A Less Than Magical Dream

It is difficult to think of summers in Vancouver without Bard on the Beach, our annual Shakespeare festival. Twenty-five years ago, Bard began its history in the city with a modest single production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Since then, the festival has grown bigger and, in most cases, better. It seems entirely fitting, then, for Bard to celebrate its 25^th summer by revisiting this divine comedy yet again.

From the outset of the performance, it seems clear that director Dean Paul Gibson and costume designer Mara Gottler are aiming for maximum silliness and raunchiness in effect. Hermia and Helena appear in tight-fitting corsets, and Puck dresses throughout in ballet tutu, complete with punk hairdo. A friend remarked that this is a reference to A Rocky Horror Picture Show. Indeed, there are numerous pop culture references throughout the evening. Laughs were milked by slapstick antics that became outdated even in Hollywood decades ago with shows like I Love Lucy and The Three Stooges. Moreover, the production was saturated with sexual innuendoes and double entendre, which would have been acceptable, even funny, if they are done with taste, with cleverness, and if they serve the play.

Rather than using Shakespeare’s immortal and oh-so-beautiful words to elevate us from our everyday existence, the production appears to be aiming at the lowest possible common denominator. If the director thinks that dumbing-down Shakespeare would make the play appeal to a younger audience, he has seriously underestimated what young people are capable of.

Regarding the female characters, I believe the director is aiming to portray these women with assertiveness. However, Gibson seems to have mistaken assertiveness with vulgarity. In the confrontation between Hermia and Helena in Act III, the actors were shouting their lines like men and women in the fish market haggling over the price of the latest catch. Shakespeare, like Mozart in his operas, has always endowed his female characters with wit, with cleverness, and with confidence. The concept of the current production has, to me, robbed the female characters of their true beauty and, more importantly, dignity.

This attempt to update this, probably Shakespeare’s most timeless play, has robbed Midsummer Night’s Dream of all its magical elements. By the time the performance reaches Act V, the play-within-the-play - the “tragedy” of Thisby and Pyramus - feels very tedious with even further attempts at slapstick humour more appropriate for a Christmas pantomime by an amateur theatrical company.

At the end of the performance, I did not feel a sense of wonder, or of joy. I did wonder what, if any, is the director’s concept for the production? Surely there is more to this great Shakespeare play than just to elicit a few laughs from the audience? By the time the performance reaches Puck’s beautiful final monologue, I could not wait to escape into the beautiful summer evening.

Just a few days later, on the same stage, I witnessed a production of Twelfth Night, given by the young players of Bard on the Beach youth programme (“Young Bard”). For me, the enthusiasm and earnestness of the young actors make the performance a much more joyful and joy-filled experience than what the professional players had accomplished a few nights before. Personally, this performance of “unadulterated” Shakespeare is closer to what the playwright had in mind.

In this 25^th anniversary season, Artistic Director Christopher Gaze should feel justifiably proud of what the festival has accomplished. I do hope, however, that Gaze would also carefully examine the future direction for the festival. Rather than using Shakespeare to further whatever personal or political agenda of the director, should they not be directing their talents toward bringing us, the audience, into new and wondrous discoveries and insights into Shakespeare’s heart and soul?

In Search of an Artist's Soul

In the musical world, there are artists who draw listeners into the inner spiritual world of the musical masterpiece, and there are others whose sheer abilities on his or her instrument draw our attention to the potential of that instrument. Pianist Olga Kern, I think, firmly belongs to the latter category of instrumentalists.

Kern made her Vancouver Chopin Society debut last night in a mammoth programme of Schumann, Alkan, Chopin, and Rachmaninoff. I found it curious that the pianist chose to open her programme with Schumann’s Carnaval (Op. 9), a work that many pianists would end their concert with. In fact, opening the concert with Carnaval, and closing off the first half with Chopin’s Sonata No. 2 in B-flat Minor, Op. 35, made Alkan’s Etude in G Major, Op. 35, the work performed between the two major works, superfluous, and nothing more than a vehicle to demonstrate the pianist’s dexterity.

