The Lively Foundation
It felt good to be back in the musical world of Music@Menlo, the extraordinary festival that brings great music and musicians to Menlo Park, CA, in late summer. This is its ninth season. The excellence of the musicians, the enthusiasm of its followers, the intriguing programs all were familiar, but the setting for the July 26 concert attended by The Hedgehog was new.
The Center for Performing Arts at Menlo-Atherton is a grand new concert hall built on the campus of the Menlo-Atherton High School. The Hedgehog found the acoustics to be flawless in the strikingly modern building set in the leafy, quiet neighborhood. Going to this new arts center is a Special Event.
Brahms is the theme for the summer, but the programming is inclusive. This concert, for example, included work by composers who influenced Brahms, such as Bach, those who were inspired by Brahms: Rachmaninov, Schoenberg, Harbison, and Brahms himself.
Laurence Lesser’s delicate, intense interpretation of Bach’s Cello Suite no. 2 in d minor made a dramatic concert opening with each movement, whether Sarabande or Gigue telling its own story. Pianist Alessio Bax and violinist Ian Swensen became the visual emanation of the emotion of Rachmaninov’s Vocalise. Swenson returned with Lucille Chung for Schoenberg’s Phantasy for Violin and Piano, op. 47. Reading the name “Schoenberg” in the program can make the audience put up mental defenses against something harsh and inexplicable. These two artists presented the music so musically, so naturally that one wished for more.
Perhaps the surprise of the concert was the Piano Quintet by contemporary composer (b. 1938) John Harbison. Performed by Lesser, cello; Chung, piano, Swensen, violin, Yura Lee, viola, and Jorja Fleezanis, first violin, the piece had force, imagination, invention to fascinate the listener. As performed by these artists, it is music one wishes to hear again. Alternately knotty and complex, touching and expressive, it seems to raise as many questions as it answers because they are important questions. Ms. Fleezanis is a performer who epitomizes the best in chamber music playing. She blends into the ensemble and yet is so clearly the leader in her presence as well as her playing.
Alessio Bax and Ms. Chung performed Brahms’ Sonata for Two Pianos in f minor, op 34b. It was powerful, full of feeling, a whirlwind of Brahms’ embrace of the world. Definitely a Special Event.
Music@Menlo continues to present concerts in the new hall and also in several other venues in Palo Alto and Menlo Park until the farewell event on August 13. The concerts’ programs are always full of fresh approaches, such as the Alla Zingarese concert, Aug. 5, which includes music inspired by Gypsy&Hungarian music. There are many free performances, master classes and lectures. For more information, see www.musicatmenlo.org
(L) Pianists Lucille Chung and Alessio Bax performed Johannes Brahms’ Sonata for Two Pianos in f minor, o/ 34b; (R)Violinist Ian Swensen and pianist Alessio Bax performed Sergei Rachmaninov’s Vocalise, op. 34, no. 14, at the Center for Performing Arts at Menlo-Atherton, part of the Music@Menlo Festival, July 26, 2011.
photos: (L) by Tristan Cook; (R) by Ashley Pinnell.
Tuesday, August 2, 2011
Brahms at Music@Menlo
