Sardonic Salute

From the Classical Vault Dept.: William Bolcom’s Piano Concerto No. 2 was premiered in April of this year, by Igor Levit and the Mahler Chamber Orchestra conducted by Elim Chan. “Don’t bother asking whether the premiere took place in the United States,” wrote Seth Colter Walls in the New York Times, “where major presentations of music by Bolcom, an American, have fallen out of fashion. Instead, this new concerto was presented in Germany, at the Heidelberger Frühling Festival.” It wasn’t always that way. I first heard Bolcom’s first piano concerto in Saratoga in 1987, when Bolcom was composer-in-residence with the Philadelphia Orchestra at the Saratoga Performing Arts Center. Those days are long, long gone. Here’s my review of the evening.

                                                                                         

WILLIAM BOLCOM’S PIANO CONCERTO, performed Friday night by soloist Emanuel Ax with the Philadelphia Orchestra, is a piece calculated to amuse and to offend. The last of a series of works by Bolcom performed at the Saratoga Performing Arts Center to honor him as composer-in-residence, it’s a piece you can point to and shout, “There! That’s a truly American work!”

William Bolcom
Photo by Peter Smith

Written in 1976, it reflects Bolcom’s concern with the bicentennial mania growing throughout the country, and manages to be critical and celebratory at the same time.

He is one of the very few contemporary American composers able to speak a native musical language without sounding condescending, which is in itself very refreshing and certainly prompts some nationalistic pride in the listening.

The work also closely examines the role of the piano in the concerto form, experimenting with different angles and settings. At times it was the aural equivalent of that old optical illusion of a drawing of a cube that points towards or away from you: Was the pianist dominating the orchestra or vice-versa? Coming as this piece did right after a Mozart concerto (No. 25 in C Major), it offered a stunning contrast to Mozart’s antique sweetness. Listening to the older work was an exercise in nostalgia; Bolcom’s concerto made a statement about our country, our century, and us as listeners.

A good reminder, too, that good music doesn’t always have to drift into the background (as bad music inevitably does). Lawn chairs and wine bottles aside, listening to music – listening to anything – shouldn’t be a passive experience, but the narcotic effects of a tune have been exploited in so many elevators and lobbies that it’s easy to forget what active listening is all about. The finale of the work is delightfully offensive, beginning with half-remembered quotes of patriotic songs laced together with an original, quasi-patriotic tune. The musical equivalent of “my country, right or wrong,” but rendered with sardonic detachment. I couldn’t help but think of that middling celebrity, Lt. Col. North. offering his jingoistic defense before Congress, as the orchestra slammed out each fragment, including a brilliant mid-phrase segue from “The Battle Hymn of the Republic” into “Taps.”

Dennis Russell Davies led the orchestra with his usual brio, clearly sharing their enjoyment of this astonishing work. And soloist Ax was equally superb. It was as if they were saying, “You had your fix of Mozart. Now sit up and take some notice.”

The program opened with the tone poem “Don Juan” by Richard Strauss in a performance that set the orchestra cooking. There is a transparency about this work when the players are all masters of their parts, as was the case Friday night.

What do you follow a work like the Bolcom concerto with? The choice of Ravel’s “La Valse” was a good one – it’s sardonically merry in its own way, kissing off the Viennese waltz tradition in a style that is in itself quite danceable. Ravel and Bolcom probably would have gotten a big kick out of one another.

– Schenectady Gazette, 17 August 1987

                                                                                              

AN EXTRA COUPLE OF WILLIAM BOLCOM’S WORKS were slipped into the Friday evening program at the Saratoga Performing Arts Center. Those who came a little early were treated to the Philadelphia Woodwind Quintet’s world premiere of “FiveFoldFive” with guest artist Dennis Russell Davies at the piano.

“I have no idea why I chose that as the title,” Bolcom explained while introducing the work. “It really was one of those things that came to me in a dream, and the piece goes through the same things that happen to you in a dream: you get bigger. you get smaller, you change shape and suddenly you’re you again. But it may turn out to be a nightmare in spots.”

Actually, it was a well-controlled and witty piece that began with the pianist mockingly anticipating what the winds were about to do, in a bumbling-sounding cluster with the same uncomfortable fuzziness as an FM station that’s not tuned in properly.

And then they got tuned, so to speak, played a unison phrase, and the winds began to toss a jaunty figure among themselves.

Bolcom works in many musical areas, the least accessible of which is his voice as a serious composer. This summer his appearance as SPAC’s composer-in-residence has given us the opportunity to learn that voice, and understand how truly representative this sextet is.

As usual, he indulged his predilection for examining American musical stylings. A passage reminiscent of a ’50s TV detective show gave way to a fast-paced boogie-woogie that riffed its way back into the contemplative finale.

The players included flutist Murray Panitz, clarinetist Anthony Gigliotti, bassoonist Bernard Garfield, Nolan Miller playing French horn, and oboist Richard Woodhams.

Woodhams and Davies also performed Bolcom’s “Aubade,” a sweet, chaconne-like piece written in memory of pianist Paul Jacobs. The program opened with one of the few other works for wind quintet and piano, the sextet by Francis Poulenc.

– Schenectady Gazette, 17 August 1987