{"id":8507,"date":"2019-05-25T21:04:28","date_gmt":"2019-05-25T20:04:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/kennethwoods.net\/blog1\/?p=8507"},"modified":"2019-05-30T00:07:07","modified_gmt":"2019-05-29T23:07:07","slug":"mahlerfest-xxxii-in-review","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kennethwoods.net\/blog1\/2019\/05\/25\/mahlerfest-xxxii-in-review\/","title":{"rendered":"MahlerFest XXXII in Review"},"content":{"rendered":"

[Re-blogged from MahlerFest.org<\/a>]<\/p>\n

BEYERS, DEVANE, KOREVAAR STANDOUT PERFORMERS AT MAHLERFEST XXXII<\/p>\n

Published in “Wunderhorn”, the Journal of the New York Mahler Society<\/p>\n

By Kelly Dean Hansen, Freelance Classical Music Writer<\/p>\n

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In its 32nd<\/sup>\u00a0year, the fourth under music director Kenneth Woods, Colorado MahlerFest provided more actual musical content than it ever has before.\u00a0 Woods has taken steps each season to place his own mark on Boulder\u2019s most unique classical music event, but he is always careful to uphold the spirit established and maintained by founding director Robert Olson.<\/p>\n

For most of MahlerFest\u2019s history, the focus has been squarely upon the year\u2019s featured symphony by the composer it honors.\u00a0 That was certainly the case two years ago when Woods directed Gustav Mahler\u2019s unfinished Tenth Symphony in the most commonly used performing version by Deryck Cooke (which MahlerFest had never presented).<\/p>\n

This year, however, while the First Symphony was given a full-hearted and exuberant performance to close the festival on Sunday afternoon (May 19) at Macky Auditorium, it did not overshadow the remainder of the music on the four concert events, during which the solo artists provided standout performances.\u00a0 Two of those solo artists are Boulder favorites who made their most memorable appearances in some time.<\/p>\n

Four unique concerts with no repeated music is unprecedented for the festival.\u00a0 A repeated chamber concert with two venues has long been part of the event calendar, but last year the two concerts had differing programs.\u00a0 This season, for the first time, the main orchestral concert with the featured symphony was not repeated.\u00a0 While there is something to be lamented in that change, the new Saturday evening chamber orchestra concert was such an artistic success that it helped dispel any grievance about it.<\/p>\n

At the heart of that program on May 18 at Macky was Mahler\u2019s song cycle\u00a0Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen<\/em>\u00a0(Songs of a Wayfarer<\/em>), which is closely connected with the First Symphony.\u00a0 The cycle was performed in the interesting chamber orchestration by Arnold Schoenberg and sung by CU-Boulder alumnus and favorite local operatic performer Joshua DeVane.\u00a0 DeVane\u2019s interpretation was exciting, heart-rending, and passionate, displaying a keen understanding for the emotions in Mahler\u2019s words and music.<\/p>\n

Woods led the small ensemble deftly throughout the program, which also included the humorous, delightful arrangement by Schoenberg of Johann Strauss, Jr.\u2019s\u00a0Emperor Waltz<\/em>\u00a0and Mahler\u2019s arrangement for string orchestra of Beethoven\u2019s \u201cSerioso\u201d String Quartet.\u00a0 Both performances were revelatory.\u00a0 But it was Woods\u2019s own string orchestra arrangement of Viktor Ullmann\u2019s Third String Quartet that was most moving.\u00a0 Ullmann, who composed the excellent work while interned at the Theresienstadt Ghetto in 1943, murdered at Auschwitz a year later.<\/p>\n

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Music of Hans Kr\u00e4sa in a sold out concert at The Academy<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Like Ullmann, Hans Kr\u00e1sa composed works at Theresienstadt before his death.\u00a0 Both composers were influenced by Mahler.\u00a0 Kr\u00e1sa was featured in two works for string trio at the second chamber music concert Friday, May 17 at The Academy in Boulder.\u00a0 On this all-string concert, Woods wore a different hat as a cellist and was joined by Karen Bentley Pollick and Lauren Spaulding.\u00a0 Pollick and Spaulding are principal second violinist and violist of the MahlerFest orchestra.\u00a0 The two string trio pieces are idiomatic and impressive, with some dark undertones but not without humor.<\/p>\n

