Aspen Music Festival and School – Festival Focus, Week 8

FESTIVALFOCUS

Emerson String Quartet Plays Harris Hall One Last Time

BY RUTH LEON Festival Focus Writer

Now one of the preeminent chamber ensembles in the world, after 40 years the Emerson String Quartet will hang up their instruments for good, but not before stopping at the Aspen Music Festival and School (AMFS) for one final performance in the space they inaugurated, Harris Concert Hall, on Tuesday, August 15.

The original members of the Emerson String Quartet—Eugene Drucker and Philip Setzer—met at Juilliard in 1975, both violinists’ sons. They were in their early 20s when they got together and realized that they had similar, almost identical ideas about music: what was good, what wasn’t, and what they wanted their fledgling partnership to be.

They started in the quartet repertoire by alternating first and second violin parts, a practice that is usually abandoned once student days are over, but these two loved the variety and continue the practice to this day.

A couple of false starts at the beginning quickly gave way to the perfect combination when they were joined by Lawrence Dutton on viola and David Finckel on cello. And, suddenly, just like that, they were the Emerson String Quartet, universally known as “the Emersons,” choosing the name because they liked the social ideas of the American idealist and thinker Ralph

Waldo Emerson.

Dutton was a student at the AMFS in 1975 and 1976 and, ever since he joined the Quartet, has revelled in the group’s annual appearances at the Festival. “I fell in love with Aspen right from the start. We made so many friends, played with such great musicians, had so much fun climbing mountains, teach-

with an idea that seemed crazy at the time. They decided to play all six Bartók quartets in one long concert for Bartók’s centenary—a marathon which had never been attempted before. “Everyone thought it wouldn’t work,” recalls Setzer, “but it became one of those magical evenings when people got more and more into it.”

The concert was a triumph, discussed and emulated throughout the chamber music world, even by people who weren’t there.

The Emersons followed up with cycles of Beethoven and Shostakovich and became, at the beginning of the digital era, the preferred quartet of Deutsche Grammophon for whom they have recorded virtually the whole of the quartet repertoire, including numerous original compositions written for them.

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ing, learning from everybody. I met my wife in Aspen (violinist Elizabeth Lim-Dutton), and we’ve been together now for 36 years. It’s such a special place, unlike any other. It’s only right that we’re now coming back for our last season,” says Dutton.

In March of 1981, the Emersons came up

In 2012, David Finckel left the quartet to play music in other forms, usually with his wife, the pianist Wu Han—a seismic event which could easily have presaged the breakup of such a tight knit group. Instead, they were joined by Welsh-born cellist Paul Watkins, decades younger, who fit into the quartet seamlessly and brought new and innovative ideas which were welcomed by the others. “We knew immediately that Paul was one of the finest musicians we had ever played with,” says Dutton.

Those of us who have been coming to Aspen nearly as long as the Emersons have

Showcasing the breadth and depth of the choral music repertoire, this free program includes works by Hildegard of Bingen, Josquin des Prez, Samuel Barber, Philip Glass, and more.

so many memories of individual concerts which astounded us. Writer and critic Harvey Steiman spotlights his particular favorites: “Already a fixture in Aspen, the Emerson Quartet played the entire set of 15 Shostakovich string quartets over eight seasons from 1999 to 2007. Deutsche Grammophon was there to record them right there in

See Finale, Festival Focus page 3

Tenor Matthew Polenzani Stars in Mozart’s Idomeneo

BY SARAH SHAW Festival Focus Writer

On Thursday, August 17, the Aspen Opera Theater and VocalARTS (AOTVA) program presents Mozart’s Idomeneo in the Benedict Music Tent. World-renowned tenor Matthew Polenzani, whom Aspen Music Festival and School Vice President for Artistic Administration Patrick Chamberlain calls “one of the great tenors before the public today,” reprises the title role he performed to much acclaim at the Metropolitan Opera.

Based on Homer’s tale of the ancient Greek King Idomeneo of Crete, Mozart wrote this large-scale work when he was just 24 years old. Conceived as an opera seria, a highly formal and stylized musical formula that was the “in thing” with European aristocrats at the time, Idomeneo is a departure from some of Mozart’s more famous operas that were written in the opera buffa or comic and semicomic genre.

Set in Crete in 1200 BC, the opera tells the story of King Idomeneo’s return from victory in the Trojan war. When a great storm destroys his ship, Idomeneo, desperate to save his own life, begs Neptune, the god of the sea, to spare him. In return, Neptune asks him to sacrifice the first living person he sees. Upon safely returning to shore, Idomeneo sees his son, Idamante, waiting there.

Like many stories from Greek myth, Idomeneo is fundamentally about the human struggle to choose between duty and the heart’s desire.“The central issue of the opera,” says Polenzani, “is the idea that this father must find his way forward to keep his son alive.”

As the father of three teenage boys, the role is personal for Polenzani. “As an actor and a parent, I love wrestling with these issues of sacrifice. What would I give to make it possible for Idamante to continue to live? I’ve been singing this role for 15 years and every time I step foot into his

World-renowned tenor Matthew Polenzani reprises the title role he performed to much acclaim at the Metropolitan Opera.

