Aisle Be Seeing You

Evgeny Kissin's encores

Evgeny Kissin's encores from yesterday's Celebrity Series recital at Symphony Hall were as follows:

Franz Liszt, Liebestraume - Nocturne No. 3

Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy, Spinning Song

Georges Bizet, Seguedille from Carmen, arr. by Vladimir Horowitz

Globe and Herald review Ailey

My wife and I took the kids to yesterday's Sunday matinee of Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater for a program that closed with Revelations. Any day you can take your children to see Revelations is a good day...

The Boston Globe (Karen Campbell) and The Boston Herald (Theodore Bale) reviewed opening night of the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater's run at Citi Wang Theatre for their Saturday editions.

A sample of Ms. Campbell's review:

"The Thursday night opening of the troupe's annual Celebrity Series visit marked the Boston company premiere of Tharp's classic, and the propulsive, whiplash tour de force is a terrific addition to the Ailey repertoire. It's an exuberant burst of energy bathed in gold, with dancers running, bounding, boxing, and cavorting like Olympic athletes in a prolonged victory dance."

Full text of A night of athleticism and beauty.

And a smidge of Theodore Bale's:

"It’s no surprise either that dancers in Ailey’s present-day company are quite capable with classical style. That might not have been the case in 1970, when American Ballet Theatre commissioned “The River” from Ailey to a score by Duke Ellington. The dance became a popular standby at ABT, with the “Vortex” solo (part six of the divertissement) even making its way into Herbert Ross’ epic tearjerker 'The Turning Point.'"

Full text of Ailey dance troupe spins diverse program.

Mstislav Rostropovich, 1927-2007

The great cellist Mstislav Rostropovich has died after a long illness. Read his New York Times obituary, and a bit of film/video of him playing Bach in 1962 from Youtube.

The Celebrity Series presented Mr. Rostropovich 4 times in recital ('67, '69, '71, and '81) and once as part of a benefit concert for the Andre Sakharov Archives in celebration of Brandeis University's 50th Anniversary at NEC's Jordan Hall in 1999. At the Brandeis event, Mr. Rostropovich played the Adagio from Schubert's String Quintet in C Major, D. 956, with The Lydian String Quartet and a set of Tchaikovsky, Shostakovich, Weber and Mercello with pianist Ignat Solzhenitsyn. Lorraine Hunt (as she was still called) and Vladimir Spivakov were also on the bill.

UPDATE: From The Times (UK): Lord of the cello and citizen of the world receives final ovation

Lloyd Schwartz, the lost Australian Chamber Orchestra review

The Australian Chamber Orchestra

It took a little digging, but I finally came up with Lloyd Schwartz's complete Boston Phoenix column from this week. The print edition was edited and his review of our Australian Chamber Music concert (with cellist Pieter Wispelwey) didn't make the cut - except online. So after wandering around the Phoenix cyber-forest a bit (ok, a lot), I found it. Here's a clip before I give you the link:

"The ACO doesn’t limit itself to earlier music. The second half was devoted to Tchaikovsky’s large-scale Souvenir de Florence, a string-orchestra arrangement of the composer’s late string sextet. This got an exuberant performance, alternating between melancholy, very Russian folk music and scampering, will-o’-the-wisp evanescence, with one of Tchaikovsky’s prettiest tunes in the slow movement. Everywhere there’s lots of pizzicato. The Debussy encore, a transcription of the piano prelude La fille aux cheveux de lin (“The Girl with the Flaxen Hair”), ended with Tognetti’s tone disappearing into the stratosphere. Another transcription, a movement from William Walton’s String Sonata (which Tognetti informed us had its premiere in Perth), couldn’t have been a more energetic and energized conclusion."

The audience was thrilled to find they had a celebrity in the audience. As Lloyd describes:

"Also garnering enthusiastic applause was a member of the audience, soprano Dawn Upshaw, who’d had to cancel her February recital and couldn’t be rescheduled. She was introduced from the stage by Celebrity Series president and executive director Marty Jones, and she looked radiant. "

Lloyd Schwartz's complete ACO review (I've skipped ahead to page two for you)

Australian Chamber Orchestra reviewed by Boston Globe

David Perkins reviewed Sunday afternoon's performance by the Australian Chamber Orchestra with cellist Pieter Wispelwey for The Boston Globe:

"The afternoon's prize was, in fact, Tchaikovsky's "Souvenir de Florence" suite, written for a string sextet. When played by 18 strings, it becomes a spring torrent of feeling. There was some breathtaking ensemble playing here, as the strings passed along delicate figures, and their deep bowing created a blazing sun in the climactic moments. Among those who gave fine solo turns were violinist Tognetti, violist Carol Cook, and cellist Julian Thompson."