I found Kern’s interpretation of Carnaval, well, uncomfortable. Her excessive use of rubato throughout the work seriously hampers the flow of the music. Moreover, rather than conceiving the set as a whole, I felt that she treats each of the twenty sections as individual pieces, and I missed the sense of organic unity that the work calls for. In Chiarina, her distortion of the rhythm almost completely obliterates Schumann’s passionato indication. In the final Marche des “Davidsbündler” contre les Philistins, there was a lack of a sense of inevitable drive towards the end, in spite of the pianist’s blistering virtuosity.

I was also surprised that Kern decided to play the Sphinxes section. I know that pianists as great as Rachmaninoff had included these few notes in his recording, but I really believe that Schumann intended this section as a riddle, an enigma or a puzzle for the player, and that these notes really shouldn’t be played.

Alkan’s Etude in G Major was well played, and amply demonstrated the young pianist’s considerable ability around the keyboard. Alkan had written many fine and original works, but this piece is really nothing more than a showpiece, not worthy of being in the company of Carnaval and Chopin’s Sonata.

The first moments of Chopin’s Sonata No. 2 in B-flat Minor began promisingly enough, with great drama, and plenty of drive. Came the second subject and Kern’s excessive rubato again destroyed the intricate structure of the first movement. In the left hand octave passage of the coda (mm 230 to 235), she slowed the tempo to such an extent that the impetus of the music was completely gone. In the scherzo, the dramatic A section came off better than the lyrical (Piu lento) B section. I got the sense that Kern was playing from climax to climax. When it came to the lyrical sections of the music, she somehow felt that she had to highlight the music to accentuate its beauty, thus robbing the music of naturalness.

After the intermission, Kern was much more in her element in a selection of three of Rachmaninoff’s Etude Tableaux, as well as a selection of nine Preludes from Op. 23, Op. 32 and Op. 3, ending with a take-no-prisoner performance of the Prelude in B-flat Major, Op. 23, No. 2. The performances here were much more idiomatic and, strangely enough, more natural and flowing.

If I had any reservations about the evening’s performance, I was obviously in the minority. The audience rewarded the pianist with an ovation, and she in turned rewarded the audience with four or five encores. Vladimir Horowitz, a master of pianistic thunder, often played more lyrical pieces in his encores.  Kern would do well to emulate this. All of her encores appeared to be more and more virtuosic. Yes, it was impressive, but I found my ears getting very tired toward the end of the evening, and I yearned to get away to some Bach and Schubert.

In spite of the high volume of Olga Kern’s playing, there was surprisingly a lack of variety in her pianistic colours. Things were either soft or loud. She obviously reveled in passages of great passion and brilliance. Perhaps, like Horowitz, she will mellow in her old age. Looking at the pianist’s face as she brought off another pianistic feat is like looking at the face of a child as he or she speeds down the lane on the new bicycle.

For now, Olga Kern remains, for me, a brilliant instrumentalist that delights in showing off her abilities at the instrument. What I kept wishing for was for her to bare her soul to us through the music that she plays.

Distinguished Recording

Among the many recordings of Chopin’s two piano concerti, there are a few favourites that I keep returning to. As a teenager, I loved (and still do) Arthur Rubinstein’s 1961 account of the first concerto with Stanislaw Skrowaczewski and the New Symphony of London. Soviet pianist Emil Gilels’s recording of the same work with Eugene Ormandy and the Philadelphia Orchestra is another that I have a soft spot for. In 2006, the Altara label released a stunning life recording of Mr. Rubinstein playing the second concerto with the Warsaw Philharmonic and Witold Rowicki. To my ears, this life performance towers above all of Mr. Rubinstein’s other distinguished recordings of this concerto – and that, I think, is saying a lot. I am pleased to say that now there is another distinguished addition to the catalogue of Chopin concerti recordings.

I had been eagerly awaiting pianist Ingrid Fliter’s recording of the Chopin concerti for LINN Records (a company more known for their audio equipment), and she certainly does not disappoint. I have always believed that there are pianists who play Chopin, and then there are artists who are Chopin players. Fliter clearly belongs to the latter (much smaller) group.

Chopin filled the scores of both concerti with numerous expressive markings. To my ears, Fliter had really carefully studied and managed to successfully realize the composer’s explicit instructions on how every detail should be played. More importantly, she did not fall into the trap of making the music sound like a series of beautiful episodes. Each movement within each concerto sounds like an organic whole.,

Fliter’s partners in the recording, conductor Jun Märkl and the Scottish Chamber Orchestra did a remarkable job of bringing out the beauty of the orchestral writing. We must thank this conductor for treating the orchestral writing, so underrated by many conductors and musicologists, with the love and devotion it deserves. In both works, Chopin writes especially lovingly and sensitively for the wind instruments, and this is evident in the playing of the members of the orchestra. The LINN engineers did a remarkable job in capturing the sound of both the orchestra and piano.

