Festival Focus July 29, 2019

FESTIVALFOCUS YOUR WEEKLY CLASSICAL MUSIC GUIDE

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MONDAY, JULY 29, 2019

VOL 30, NO. 6

also this week: A Recital by Daniil Trifonov Wednesday, July 31, at 8:30 pm in Harris Concert Hall Russian pianist Daniil Trifonov returns to Aspen to play a daredevil program of twentiethcentury works including Prokofiev’s Sarcasms and Copland’s Piano Variations.

A Recital by the Escher String Quartet

Pianist Nikolai Lugansky performs Rachmaninoff’s Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini on August 4. Lugansky also performs a recital of French works on August 6.

Lugansky plays Rachmaninoff; Rite of Spring

Saturday, August 3, at 8 pm in Harris Concert Hall

JESSICA CABE

Festival Focus Writer

The Escher String Quartet, praised for its “polished technique, intensity, direction, and dimension,” presents a recital of Mozart, Ives, and Schubert.

There are few musicians as well suited to bring Rachmaninoff’s music to life as Russian pianist Nikolai Lugansky. Aspen Music Festival and School (AMFS) audiences will be treated to a rousing performance of the composer’s Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini when Lugansky joins the Aspen Festival Orchestra and conductor James Gaffigan at 4 pm on Sunday, August 4, in the Benedict Music Tent. The program also includes Anna Thorvaldsdottir’s

Aeriality and Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring.

“Lugansky has become a favorite of our Aspen audience, and it’s just an astounding technique he has and also very, very big emotions,” says AMFS President and CEO Alan Fletcher. “He’s playing the Rachmaninoff Paganini Rhapsody, which has one of the most lyrical moments in the whole concerto repertoire. It also is genuinely funny at times, it’s also sometimes menacing and weird. It’s a unique work.”

The U.K.’s Independent praised Lugansky for his “quintessentially Russian sound with

a boldly singing tone and wonderful array of colors,” characteristics of playing that are well suited to this virtuosic and well-loved piece by Rachmaninoff. In fact, this is one of those rare works that has endured the test of time but was also wildly popular at its premiere in 1934.

The composer even said, “It somehow looks suspicious that the Rhapsody has had such an immediate success with everybody.”

Sunday’s program begins with Anna See Lugansky, Festival Focus page 3

Wynton Marsalis Violin Concerto, Copland’s Third JESSICA CABE

Festival Focus Writer

American composer Wynton Marsalis’s Violin Concerto will be performed by Nicola Benedetti on Wednesday, August 7 in the Benedict Music Tent.

It would perhaps be blasphemous to name the Aspen Music Festival and School’s (AMFS) 2019 season “Being American” and not program works

by Wynton Marsalis and Copland. Luckily for Aspen audiences, the brilliant music of these two American figureheads can be experienced all in one night.

The Aspen Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted

by AMFS Music Director Robert Spano, will perform Marsalis’s Concerto in D for Violin and Orchestra with violinist Nicola Benedetti, as well as Copland’s Third Symphony, at 6 pm on Wednesday, August 7, in the Benedict Music Tent.

Marsalis composed his Violin Concerto for Benedetti, who played the premiere in 2015. Just

last month, her recording of the work with the Philadelphia Orchestra was released, and now she will bring the unquestionably American work to Aspen.

The Chicago Tribune has praised her performance of this piece, writing, “There’s no question that Marsalis has created a work of lustrous appeal, its inherent accessibility and vivid colors suggesting that it could well become a repertory piece.”

AMFS President and CEO Alan Fletcher says Marsalis is one of the most important voices in American music, given his expertise at blurring the lines between classical and jazz without detracting from the glory of either.

“Wynton is one of the great musical figures working in the world, and as one of the creators of the jazz program at Juilliard, he is at the center of understanding jazz as a classical art form on its

own,” Fletcher says. “But Wynton also was classically trained. He was a student at Juilliard studying classical trumpet, at a time when there wasn’t a jazz program there, so he has a really important set of works that are for classical players. His violin concerto is one of those. It’s a chance to see the side of Wynton like the side of Duke Ellington, who had a classical side.”

Asadour Santourian, AMFS vice president for artistic administration and artistic advisor, said the Violin Concerto exists in the jazz world and will offer classical audiences a fantastic change of pace.