Read all of Australian orchestra outshines its guest

Australian Chamber Orchestra encores

The Australian Chamber Orchestra's matinee performance yesterday afternoon confirmed our memory of them as an energetic, crisp and altogether worthy ensemble (I say "our" because their was unanimity among staff attendees). Here are the encores performed:

Pieter Wisepelwey solo to close first half of program:

J.S. Bach, Prelude from Solo Cello Suite No. 3 in G Major

Following regular program:

Debussy, Girl with the Flaxen Hair from Preludes, Book 1, No. 8
(arr. Tognetti)

William Walton
Allegro molto from Sonata for Strings (arranged from the String Quartet No. 2

Kitty Carlisle Hart, 1910-2007

Kitty Carlisle Hart (right) with Groucho Marx in A Night at the Opera

Actress and arts advocate Kitty Carlisle Hart has died at 96 years of age. Like many of my generation, I remember her from the second round of the television show, To Tell the Truth - the daytime version. But there was much, much more to her remarkable life than television, of course. Here is an excerpt of her obituary from The New York Times:

"Kitty Carlisle Hart, who began her career in the theater in a 1932 musical comedy revue on Broadway, acted in films and opera and was still singing on the stage, into her 10th decade, as recently as last fall, died Tuesday at her home in Manhattan. She was 96. The cause was heart failure, her daughter, Catherine Hart, said. Outgoing and energetic, Miss Carlisle became in her middle years a visible advocate of the arts, lobbying the New York State Legislature and the United States Congress for funding. For 20 years, first as a member and later as chairman of the New York Council on the Arts, she crisscrossed the state to support rural string quartets, small theater groups and inner-city dance troupes."

Read full text of Kitty Carlisle Hart's New York Times obituary

This weather, too, shall pass...

Spring is on the way...though it will probably jump right into summer

When it comes to this current bout of New England weather, it is important to remember that this too shall pass...

In the meantime, might I suggest going indoors this Saturday for Standing O!? It's going to be a dilly of a party.

Karita Mattila recital reviewed by Globe and EDGEBoston.com

Comfortable shoes...

Following her recital on friday, Karita Mattila, made herself available for a considerable line of fans and seemed to delight in talking with them all. Her advice to a young singer was among the many snippets of conversation I caught. She related hearing a famous soprano asked the same question on the radio when she was 19 and she was dismayed to hear the singer tell her interviewer that singers should always wear comfortable shoes. "I was 19 and disappointed, but she was right."

Jeremy Eichler reviewed Ms. Mattla's recital for The Boston Globe: From Mattila: rare Finns, sketches of Spain:

"...the highlight of the first half was a set of works by four rarely heard Finnish composers from the late 19th and early 20th centuries: Toivo Kuula, Erkki Melartin, Oskar Merikanto, and Leevi Madetoja. The songs, broadly speaking, were of a late-Romantic flavoring but with distinctive modal touches, and two works referenced the joy conjured by the passage of the long winter into spring. One of them was Merikanto's "When the Sun Shines," which Mattila opened in gloriously full voice, emitting what felt like a brilliant flash of white light."

And Sandy McDonald reviewed the recital for EDGEBoston.com:

"If your experience of Finnish soprano Karita Mattila has been strictly aural to date, her stage presence could come as a surprise. She’s cute and strong - like a cross between a kewpie doll and a Valkyrie, with wide-set Garbo eyebrows and shoulders to match. At her Bank of American Celebrity Series solo recital on April 13, Mattila showed herself to be a supple, nuanced singer with astonishing staying power."

Karita Mattila encores

Karita Mattila brought a lot of charisma to her Jordan Hall recital on Friday night. She is the sort of performer that clearly engenders great loyalty - ticket holders flew in from as far away as Kansas City and San Francisco for the recital. Mattila didn't disappoint them.

Here three encores, delivered with much flair for the enraptured audience were (using the English translations):

1. Dvorak, "Songs My Mother Taught Me," from Gypsy Songs

2. Sibelius, "Spring is Flying"

3. Gershwin, "The Man I Love"