscular playing never pauses, rushing ever forward. The delicate finger-work by Spence is most impressive. The Bolero-like build-up seems to fly. It was a grand conclusion to an intriguing evening.

Who knew that this would be one of the last concerts of the 2019-2020 season? My, how we do miss them!

I reviewed the January 10, 2020 performance of Ravel's Sonata No. 2 by Coxe and Spence at Chandler Hall on February 4. For the full review click HERE