“Very much like Gershwin, Wynton Marsalis bridges both the classical and jazz world with great ease and fluency,” Santourian says. “He

See APO, Festival Focus page 3

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MONDAY, JULY 29, 2019

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Mazzoli’s chamber opera Proving Up examines American Dream JESSICA CABE Festival Focus Writer

Like many artists, composer Missy Mazzoli has always sought a way to explore the American Dream through her

The opera centers around a family caught up in the idea

sense of our lives,

that they can pull themselves up by their bootstraps, but

and that’s the role of

then fate intervenes. The work is a clear fit for the AMFS’s

opera; that’s the role

season theme, “Being American.”

of art.”

work. It’s a concept that has captured audiences of vari-

“What Missy is able to capture are the trials and tribula-

ous artforms for centuries, and Aspen Music Festival and

tions of an American family settling that part of the country,

present at the per-

School (AMFS) audiences will have the chance to explore

Mazzoli

will

be

in Nebraska,” says Asadour Santourian, AMFS vice presi-

formance, featuring

the idea of the American Dream at 7:30

dent for artistic administration

singers of the Aspen

pm on Tuesday, July 30, in Harris Concert

and artistic advisor. “Some-

Opera Center, both

times even when they settled,

to answer the musi-

they didn’t necessarily survive

cians’

the elements. What is stunning

and to put a face

about this work is her ability

to the music for

to narrow on this experience

audiences—a rare treat when so many classical programs

of the family collectively and

are dominated by composers who are no longer alive.

Hall, during a performance of Mazzoli’s new chamber opera, Proving Up. Proving Up is a 2017 work co-commissioned by Washington National Opera, Opera Omaha, and Miller Theatre at Columbia University, and it is based on the

“We want to make sense of our lives, and that’s the role of opera; that’s the role of art.”

short story of the same name by Karen Russell. The work tells the tale of the 1860s

Missy Mazzoli Composer

individually and to capture the ethos and the pathos of

frontier, where families struggle in pursuit

their situation individually and

of the American Dream. The story is full of

collectively.”

passion, hope, and heartbreak, with themes of fate, destiny, good, and evil.

“I had for a long time wanted to write an opera about the

questions

Students of the Aspen Opera Center will present American composer Missy Mazzoli’s (pictured) chamber opera Proving Up on July 30.

“I like to show up,” she says. “I think it’s important for living composers to show up in front of audiences.”

In addition to overseeing final rehearsals of Proving Up and being present for the performance, Mazzoli will also

Mazzoli says we are in the

speak to students in the AMFS’s Susan and Ford Schumann

midst of a golden age for opera, and much of the great

Center for Composition Studies. She says it’s important to

works by living composers are coming from America.

continue fostering great composers, especially now.

origins of the American Dream, but I didn’t know how to do

“Opera was dominated for centuries by the western

“We’re in a real golden age for composing opera,” she

that in a way that wasn’t heavy handed and preaching,” says

European tradition, and I love that tradition, but Americans

says. “It’s one of the most exciting artforms happening right

Mazzoli, “until I read Proving Up.”

have our own stories to tell,” she says. “We want to make

now.”

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LUGANSKY: Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring, French recital Continued from Festival Focus page 1 Thorvaldsdottir’s Aereality, which the composer describes Sunday, Lugansky is giving us a very French recital with as “vast sound-textures combined—and contrasted—with works by César Franck and Debussy, and then Skryabin, various forms of lyrical material.” The work was called “a who, while Russian, is a very French side of Russian music.” highlight of last season’s New York Asadour Santourian, AMFS vice Philharmonic programming” by The president for artistic administration “Lugansky is certainly New York Times and will serve as a and artistic advisor, says the focus of gorgeous opener for this exciting and Lugansky’s recital program is color. one of a kind...it is varied program.

“He’s chosen to go to the color The concert concludes with world—works that inspire color, infuse always a tour de force to Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring, facolor, works of Debussy, the two Arahear him play the piano besques and the Images, and then of mously unpopular at its premiere but a work that has grown into an course Skryabin, who not only thought in any literature.” audience favorite for its raw rhythms in color, but he also notated his music and piercing harmonies. This iconic, where color could be used—so the Asadour Santourian groundbreaking work is not to be space could be filled with color. His AMFS Vice President for Artistic missed in the open-air surroundings program is all about the transmutation Administration and Artistic Advisor of the Benedict Music Tent. of color in music.”

At 7:30 pm on Tuesday, August 6, The evening begins with Franck/ Lugansky will shift gears and treat audiences to a mostly Bauer’s Prélude, fugue, et variation, which was composed French recital program in Harris Concert Hall, featuring for the organ. Organists comment that Franck wrote orworks by Franck, Debussy, and Skryabin. gan music as if for the piano, and pianists point out how “From that pinnacle of the big Russian repertoire on “organ-like” his piano music is. Here, Franck plays with the

ASPEN MUSIC FESTIVAL AND SCHOOL BOX OFFICE HOURS

Harris Concert Hall: 9 am through the intermission of the evening concert, daily.

Wheeler Opera House: 12 pm–5 pm M–F, 9 am–5 pm Saturdays, one hour prior to operas.

Fleming Teaches Master Class, Scenes LAURA E. SMITH

Festival Focus Writer

One of superstar soprano Renée Fleming’s signature roles in her career has been Countess Almaviva in Mozart’s The Marriage of Figaro, but did you know it was in Aspen that she first learned and performed the role?