FAY FOX

In their final recital in Aspen, the Emerson String Quartet (left to right, Paul Watkins, Eugene Drucker, Philip Setzer, and Lawrence Dutton) presents a quintessentially “Emersonian” program featuring works by Ravel, Shostakovich, Walker, and Beethoven’s “Razumovsky” Quartet.

JÜRGEN FRANK

Haydn’s Creation to Close 2023 Festival Season

BY JESSICA MOORE Director of Marketing

After eight weeks of joyful music-making, the 2023 Festival comes to a close by returning to the very beginning when the Aspen Festival Orchestra gives the Aspen premiere of Haydn’s massive choral and orchestral work, The Creation, on Sunday, August 20 at 4 p.m.

Final Sunday in Aspen is always a cause for excitement and the selection of this work to bring the summer to an end “feels justly celebratory,” says AMFS Vice President for Artistic Administration Patrick Chamberlain. “This is a piece that really has everything: storytelling, great music, tremendous orchestration. It’s a really fitting celebration of what’s beautiful in this world,” he says.

AMFS President and CEO Alan Fletcher calls The Creation, “absolutely one of Haydn’s most superior works.” It is a fitting capstone to the end of a packed summer season guided by the theme, The Adoration of the Earth Inspired by performances of Handel’s Messiah and Israel in Egypt, which he attended while in London, Haydn set about creating his own large-scale oratorio based on a libretto he had been given, which reportedly had once been in the possession of Handel himself. Entitled The Creation of the World, the lengthy text pulls material both from the Bible’s Genesis and Psalms, and from John Milton’s Paradise Lost

“Imagine being an artist, a composer, and thinking, ‘I guess I’ll write a piece about everything,’ and then doing it,” marvels Fletcher. It’s likely many in the audience will be hearing this work for the first time. “If you don’t know it already, you’ll think ‘Where was this music all my life?’”

Fletcher continues. “It’s so fabulous.”

AMFS Music Director Robert Spano will lead the expanded forces for the program, which include soloists from the Aspen Opera Theater and VocalARTS program—sopranos Kresley Figueroa and Grace Lerew, tenor Matthew Goodheart, and bass-baritones Vinicius Costa and Joseph Park— as well as Grammy-nominated Seraphic Fire and singers from the Seraphic Fire Professional Choral Institute (SFPCI).

sionals—the vocal equivalent of the AMFS’s orchestras, which put students and their teachers on stage together.

The experience of performing with the orchestra is invaluable to the singers. “Professional ensemble singers are required to be versatile enough to sing chamber music with one voice per part one day, and then join a symphonic-style ensemble the next day,” says Seraphic Fire’s Artistic Director Patrick Dupre Quigley.

A work like Haydn’s Creation puts the choral ensemble to the test because, explains Quigley, “Haydn’s Creation is, at its heart, a showcase for the choir. The chorus is the narrator, the emotional center, and adds the thrilling element of vocal acrobatics.” Bringing together the orchestra and the chorus to create one glorious sound is the role of Maestro Spano, whom Quigley credits as “one of the more inspiring conductors we work with.” The weekly orchestral programs must be perfected on a very tight timeline, literally from one week to the next, so the chorus prepares diligently, “working on the intricate technical elements of the music and the libretto, so that when we’re in the presence of the maestro, we just get to make music together,” says Quigley.

The SFPCI program at the AMFS offers an intensive performance and workshop experience that prepares singers and choral conductors for careers in the choral music industry. Says Chamberlain, “Since we’ve been working with them over the past couple of years, Seraphic Fire has been a real highlight of our seasons. They’re one of the great choirs.”

The culmination of the workshop is Sunday’s concert, where the participants sing side by side with the profes-

And what music it is! Haydn’s inventive, life-affirming oratorio is not to be missed and will also be streamed live on the AMFS Virtual Stage for those who may not be able to join in person.

“We love Final Sunday because there is such camaraderie between musicians and audience,” says Quigley. “Everyone knows they are in for something special, and the smiles on the faces of both the artists and the audience are why we love these concerts so much.”

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AMFS Music Director Robert Spano conducts the Aspen Festival Orchestra and a full chorus on Final Sunday, August 20.

BLAKE NELSON

BY EMMA KIRBY Marketing Coordinator

The final Aspen Chamber Symphony (ACS) concert of the 2023 Festival on Friday, August 18 is a coming home of sorts, with two world-renowned artists who are beloved at the AMFS—pianist Yefim Bronfman and violinist Robert McDuffie—joining conductor Cristian Măcelaru, an Aspen Music Festival and School alumnus who has since launched a fruitful career as a conductor and music director across the globe.

This concert is particularly meaningful for Măcelaru, who credits his two years as an Aspen Conducting Academy fellow to his success. Now the now the Music Director of the Orchestre National de France, he says, “[the AMFS] was such, such a huge part of my formation as a conductor and as a musician. I learned so much as a student here, it was invaluable. Every time I’m able to return to Aspen it’s with great joy and deep emotions.”