The playing by Fliter in these concerti is meltingly beautiful. In the slow movements of both works, there is palpably a feeling of hushed eloquence. I must confess that although the performance of the first concerto is outstanding, Fliter’s playing of the second concerto is spellbinding and magical in every respect, from first note to last. I feel that Fliter realizes Chopin’s instruction for the beginning of the third movement - semplice ma graziosamente - to perfection.

I am guessing that Ingrid Fliter’s association with LINN Records is a result of EMI’s (her former recording company) absorption by Warner Classics. Well, EMI’s loss is LINN’s gain, and lovers of the Chopin concerti should immediately run out and purchase this wonderful recording. I am already looking forward to the pianist’s impending recording of Chopin’s Preludes, Op. 28. 

An Afternoon with Yo-Yo Ma

Cellist Yo-Yo Ma reminds me of pianist Arthur Rubinstein. Other than an absolute command of their respective instruments, both artists have such charisma that they only have to walk into a room before an audience would burst into exuberant cheers and applause. However, whereas Rubinstein walks into a stage with the demeanor of a benevolent king before his subject (this is NOT a criticism of Mr. Rubinstein), Ma is much more self-effacing, greeting and smiling at the audience as if he is running into them at the corner store. One never gets the sense that he takes for granted that a sell-out audience is waiting to hear him, The-Greatest-Cellist-In-The World, play the cello. The audience never feels the attitude that, “I’m Yo-Yo Ma, and you’re not.” I almost get the feeling that he is pleasantly surprised to see so many people turning out for his performance.

The distinguished cellist played a recital in Vancouver yesterday afternoon with English pianist Kathryn Stott, and the lovely sounds of the performance is still reverberating in my mind and ears a day later. Such is Ma’s popularity everywhere that stage seats had to be added to accommodate the capacity crowds.

Ma and Stott began their recital with Igor Stravinsky’s Suite Italienne, music adapted from the composer’s ballet Pulcinella. The word “charming” is not usually associated with the music of the Russian composer, but the Suite Italienne is extremely charming, full of beauty, wit, and exuberance. From the first notes, the rapport between the two artists was apparent, as well as the joy they convey in playing together. Mr. Ma’s cello sound continues to be a wonder to the ear. In the intimate ending of the third movement (“Air”), he drew such a sustained beauty in the sound that it almost seemed that his bow is ten-foot long. Throughout the afternoon, I felt that Ma and the cello ceased to be separate entities, that they had become one.

The programme continued with a set of three pieces by Brazilian and Argentinian composers – Heitor Villa-Lobos’s Alma Brasileira, Astor Piazzolla’s Oblivion, and Camargo Guarnieri’s Dansa Negra. For me, the highlight of the set was Piazzolla’s Oblivion, where Ma’s cello sound entered so softly, as if from nothing, by magic.

Manuel de Falla’s Siete Canciones Populares Españolas, transcribed from a set of the composer’s popular vocal works. Once again, collaboration between cellist and pianist was flawless, with Stott being in every sense an equal to Ma’s artistry.

As with so many of his other works, Olivier Messiaen’s Louange à Éternité de Jésus, part of the composer’s wartime masterpiece - Quartet for the End of Time, reveals his deep Catholic faith. This (deliberately) static music truly gives the sense of time standing still, with repeated chords on the piano, and a powerful melody of great beauty and dignity played by the cello. The majestic phrases represent the eternity of Jesus as “The Word”. Ma and Stott gave a stunning, magisterial, mesmerizing reading of this work, and set a record for perhaps the longest silence afforded by the Vancouver audience before applause commenced.

The recital ended on a high note, with César Franck’s Sonata in A Major for violin and piano. Again, from the introspective opening movement to the stormy second movement, from the recitative-like third movement to the joyous canon in the fourth movement, Ma and Stott truly collaborated to give an unusually satisfying reading of this perennially popular work. Perhaps part of the success of the performance was that it was so much more than a cello recital with piano accompaniment, but a collaborative effort between two artists who obviously enjoy playing together and appreciating each other’s gifts. Two artists as equal partners working to bring the music alive. And did they ever bring the music alive yesterday afternoon!