The year was 1983. The young Renée arrived open to everything, and much came. “It was a very sweet time on my life, with blue skies, serious musicians, and endless possibilities,” she remembers in her book, The Inner Voice. “I bicycled seven miles up to the Maroon Bells and back down every day…After a winter in Rochester, a summer in Aspen is an almost unimaginable reward, and every year I could hardly wait to pack up my suitcase and my bicycle and get back there.”

She describes that she was more full of wonder than fire at that time. “I wasn’t making any major life pronouncements at that time,” she recalled in a 2016 interview. “I just seemed to follow things along as they kept leading me from one thing to another. The fighting stage came a little bit later.”

When, in her second year in Aspen, she was cast as the Countess in the Mozart, it seems, however, something was found. She went on to make some of her most important professional debuts in this role, including at the Metropolitan Opera, Houston Grand Opera, San Francisco Opera, and Glyndebourne.

The role is, as she says, “incredibly challenging because it requires a certain pristine perfection. There are just so many skills required, but I credit Mozart as one of my best voice teachers for that reason.”

In Aspen in 1983, it was then-AMFS Music Director Jorge Mester who heard her and singled her out, and suggested she go to Juilliard for a postgraduate program. Part of the excitement of a program like Aspen’s, she recalls, “is that you never know who is going to be in the audience or the orchestra pit, holding your fate in his hands.”

This week, it is Fleming herself holding so much, giving so much, as she returns to Aspen to perform at

expectations of both instruments, as well as the expectations of form with regard to fugues.

The first half of the program rounds out with Debussy’s Deux arabesques and Images, series 2, works that will highlight Lugansky’s ability for delicacy and warmth in his playing.

Another work by Franck, Prélude, choral, et fugue, begins the second half of the program and once more plays with the meaning of a fugue, as well as a chorale. The program concludes with Skryabin’s Third Piano Sonata, full of ravishing melodies throughout its bold emotional and harmonic journey.

“Lugansky is certainly one of a kind,” Santourian says. “It’s hard to describe—he has incredible virtuosity that he puts at the disposal of these programs. And a word about these programs: they’re always conceived as a world, so whatever is the theme that he’s curating to support the idea of the recital is always beautifully and carefully thought through.

At the end of the day, it is always a tour de force to hear him play the piano in any literature.”

a sold-out recital and also to teach today’s young students at the Aspen Music Festival and School.

AMFS Artistic Administrator and Artistic Advisor Asadour Santourian notes that it is “most gratifying” when artists who have reached such high levels in their career return as alumni to Aspen. “Not only does their return signify a homecoming,” he says, “but they’re incredibly generous with sharing their experience, their knowledge.”

He goes on to say that “There’s a great deal of the unspoken that happens with their presence on our grounds that is so meaningful to our students. For an aspiring young artist who is here studying, they can then say, ‘This can happen to me, too. This is part of the endless, limitless possibility for me.’ ” Audiences have the opportunity to witness Fleming teaching twice, at a master class for young vocalists on July 30 at 1 pm at Harris Concert Hall and at an opera scenes master class on August 3 at 10 am at the Wheeler Opera House. Ticket availability is limited.

Soprano and AMFS alumna Renée Fleming leads a special event master class on July 30 and then performs with the Emerson String Quartet on August 1.

APO: Copland’s

Third Symphony Continued from Festival Focus page 1 fully comprehends and writes in the forms and the structures. Yet, of course, his idiom is the jazz idiom. In terms of a violin concerto, it has all the requisite difficulties for the soloist to make it an interesting challenge for the champion of the work. At the same time, the sound world is entirely unique to Wynton, and entirely the jazz world.”

Marsalis composed the piece for Benedetti at the same time as another, his Fiddle Dance Suite. Of this duo of works, Benedetti has said, “It has been a privilege to deepen my understanding of Wynton’s compositional language, cultural richness and philosophical insights.

These compositions take us from the introspection of a spiritual to the raucous celebration of a hootenanny, from a lullaby to a nightmare, and from a campfire to a circus. We travel far and wide to distant corners of the world, the mind and the soul. Long-form musical pieces are often described as a journey. This sure has been a rich and fascinating one, and I am thrilled to now share the results with you.”

The program concludes with Copland’s Third Symphony, one of the rare unabashedly heroic and optimistic works in the repertoire. The piece was commissioned by then-Boston Symphony Orchestra conductor Serge Koussevitsky, and in the end it served as a post-World War II testament reflecting the euphoric spirit of America at the time.

Leonard Bernstein said of it, “Copland’s symphony has become an American monument, like the Washington Monument or the Lincoln Memorial.”

These two works on Wednesday’s program are of a different era and inspired by different sound worlds, but that is more a testament to the “Being American” season theme than it is a problem. Part of the goal of sharing American works with Aspen audiences is to put on display the wide variety of sounds that can be described as American.

Scottish violininst Nicola Benedetti performs Marsalis’s Violin Concerto on August 7.