ComposerJones

Friday night Cazenovia Counterpoint presented a concert titled Lincoln’s Shadow in honor of the bicentennial of Lincoln’s birth as well as celebrating the return of Dorothy Riester’s statue of Abe Lincoln to the Stone Quarry Hill Art Park.  As lovely as it would have been to have the concert at Stone Quarry Hill, logistics brought audience and performers together at St. Peter’s Episcopal Hall once again.    Performing were Sar Shalom Strong, piano (of course!); Cristina Buciu, violin; Elinor Frey, cello; David Neal, bass-baritone (you may remember him as FDR in Eleanor from last week!); and Sabina Kranz, also on piano.

Opening the program was a trio, Lincoln’s Two Americas, written by Eric Sawyer.  The two movements of this work bear titles taken from two of the sections of Walt Whitman’s famous elegy for Lincoln, “When Lilacs Last In the Dooryard Bloom’d,” and were chosen by the composer to represent two aspects of Lincoln’s life.  The first movement speaks to Lincoln’s youth, and the lilting, flowing music fit the sentiment beautifully.  The piano, violin and cello parts waltzed in and around each other, almost dancing as they went.  The second movement was much more somber, speaking to the horrors of the civil war.  Sawyer portrayed the sober mood quite effectively, while still maintaining a triple meter.  Each movement could have stood alone, yet together they became quite powerful.  Even without the text to refer to, this piece tells a compelling story.  This was only the second performance of this work, and the composer complimented the performers afterward on their skill and tremendous interpretation of the piece.

Next the trio accompanied bass-baritone David Neal on Stephen Paulus’ The Long Shadow of Lincoln.  Commissioned in 1994 by the Friends of Music at the Supreme Court, Paulus took his text from Carl Sandburg’s poem of the same name.  We heard David sing the role of FDR in Eleanor last week, but tonight he had the chance to truly shine!  The piece fit his voice perfectly, and he did an outstanding job of changing moods and colors with each new movement.  His voice was haunting as he sang the final line, “We must disenthrall ourselves.”  One audience member likened the composition of this piece to some of the works of Britten, not so much in terms of the style of writing, but in the remarkable craftsmanship in setting the text so well.

Finally, the trio was joined by a second pianist, Sabina Kranz to perform Death Mr. President by Ernst Bacon.  I must give great kudos to Sabina for stepping up and putting in an incredible performance on short notice.  Sabina replaced the original pianist, who suffered a hand injury just last week.  This is a difficult piece, made even more difficult by the score itself.  Hand-written, it seemed to have been done in such a hurry (a deadline to meet, perhaps?) that notes are often mis-written, key signatures are missing most of the time, and the writing is so small it is nearly impossible to read.  (I have seen the score, and did not envy any of the performers their parts!)  Yet Sabina and Sar were so attuned to each other, it was as though they had been performing this forever.  Kudos, also, to the piano tuner, who did such a fine job of matching the Steinway grand to the Yamaha upright so they blended nearly seamlessly – no mean feat!

As for the piece itself, this is one of two incarnations, and the original scoring.  The orchestral version, available on Naxos, is beautiful, and I highly recommend you listen to it.  But this arrangement is slightly different, with some orchestral movements omitted, and other movements added.  It is a complex piece, intricately woven, particularly for the two pianos, and the performers did an outstanding job.  The individual movements are relatively short, and much like Sawyer’s piece, each conveys the mood and story eloquently.  The highlights are too many to mention here, but I feel I must, absolutely must, praise the work of Strong and Kranz on “The Telegraph Fugue.”  Rapid, percussive, stretching far over both keyboards, this is the movement where disaster loomed for the performers.  Yet they flew through it, seemingly easily (although I know it wasn’t), and the excitement went through the listeners like the electricity through telegraph wires.  I think neither the audience nor the performers drew a breath until the last note was played, then we all seemed to take a deep breath at once!

And so concludes another successful event for the Society for New Music and Cazenovia Counterpoint.  The programming this year (as usual) is exciting and cohesive, and the pieces on this concert truly complimented one another as though they were intended to be performed all together.

Tomorrow is Family Arts Day, beginning at 1:00 pm at Stone Quarry Hill Art Park.  Come, hear poetry, music by a Young Composer, and experience dance and West African Drumming.  Hope to see you there!