Once again, we must thank Leila Getz and the Vancouver Recital Society for bringing artists such as Ma and Stott to Vancouver. I believe one of the reasons artists such as Murray Perahia, Yefim Bronfman, Andras Shiff, and Yo-Yo Ma keep returning to Vancouver is that they started performing on our stages before they became household names. It is thanks to the vision of Mrs. Getz that we now hear the same artists as audiences in New York and London. Let us hope that VRS will always be in a position to bring to our stages great artists of today as well as tomorrow.

The Substitute

In the musical world, there have been so many stories of artists gaining sudden fame when they step in to substitute for an ailing colleague. One thinks of the careers of Leonard Bernstein, Zubin Mehta, Andre Watts, among others, who became instantly known when they step into the spotlight in the last minute. Such an event took place in Vancouver on Saturday night, when conductor Perry So substituted for the originally scheduled John Storgårds. This past weekend, our city could claim to have discovered a major conducting talent.

The programme for the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra consisted of Dorothy Chang’s Strange Air, Chopin’s Piano Concerto No. 1 in E Minor, and Jean Sibelius’s Symphony No. 1 in E Minor.

I do not know how much time Perry So had to learn Dorothy Chang’s score, one that is considerable in length as well as complexity. Suffice it to say that it was evident from the first note that he had assimilated the score, and was in full command of the orchestra.

Is there anything more difficult to conduct than Fryderyk Chopin’s two piano concerti? With a highly complex piano part, with runs and flourishes in the right hand, and considerable rubato by the soloist, a conductor must really listen in order to give a good performance of these works. Mr. So obviously listened well last night, and was in every sense an equal partner to Louis Lortie, the piano soloist. The orchestra, under So’s direction, gave a reading of great beauty and detail. Unlike some conductor, Mr. So obviously gives Chopin a lot of credit as an orchestrator, and brought out a lot of details often hidden in the score.

Louis Lortie is one of those musicians that, even if you disagree with everything he does, you’d have to acknowledge the fact that he is a major artist. Lortie rose far above Chopin’s technical and musical challenges and gave a magnificent performance of the score. I feel that he was trying to emphasize the heroic as well as the declamatory aspects of the first movement, but without sacrificing the poetry that is also called for. I was completely captivated by his playing of the Larghetto movement, which he played with a limpid and absolutely beautiful sound throughout. I had slight reservations about his interpretation of the third movement. I felt that his playing sounded quite heavy, and there were some harsh sound in the piano playing. I feel that the soloist missed the feel of a dance, and the Polish “feel” so inherent in this movement.

It was interesting that Lortie played on an Italian made piano that has been garnering a lot of attention around the musical world. I believe that the piano he played had, surprising, limited tonal range as well as a limited palette of sound colours. I think the soloist would have done much better had he chosen to play the Steinway, New York or Hamburg.

I have often felt that the music of Jean Sibelius, with its short, rugged, often heroic motifs, is also uniquely suited to our beautiful Canadian landscapes. Even in this first symphony, with its slight influence of Tchaikovsky, all the hallmarks of the composer’s later works are already there.

Perry So and the orchestra gave a stunning reading of this music, filled with gorgeous details in orchestral nuances, but at the same time with a clear sight of its goal. From the beautifully played clarinet solo that begins the work, to its intentionally, I’m sure, anti-climatic and enigmatic pizzicato ending, the musicians carried us through a magical ride through Sibelius’s incredible soundscape.

Mr. So, only 32 years old, has the ability, very rare among conductors, of inviting the musicians to participate in the process of music making, rather than imposing his will on them. His beat is quite interesting, for he does not merely subdivide his beat, but carries with it a lot of rhythmic nuances. Unlike some conductor who beats with both hands, Mr. So uses his left hand to cue, but also to convey a great deal of nuances about musical expressions.

At the end of the performance, during the well-deserved ovation, Mr. So, went around the orchestra directing the audience’s applause towards its various sections and soloists.

It was an auspicious debut by a hugely talented young conductor. The Vancouver Symphony is now searching for a new music director after Bramwell Tovey’s departure. They could do worse than to include Mr. So in their short list of candidates.