Fantasies Old and New, Names Familiar and Fresh By THE NEW YORK TIMES

The New York Times
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November 9, 2008
Fantasies Old and New, Names Familiar and Fresh By THE NEW YORK TIMES

‘FANTASIE_FANTASME’

David Greilsammer, piano. Naïve V 5081; CD.

THE idea of choosing piano works for a solo recording that explores the concept of fantasy may not seem all that original. But on this fascinating album the Israeli pianist David Greilsammer explores the concept in a program of striking diversity, exposing musical resonances among disparate works by composers from Bach and Brahms to Cage to Ligeti. Of course the concept would mean little were the performances not so brilliant and probing. Mr. Greilsammer, born in Jerusalem in 1977, is a formidable pianist.

He begins with one of the boldest fantasies ever written, the first part of Bach’s “Chromatic Fantasy and Fugue,” playing just that rhapsodic and grimly agitated fantasy section. He then segues directly into the first of two recent “Fantastrophes” by Jonathan Keren, frenetically jazzy music that shifts between states of sublime mysticism and catastrophic wildness.

The surprising segues continue, as Mr. Greilsammer moves to Brahms’s mellow Intermezzo in A minor from the Op. 116 Fantasies, then to the first three of Schoenberg’s elusive Six Little Piano Pieces and Ligeti’s fantastical “Musica Ricercata” (the sixth movement), in which Ligeti’s jittery counterpoint harkens to Bach.

“The Presentiment,” a hallucinogenic movement from Janacek’s Sonata “1.X.1905,” which follows, proves an ideal setup for Cage’s playfully exotic Sonata No. 5 for Prepared Piano. Mozart’s stormy, episodic Fantasy in C minor (K. 475), which Mr. Greilsammer plays with arresting freedom yet crisp articulation, marks the halfway point in the program.

From there he circles back almost in a mirror reflection, through Cage, Janacek, Ligeti and so on, playing some of the missing movements and parts of works we have already heard incomplete, concluding with the fugue from the Bach piece. Somehow, in this context, and thanks to Mr. Greilsammer’s dynamic performance, the imposing counterpoint of Bach’s great fugue sounds fantastical. ANTHONY TOMMASINI

‘FIESTA’

Simón Bolívar Youth Orchestra of Venezuela, conducted by Gustavo Dudamel. Deutsche Grammophon B0011340-02; CD.

FIRST impressions count for a lot, so it was no surprise when the hot young Venezuelan conductor Gustavo Dudamel began his tenure on the venerable German label Deutsche Grammophon with recordings of symphonies by Beethoven and Mahler. Those discs, recorded with his Simón Bolívar Youth Orchestra, featured performances more confident and assured than revelatory. Still, they established Mr. Dudamel, who will conduct the Israel Philharmonic at the New Jersey Performing Arts Center on next Saturday and at Carnegie Hall on Nov. 16 and 17, as an artist capable of handling the core classical literature honorably.

Deutsche Grammophon deserves credit for fostering Mr. Dudamel’s growth rather than pigeonholing him. But after a video of him and his players tearing through Bernstein’s “Mambo” (from “West Side Story”) at the 2007 BBC Proms in London swept around the Internet like wildfire last year, the label was also wise to recognize the demand for a sampling of his more incendiary wares.

“Fiesta,” recorded live in Caracas, Venezuela, presents Mr. Dudamel and his players in an appealing mix of Latin American works, including a few staples of the international repertory. In well-trodden works like Revueltas’s “Sensemayá” and Ginastera’s “Estancia” dances, the Simón Bolívar players match all comers in finesse and power, and outdo all in sheer exuberance. Some of the less explored byways here are just as compelling, including Antonio Estevéz’s impressionistic “Mediodía en el Llano” and Arturo Márquez’s seductive “Danzón No. 2.”

The sound quality, vivid and detailed, befits the exotic, colorful contents. Apart from some murky passages in Aldemaro Romero’s buoyant “Fuga con Pajarillo,” the youth orchestra plays with all the style and precision of a professional institution. And “Mambo,” the closing track, remains a barnburner; just close your eyes and imagine the spinning trumpets. STEVE SMITH

‘OPPENS PLAYS CARTER: ELLIOTT CARTER AT 100, THE COMPLETE PIANO MUSIC’

Ursula Oppens, pianist. Cedille CDR 90000 108; CD.

EVEN as Elliott Carter cruises toward his 100th birthday on Dec. 11, it seems premature to call a collection of his works “complete” without at least a parenthetical “so far.” Ursula Oppens, at least, makes her claim of completeness a secondary subtitle, and rightly so. Mr. Carter is writing more prolifically than ever, and given that four of the eight works in this set were composed after 2000, it seems likely that he will contribute more.

That said, Mr. Carter’s piano portfolio is oddly proportioned, with two titanic works — the Piano Sonata (1946) and “Night Fantasies” (1980) — as the earliest entries, and a handful of high-powered miniatures embracing his latest thoughts. The sonata is very nearly the work of a different composer. Completed about five years before Mr. Carter discovered what would become his signature style while composing his First String Quartet, this energetic early score embraces motoric regular rhythms, the mildest of dissonances and even a few Neo-Classical touches.

Ms. Oppens has long been devoted to Mr. Carter’s work, and it’s hard to tell whether she has grown with it or it has grown with her. Her view of “Night Fantasies,” for example, has changed considerably since she presented the work’s premiere. Early on she gave the dreamy side of this fevered 20-minute score greater prominence. Here its anxious energy, borderline nightmarishness and sense of unfolding drama take a greater share of the spotlight.

In a way, the energy and chiseled pointillism of the later works — particularly “90+” (1994) and the sizzling “Caténaires” (2006) — come through on this closely focused recording with a sharpness and clarity lost in a concert hall. If you want to get to know this music (and you should), listen to this disc with headphones. ALLAN KOZINN