Rendering 14 Music

Stormy Weather Can Set the Stage for Sounds Both Old and New

‘The Baroque Vanguard,’ at the Miller Theater

   The author of the article is Anthony Tommasini. It was published on April 30, 2013 on the page of the New York Times. The article provides the information about the Miller Theater at Columbia University has long been a hot spot for adventurous programming. But in promoting “The Baroque Vanguard,” the second of three concerts in the theater’s “Bach, Revisited” series, which took place on Saturday night, the presenters may have overstated its novelty.

   In the beginning of the article the author reports that the program was fresh and pleasurable. The lively harpsichordist Kristian Bezuidenhoutjoined Ensemble Signal, the dynamic New York-based contemporary-music group, under its conductor Brad Lubman. Just a week earlier on the same stage the ensemble had played a formidable program of works by the British composer Oliver Knussen, who was in attendance. Then Anthony states saturday’s concert opened and ended with wild pieces separated by 260 years, both inspired by stormy weather: “Chaos” by the French Baroque composer Jean-Féry Rebel was the first, and “Weather One” by the American composer Michael Gordon, written in 1997, the last. In between the ensemble played seldom-heard sinfonias by C. P. E. Bach and W. F. Bach and a well-known piece by their father, J. S. Bach: the Harpsichord Concerto in D minor.

   Futher the author emphasizes that mr. Bezuidenhout, as quoted in the program notes, promised that the combination of old and new works would make for “a very progressive and challenging” experience. But these days juxtaposing old and new music has become quite common.

  Then Anthony, the author of the article, states that still, “The Baroque Vanguard” was a good concert and it was inspiring to see the accomplished players of Ensemble Signal reveling in the 18th-century pieces. “Chaos,” from Rebel’s suite “Les Élémens,” depicts the emergence of the universe from turbulence. From the way it started you might have thought this was some crazy contemporary piece. Cosmic chaos is conveyed through gnashing tremolos and dissonant harmonies. As the music unfolds, the intensity subsides, but the overall flow remains radically formless, until strands of lines and inner voices slowly coalesce.

  In conclusion the author reports of Mr. Gordon’s “Weather One,” an engrossing 20-minute piece scored for six strings, opens with insistent riffs that repeat obsessively, though with strategic alternations and fractured bits. Chaotic weather is evoked through music that sputters, growls and tosses phrases into fits. In the context of this program the piece seemed linked in spirit to the era of extreme Baroque inventiveness.

  As for me I think that the Miller Theater at Columbia University is really an undoubtful spot for  programming. And I believe that more and more concerts will be played in this Theater. So if I had an opportunity to visit it, I wouldn't miss it.