This Friday, he brings a uniquely curated and wideranging program which features new works, a piano concerto by Schumann, a

world premiere of a previously lost work, and a piece that harkens back to his AMFS student days.

As the music director of the Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music, Măcelaru champions and commissions many new works, among them Friday’s opening selection, Gabriela Lena Frank’s Contested Eden, which was written in response to the recent California wildfires.

Next, Bronfman performs Schumann’s Piano Concerto in A minor, which Măcelaru says is “a piece that really does not get old. It’s one of those compositions that has been able to maintain its rightful place in musical history for almost 200 years.” AMFS Vice President for Artistic Administration Patrick Chamberlain emphasizes Bronfman’s exceptional artistry: “When he plays the piano, you listen. Everything just feels right.”

Opening the second half of the concert is another work that evokes nature commissioned by Măcelaru at the Cabrillo Festival—Gabriella Smith’s Field Guide—followed by the world premiere of Aria from American composer Peter Mennin’s Violin Concerto, performed by Robert McDuffie.

The movement was one of the final pieces Mennin was composing before his death, and the unfinished work sat undiscovered and unpublished for almost 40 years. It was “presented to us by the Mennin family as the opportunity to give the world premiere of this work,” says Chamberlain. Says Măcelaru of the work, “It’s a beautiful, slow, kind of meditative piece. It’s a very intimate world. It’s not an extroverted statement, but it’s very delicate and beautiful.”

In a full circle moment, Măcelaru ends the concert with Stravinsky’s The Firebird Suite. “It was a very important piece for me when I was a student here. It was a bit of a rite of passage for everyone when the week came that we had to conduct The Firebird.” He also sees it as the perfect piece to close a concert. Says Măcelaru, “the whole story of the Firebird is about the good celebrating and triumphing over evil.” Chamberlain adds, “putting The Firebird on a program with Frank’s work about wildfires is actually a sort of beautiful moment [which shows that] despite all the destruction that’s caused, something beautiful can emerge.”

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Idomeneo : Mozart’s Operatic Genius at its Most Grand

shoes, I find myself in a happy place. I love the music but I love Idomeneo for the man he is. It calls to me as a dad and as an actor, and Mozart’s music speaks to my heart and my soul.”

Like Polenzani, noted opera director Francesca Zambello makes her Aspen debut with this production, joining AMFS Music Director Robert Spano, who will conduct.

While maintaining Mozart’s sublime music, Zambello intentionally modernized the storytelling of Idomeneo to better suit the setting of the Benedict Music Tent. “Ironically, I found my answer by looking back to the Greeks. Their production values were simple: stages were bare, and the actors were the sole focus,” she explains.

Zambello also chose to replace stylized recitative sections with a narrator, the Trojan woman, who will guide

the audience through the story, much as an actor would have done in those early days of theater. “I hope this combination of Mozart’s glorious music and a classical actress will lead us to something as timeless as the story itself,” says Zambello.

Under the leadership of Co-Artistic Directors Renée Fleming and Patrick Summer, the artist-fellows of the AOTVA program have the opportunity learn from and share the stage with world-class artists like Polenzani.

“We have arguably one of the greatest performers of this role in the world working and rehearsing with our students. It’s like an incandescent light goes on inside them when they’re on stage with someone like Polenzani,” says AMFS President and CEO Alan Fletcher.

Working with the students is particularly exciting for Polenzani because he sees so much potential in the collaboration between established artists and those just starting in the field. “There’s a lot to learn to be able to fulfill these leading roles,” he explains. “It’s so important for students to make time for life. Fall in love, get your heart broken, party with your friends. When you’re singing words that somebody else wrote in a language you don’t speak, it’s important to fully express these emotions on stage. If you cannot relate what you’re singing about in an honest and truthful way, the audience will see it. Pour your heart and soul into what you do, but don’t make that the entirety of your life.”

Finale: Beethoven’s “Razumovsky”

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Harris Hall. The live performances are etched in my memory as textbook examples of precision and emotional detail, some of the most jaw-dropping and evocative chamber music I’ve ever been present to enjoy. The full-set album of this miracle is something I treasure.”

Now it’s nearly all over. The Emersons are retiring at the end of this year and it is difficult to imagine the chamber music world without them. It can’t be over, can it?

Francesca Zambello, artistic director of the Washington National Opera at the Kennedy Center and general director emerita of the Glimmerglass Festival, directs the AMFS’s August 17 production of Idomeneo

MARC HOM

Aspen Music Festival and School alumnus Cristian Măcelaru leads the Aspen Chamber Symphony on August 18.

SORIN POPA

“The Emersons” (left to right, Eugene Drucker, Philip Setzer, David Finckel, and Lawrence Dutton) in 1988, experiencing summer in Aspen as so many rising young talents do today.

CHARLES ABBOTT

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Yefim Bronfman performs Schumann’s Piano Concerto in A minor on August 18.

DARIO ACOSTA

Robert McDuffie performs the world premiere of Aria from Peter Mennin’s Violin Concerto on August 18.

CARLIN MA