Vcl^8

Amsterdam Cello Octet

Le Poisson Rouge

First of all, the title looks a bit like an emoticon, but “Vcl” is short for “violincello” which is long for “cello,” and ^8 means to the eighth power. As in, if you have eight cellists sitting next to each other, you have Vcl^8. Also, 400 years ago today (yesterday) the Dutch settled “New Amsterdam” (that’s here).

“You’ve probably never heard a cello octet before.” Actually, Mr. Romanian cellist, I have. Twice. So I’m well-versed in the cello octet repertoire, thank you very much, and–oh, wait, what? One of those times was you guys? You just changed your name? Interesting, because I remember distinctly only sort of agreeing with your choices last time you came around, and I’ll do the same this time. First of all, Arvo Pärt, Estonian-Mystical-Orthodox-Minimalist Composer, I’m a sucker for solo pizzicati. I always go into Pärt’s stuff cynical (it’s just a few pretty major-key melodies repeated over and over!) but come out in awe. Minimalist in the best sense: not as a crutch (i.e., let’s repeat these three notes a hundred times, or let’s paint this canvas all white lol) but in order to focus deeply on timbre, on repetition and memory, and on the sound itself. His “O Antiphonen” pieces were (I think) antiphonal, meaning that the two groups of cellos talked back and forth.

Terry Riley continues to be one of the few composers who can convincingly use jazz structures (that is, “trading fours,” blues licks and fills) in a convincing way, and “ArchAngels,” written in response to 9/11 and the Iraq War, continued to affirm that. Not that it was a blues–blues in the best sense, where, like the Mississippi Delta guitarists, the cellists would play their instruments like they were broken, making noises more evocative than notes–but it was actually informed by old black blues music without being pastiche. The only problem is that I’ve never heard a convincing performance of this. Groups either go all crazy on the classical-informed parts (which Vcl^8 Amst. did well on) or they (like this performance) play the blues-influenced parts in such a stilted way that they become significations of blues, rather than the blues itself.

Don’t worry, there were bad ones too: cheesy Penderecki, some Spanish dude who was obsessed with sounding like 1810, and some Polish dude who I completely forgot. Completely.

Piano for hands

Taka Kigawa
Le Poisson Rouge

No, seriously, this guy had hands. The bone-crushing works by Boulez, Murail, and Ligeti were offset by The Art of the Fugue, the Bach late work that seems to just consume the entire room. Boulez (as a 20 year old in 1945) seemed approachable; Murail was rhapsodic; Ligeti was the energetic highlight. The polyrhythmic etudes are a must have–I bought this CD in Hungry that juxtaposes the old modernist’s finger crunchers with recordings of the Aka Pygmy tribe of Africa, who sing these wonderful polyrhythms. The études explode all over the piano, strange and surprising but jubiliant in parts. It’s refreshing to hear someone who treats the piano as a percussion instrument, rather than some cheap fake orchestra.

Two Bears Dancing

Lucille Chung & Alessio Bax

Works for Piano Four-Hands by Ligeti and Stravinsky

Le Poisson Rouge, 158 Bleeker St., Manhattan

Ligeti’s complete works for piano four-hands were at the top of the show, and they include these Hungarian “peasant dances” a la Bartok.  But should pseudo-folk music syncopations be played with Chopin delicacy?  Is the goal of the interpretation (whatever that means) to pretend the peasants are dressed up in tuxes and gowns, or is it like when Elvis stole “Hound Dog” from the loud, black R&B lady Big Mama Thornton, keeping just enough sass to score a Top 40 hit?  I wonder if Ligeti, playing the piece himself, didn’t just lay into those folk dance syncopations, hammering the off-beats like he just took a shot of panlinka.

Second up was Stravinsky’s four-hands reduction of the ballet Petrushka, in which puppets come to life and dance and get into a love triangle.  Although Petrushka (spoiler alert!) dies, the piano four-hands (piano reductions were often used for rehearsal purposes) version of his ballet manages quite well without him up through the end.  Stranvinsky always seems like a bit of a time warp—Romantic, but without tonal gestures or too many regurgitated harmonies—where he is all too eager to forge ahead with new harmonies and rhythms, but can’t let go of the Romantic drive to kill someone off and finish the act.