April 1999 - Classical Music

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Arts & Entertainment Preview - April 1999

B Y A U S T I N B A E R

Hocus-Pocus, or The Magus

Ian Bostridge

As perhaps befits an adept of the paranormal, Ian Bostridge -- author of Witchcraft and Its Transformations, c.1650-c.1750 (Oxford Universty Press) -- is himself the object of rather a cult. Wraithlike in appearance, possessed of a honeyed, strangely androgynous timbre and hypersensitive interpretive instincts, the precocious British tenor has at a stroke transformed the entire U.K. music press into his adoring coven. After a recent Manhattan recital Paul Griffiths, an expat at The New York Times, filed a review so delirious that months later readers were still reeling. A paraphrase might go like this: Bostridge wasn't so much interpreting the material as channeling. Witnessing the experience was so intense that a reader could not hope to recapture it. Those who missed the recital were advised to listen to Bostridge's CD of the material, but once only! Then, we were told, pass it on, and treasure the memory. The CD in question, on EMI Classics, was an all-Schumann disc including the famous cycle Dichterliebe (A Poet's Love), which indeed quivers too close to the nerve ends for frequent consumption. Happily, Bostridge has plenty of other numbers in his bag of tricks, so his spells may be savored once more. These days he is lending himself body and soul to the white magic of Franz Schubert and the abstruse supersubtleties of Hugo Wolf. His current tour began in March at the University of Richmond and with the Vocal Arts Society in Washington, D.C. This month he works his wiles at Union College, in Schenectady; at Spivey Hall, in Atlanta; at New York's Lincoln Center; in Philadelphia; and in Toronto. See local listings, and say a prayer.

Building Blocks of Air

Phelps, Masur, and Young

Among serious musicians bent on pushing the envelope, Sofia Gubaidulina is a name uttered with reverence. Born in the Soviet Union in 1931, the composer has progressed from traditional tonality through serialism (the orthodoxy of our first half century's moderns) into regions where none precede her. Especially noteworthy is her use of timbre as a structural principle: a sort of second-order abstraction within the first-order abstraction that is music. This month Kurt Masur and the New York Philharmonic introduce Gubaidulina's latest: Concerto for Two Violas, a commission underwritten by a gift from Tomoko Masur, the maestro's wife, herself a former violist. The eccentric instrumentation -- does any other double concerto for violas come to mind? -- arises in recognition of a pair of singularly well-matched star-caliber soloists within the ranks of the orchestra: Cynthia Phelps, principal viola, and Rebecca Young, associate principal, coequals on this occasion. Under most circumstances the viola is a recessive instrument, pouring its soulful tone discreetly into the broad blend of the strings. Given Gubaidulina's exceptional response to the functional potential of sheer sound, the new concerto could prove one of her most illuminating experiments. (April 29 and 30, May 4; 212-721-6500. The April 29 premiere will be carried live or tape-delayed by 236 radio stations nationwide.)

This Land Is Your Land

Avshalomov, Carney,
Winograd, and Geber (from left)

String quartets take time to mature, though their promise may declare itself early. The American String Quartet advanced to the majors in 1974, winning both the Coleman Competition and the Naumburg Award. This season Peter Winograd and Laurie Carney (violin), Daniel Avshalomov (viola), and David Geber (cello) celebrate their first quarter century with a tour of all fifty states of the Union. Travelwise, April is not their cruelest month, but for frequent-flyer miles it will be hard to beat. Two dates in Hawaii (Honolulu, April 10; Pahala, April 11) precede appearances at the University of New Orleans (April 16) and with the Chamber Music Society of Charleston, West Virginia (April 17). Alaska is on the itinerary next month (Juneau, May 22-26), with the grand finale scheduled for Aspen in August. As a further remembrance of this milestone season the ASQ has released, on six MusicMaster Classics CDs, the complete string quartets of Mozart, a set that bears eloquent witness to the partners' dynamic sense of balance and deep unanimity of purpose. Their four road programs are mixed, deliberately so. As Avshalomov remarks, "The way the music fits together makes as much of a statement about who we are as the way we put bow to string." The recitals combine international staples from Haydn to Bartók with the native voices of the iconoclastic Charles Ives and our unapologetically eclectic contemporary Richard Danielpour. This is as it should be: at its best, this country's musical culture is the whole world's, plus our own.

Austin Baer is a writer based in New York.

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