The meat of the order on that program, however, was the String Quintet by Anton Bruckner, a composer who certainly exerted influence on Mahler.\u00a0 In the work\u2014which is of the symphonic proportions that would be expected of its composer\u2014the three performers were joined by MahlerFest\u2019s concertmaster and assistant concertmaster Zo\u00eb Beyers and Suzanne Casey.<\/p>\n

This would be the second appearance for Beyers, who made her 2019 festival debut in the first chamber concert Wednesday, May 15 at the Dairy Arts Center.\u00a0 There, she performed Edward Elgar\u2019s profound and beautiful violin sonata with Boulder\u2019s favorite classical artist, CU-Boulder pianist David Korevaar.\u00a0 In the sonata, Beyers displayed warmth and technical prowess that would continue through the remainder of the festival.\u00a0 Clearly the most active performer on the season\u2019s docket, Beyers was giving a foretaste of what would be a transcendent solo performance on Sunday\u2019s closing concert.<\/p>\n

As for Korevaar, in addition to playing the demanding piano part in the Elgar, he took on a challenge few pianists would dare: one of Franz Liszt\u2019s legendary arrangements of the Beethoven symphonies for solo piano.\u00a0 These arrangements are notoriously difficult, among the most challenging things for any pianist to tackle.\u00a0 In Korevaar\u2019s hands, the Fourth Symphony lost none of its identity despite the absence of the orchestra.\u00a0 This is a testament to both Liszt\u2019s skill as a transcriber and Korevaar\u2019s pianism.\u00a0 The perpetual motion finale\u2014certainly not idiomatic for the piano\u2014was breathtaking.\u00a0 In fact, this may rank as Korevaar\u2019s finest Boulder performance in several years, and that is saying something.<\/p>\n

The concert and the festival opened with a youthful work by Benjamin Britten, the \u201cPhantasy Quartet\u201d for oboe and strings.\u00a0 MahlerFest principal oboe Victoria Brown and principal cellist Zachary Reaves joined Casey and Spaulding for the opener, setting the stage nicely for the Elgar and Beethoven to follow.<\/p>\n

Sunday\u2019s keystone concert\u2014dedicated to late longtime MahlerFest board president Stan Ruttenberg\u2014was unusually rich in content, especially given what had come before.\u00a0 The MahlerFest orchestra came through heroically as it always does in the audacious First Symphony.\u00a0 Woods carefully paced the symphony\u2019s famous \u201cbreakthroughs\u201d (which provided the theme for the festival).\u00a0 The ironic funeral march of the third movement was atmospheric, as was the buoyant second movement.\u00a0 Woods prefaced the symphony with its original second movement, \u201cBlumine,\u201d which Mahler removed after the first performance.\u00a0 Both were played from a new critical edition by Breitkopf & H\u00e4rtel, the first time it has been used in any performance worldwide.<\/p>\n

The opening work, Beethoven\u2019s\u00a0Leonore Overture No. 3<\/em>, played with Mahler\u2019s skillful adjustments for large orchestra, was also thrilling, but the central work, Erich Wolfgang Korngold\u2019s lush Violin Concerto, almost overshadowed the symphony.\u00a0 Beyers served as soloist and was spectacular, as was the orchestra.\u00a0 Korngold, known for his film scores, provided a dramatic and highly romantic score in his most famous concert work, some of which would be unthinkable without Mahler\u2019s influence.<\/p>\n

The music of the festival was largely centered on arrangements, of Mahler, by Mahler, of and by others, and all four programs were highly enjoyable, as was Saturday\u2019s daylong symposium at CU\u2019s Grusin Music Hall.\u00a0 The symposium\u2014one of MahlerFest\u2019s most durable and unique events\u2014again featured notable Mahler scholars and a presentation by Woods, as well as a biographical film featuring the late Mahler biographer Henry-Louis de La Grange, always the composer\u2019s greatest champion.\u00a0 Outgoing board president David Auerbach\u2014one of the most prominent links between MahlerFests past and present\u2014assembled another stimulating day of intellectual feasts.<\/p>\n

MahlerFest XXXII was historic for the festival, and auspicious for the fourth symphonic cycle it begins.<\/p>\n

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Dr Kelly Dean Hansen<\/a>\u00a0holds a PhD in Musicology from University of Colorado at Boulder where his dissertation was focused on the music of Mahler. He has produced a popular series of listening guides on the complete music of Johannes Brahms and served as music critic of the Boulder Daily Camera from 2011-2018.<\/p>\n