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DRUMMING @ Chamber Music Society

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Above: percussionist Ian David Rosenbaum

Tuesday February 5, 2015 - A quartet of percussion virtuosos presented works by six composers in the first half of this evening's Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center concert at Alice Tully Hall. After the interval, two of these drum-masters joined pianists Wu Han and Gilbert Kalish for a sensational performance of Bartok's Sonata for Two Pianos and Percussion.

In addition to the kind of spectacular music-making that is status quo at Chamber Music Society, the evening also took on a theatrical quality with the players variously finding themselves in shifting pools of light whenever their featured moments arrived. There was also a sense of dancing as the rhythms moved them. And what rhythms we heard!

Ayano Kataoka, Ian David Rosenbaum, and Christopher Froh faced one another across an altar of drums and cymbals for the opening work, "Meccanico” from Trio per uno for Percussion Trio by Nebojša Jovan Živković.  Dating from the late 1990s, this was the newest work on a programme that spanned six decades of compositions for percussion (the earliest presented work was the Bartok, from 1937). As the trio of players delved into the piece, their impressive range - from whisperingly subtle to violently explosive - set the tone for the entire evening. The audience were with them from note one.

Mr. Froh returned immediately for Conlon Nancarrow's Piece for Tape, written in the 1950s and transcribed for percussion in 2010 by Dominic Murcotti. Mr. Froh's virtuoso performance drew us more deeply into the percussive world, and led us to the evening's most inventive work: Thierry De May's Musique de Tables for Percussion Trio (1987). Latecomers were a distraction just as the piece was starting, but it soon wove its spell.

Ms. Kataoka and Mssrs. Froh and Rosenbaum are seated at a table. Microphones pick up every nuance of their handwork: from tapping to scratching, rubbing, and banging, the table is the instrument. But there's an added dimension: a charmingly witty gestural element where the turning of the musical page becomes part of the act. Hand-clapping and synchronized head movements add to the fun: the music becomes seated choreography.

Followers of New York City Ballet may recall Albert Evans' 2005 ballet IN A LANDSCAPE, set to music by John Cage. The same music, now transcribed for marimba, was given a marvelously subtle performance tonight by Ian David Rosenbaum. His remarkable ability to sustain the hushed and mysterious atmosphere of the piece gave me the chills, actually.

This atmosphere was carried into the next work, Toru Takemitsu's Rain Tree (1981) in which two marimbas and a vibraphone produce kozmic reverberations that seem to emanate from some distant galaxy. Masterful playing by Kataoka, Rosenbaum, and Froh made this work the radiant center-piece of the evening's first half, the spirituality of feeling enhanced by the chiming of tiny bells, as if summoning us to the temple of some long-forgotten god.

We were then snapped out of our reverie by Steve Reich's Drumming Part 1 (1970-71) in which our intrepid trio of drummers were joined by a fourth player, Victor Caccese. Individually stepping up to or away from the drums as the piece evolved, the quartet passed the rhythmic patterns from hand-to-hand with increasingly subtle (or noisy!) modifications keeping the ear on high alert. At one point they flip their drumsticks over and play with the stick-end, producing a different, clacking timbre. Amazing vitality...and the audience loved it.

For the Bartok, two sleek Steinways were parked onstage in a V-formation with the pianists - Wu Han and Gilbert Kalish - facing upstage. Cradled in the embrace of the pianos, Mr. Rosenbaum was seated at his array of timpani whilst Mr. Froh danced nimbly about his xylophone and an array of other instruments. A tiny triangle was perched overall which the two drummers periodically struck as if making a punctuation mark. 

For me, this Sonata for Two Pianos and Percussion served as a prelude to my upcoming performance of Bartok's BLUEBEARD'S CASTLE at The Met. The sonata is rich in both rhythms and textures; tranquility and chaos alternately loom up and then vanish; in the evocative “night music”of the second movement, the pianists evoke a shadowy shimmer of moonlight. Later, jazzy syncopations rock the finale, the timpani rumble and the xylophone pings vibrantly. Tonight's performance, dedicated to the Society's great friend Peter Frelinghuysen, surely made many new admirers for this panoramic Bartok masterwork. 

The evening also marked the announcement of Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center's plans for their 2015-2016 season. Studying the brochure on the train trip home, I realized I'll be spending an awful lot of time at Alice Tully Hall next season. Read all about it here.

The Participating Artists:

 

 

 

The Repertoire:

February 04, 2015 |