Mauricio Kagel’s last important work condensed his dramatic world to a masterful piano trio. The Argentine-born German poignantly remembered such 18th century composers as Mozart while spinning a dream of farewell. For this valedictory work Lyris Quartet members will join pianist Steven Vanhauwaert, hailed by the LA Times for his “monster technique,” Making his Jacaranda debut, pianist David Kaplan will lead oboe, clarinet, horn & bassoon in Mozart’s landmark quintet. Kaplan has been called “excellent and adventurous” by The New York Times and praised by the Boston Globe for “grace and fire.” The highly acclaimed former LA Phil principal clarinetist Michelle Zukovsky will partner with pianist Gloria Cheng for a classic pair of 20th century duos: Alban Berg’s expressionist Four Pieces, and Witold Lutoslawski’s extrovert Dance Preludes. A Jacaranda perennial since the first season, Grammy-winning pianist Gloria Cheng recently added an Emmy award for her local PBS documentary Montage: Great Film Composers and the Piano.
Making her Jacaranda debut, one of America’s most acclaimed and versatile contemporary music pianists, Kathleen Supové tackled Achilles Dreams of Ebbets Field, an epic 24-movement piano cycle by Dylan Mattingly. The cycle interlaces the four seasons with rituals, dances and portraits of the heroes Achilles and Hector, and Jackie Robinson.
Three quartets foreshadowed the Mahler Sixth Symphony – from the future. Pavel Haas, student of Leos Janacek, died in Auschwitz, but his quartet “From the Monkey Mountains” was inspired by a popular tourist spot in the Twenties. The rarely performed original version with a drum kit tapped into his fascination with Jazz after WWI. Seven decades later, Austria’s Georg Friedrich Haas says of his Second Quartet, “Tradition shines through again and again, but it appears as something lost, distant, clouded poised on the edge of abandon and dread.” In his 2003 quartet “The Hunt,” the Berlin-based German composer Jörg Widmann repeatedly quotes a motif by Schumann that the obsessive Romantic composer often quoted in his works. Founded in 2008, the LA Times described the Lyris Quartet as "radiant…exquisite... and powerfully engaged.” .
Gustav Mahler’s compelling Sixth Symphony – like the sprawling Seventh, one of his lesser known – is subtitled “Tragic.” Given his public struggles with anti-Semitism, some think the 1904 symphony sees into the calamitous future –– a premonition. More personally, the promiscuity of his wife Alma is a subtext that anticipates notorious future affairs. He dedicated the rapturous adagio to her. Mahler’s friend, composer Alexander von Zemlinsky (and one of Alma’s lovers), made a piano four hands reduction to increase access to the daring new work. Of their National Gallery of Art debut performance of the work The Washington Post said, Inna Faliks and Daniel Schlosberg “offered a highly personal and subjective reading, full of shifts in color and tempo, with individual passages brimming with character.” Jacaranda added percussion from the full score: Mahler’s critically important hammer blows and the atmospheric cowbells to enhance the concert hall experience.
Lyris Quartet played the original version of Lyric, the late 96-year old George Walker’s most often performed work. This haunting music by the first Black composer to receive a Pulitzer Prize was surrounded by composers who joined his quest for recognition and success. Florence Price (1887-1953) has received extensive favorable ink in The New Yorker and the New York Times. Pianist Althea Waites prepared a performing edition to record the Price Piano Sonata in 1993. She joined the Lyris Quartet and a harpist in William Grant Still’s Ennanga. On her championship of Still’s music, Ann Arbor News hailed her as “a pianist who is blessed with a profound musicality." Waites performed Ellington’s exquisite tone poem “Single Petal of a Rose’ inspired by his meeting Queen Elizabeth in 1958. A new version of Ellington’s one-movement piano concerto New World A-Comin’ closed the program, conducted and arranged by Scott Dunn.
The recent emergence of Julius Eastman (1940-90) has caused a re-thinking the roots of American minimalism and the history of Black classical music, as well as a fresh look at the milieu from which Eastman emerged: the Center of the Creative and Performing Arts at SUNY Buffalo. Founded by Lukas Foss, this hotbed of creativity attracted James Tenney from the Fluxus scene in New York, and Frederic Rzewski from Italy. Ensemble works by Tenney and Eastman bracketed solo piano music by Foss and Frederic Rzewski . Scott Dunn, a Jacaranda regular since 2005, recorded Foss’s Solo under the composer’s supervision. This concert took place on Rzewski’s actual 81st birthday: Adam Tendler performed his setting for “speaking pianist” of Oscar Wilde’s open letter from prison to Lord Alfred Douglas. Tendler returned to LA after three sold out John Cage concerts at the Broad Museum.
Jacaranda’s 15th season, explored conscience and consciousness with six program ideas: environment, power, solidarity, sensuality, science, and identity.
Environment: Exotic tunings combatted equal temperament in the season opener. Microtonal pioneers Harrison and Johnston were featured. Lyris Quartet debuted Johnston’s Quartet No. 9. Alto Peabody Southwell, oboist Carolyn Hough, and pianist Gloria Cheng remember Stucky.
Power: November 18 at Disney Hall, Greek drama clashed with literature’s original dark universe – by two John Adams protégés: Mark Grey and Dylan Mattingly.
Solidarity: The epic protest classic The People United Will Never Be Defeated by Frederick Rzewski, and LA premiere of Gay Guerilla by Julius Eastman were performed by pianist Inna Faliks, and friends, to observe Inauguration Day.
Sensuality: February and March concerts updated Jacaranda’s OM Century – a two-season celebration 2007-2009 of Olivier Messiaen’s centenary – his models, friends, and students. Messiaen’s countryman and contemporary Andre Jolivet (1905-74) shared membership in the so-called Jeune France group. Eric Tanguy (b.1968) studied with Messiaen pupil Gerard Grisey (1946-98); Betsy Jolas (b. 1926) also studied with Messiaen and succeeded him at the Paris Conservatoire. From age 11, Messiaen was obsessed with the music of Debussy, its color, perfume, unique sense of time and advanced harmony. His music was represented with an early work indebted to Debussy, and a classic mid-century masterpiece exploring his love of birds.
Science: This concert continued Jacaranda’s OM Century redux with an extraordinary turning point in piano composition, the transformational Quatre études de Rhythm. Messiaen’s new work inspired many leading lights including Jean Barraqué (1928-74). His student wrote this rarely performed and legendary Mt. Everest of piano sonatas. Iannis Xenakis (1922-2001) began study with Messiaen as a mathematician and architect. He was among the first to reconcile computer science with music. Psappha is his best-known work for percussion and is now a solo classic. The evening was devoted to the mid-century mental energy that intensified an impulse – dating back to Bach and before – to bring a scientific approach to exploring music and sound.
Identity: The season climaxed with a survey of three generations of Spanish/Catalan music. Two thrilling recent works by Tomas Peire-Serrate (b. 1979) living now in Los Angeles; solo piano, guitar, and string quartet music by the mid-century master Roberto Gerhard (1896-1970); plus, by Manuel de Falla (1876-1946), a major and astonishing solo piano work, two infectious guitar finds, and his neoclassic treasure the Harpsichord Concerto.