Concert Review: Alisa Weilerstein with the Kansas City Symphony at Helzberg Hall

Original image by There Stands the Glass.

The aspiring conductor seated next to me at Helzberg Hall on Sunday, September 15, assessed Matthias Pintscher’s approach during intermission by suggesting “he lets the orchestra play”. The absence of self-aggrandizing posturing was a refreshing change for The Kansas City Symphony.

I invested $37 to join an attentive audience of about 1,000 in the last of three concerts of Pintscher’s first weekend as the ensemble’s conductor and musical director. Pintscher’s humble demeanor aside, it’s too soon to assess if or how the quality of the Symphony has changed. 

I consider the opening selection a promising signal. The mild dissonance of Unsuk Chin’s “subito con forza” is not dissimilar to Pintscher’s exciting original compositions. Here’s hoping for more like this.

There’s no getting around the fact that the featured piece, Antonín Dvořák’s “Concerto in B Minor,” is a drag. Not even the presence of star cellist Alisa Weilerstein could make the composition interesting.

A reading of Igor Stravinsky’s stupendous “The Firebird” more than compensated for the dullness of Dvořák. Like the characters in the corresponding ballet, I was entirely enchanted. As for Pintscher, the verdict is still out.

Book Review: Dvořák’s Prophecy and the Vexed Fate of Black Classical Music, by Joseph Horowitz

Original image by There Stands the Glass.

I almost dismissed Dvořák’s Prophecy and the Vexed Fate of Black Classical Music after taking a cursory glance at the index.  How could author Joseph Horowitz properly address the subject without referencing Ornette Coleman, Miles Davis or Wynton Marsalis?  I’m glad I overcame my initial aversion.  

Horowitz, a refreshingly combative scholar of classical music, inhabits an entirely different world from my own.  I learned a great deal from his new study inspired by Antonín Dvořák’s faulty prediction that the music developed by Black Americans would become the basis for the country’s classical music.

But was Dvořák wrong?  I’m inclined to believe that jazz is the true classical music of North America.  Horowitz doesn’t entertain the premise, but he’s not averse to jazz.  He repeatedly mocks traditionalists who feared a “jazz threat.”  Instead, he traces the evolution of European classical music in the new world.  Often straying from his theme, Horowitz’s disparate ramblings are consistently interesting.

A passionate champion of Charles Ives, Horowitz introduced me to the startling Concord Sonata.  For that alone, I’m in his debt.  He also has a curious obsession with the role of critics.  Horowitz clearly relishes dismantling the reputation of the Kansas City native Virgil Thomson.

Depictions of the “racial minefield” related to analyses of “Porgy and Bess” are valuable, as is an assertion that the Metropolitan Opera is responsible for diminishing opera from a popular form of music among Americans into “an aloof, elitist playground for the very rich.”  And I enjoyed learning about the intercine rivalries among American composers.

These themes are amplified in a series of illustrative videos.  A portion of my enthusiasm for Dvořák’s Prophecy is likely due to recency bias.  I just took in the PBS broadcast of “Black Lucy and the Bard,” a compelling ballet by Caroline Randall Williams and the accomplished polymath Rhiannon Giddens.  

Samanthe Ege’s piano recital astounded me four months ago. Horowitz shares Ege’s enthusiasm for the neglected composer Florence Price. And in ten days I’ll attend a concert overseen by Terence Blanchard, the composer of the 2019 opera “Fire Shut Up in My Bones”. Dvořák’s prophecy might yet be fulfilled.

Concert Review: Escher String Quartet at Polsky Theatre

Original image by There Stands the Glass.

A distraught man seated next to me in the second row of Escher String Quartet’s recital at Polsky Theatre never stopped staring at his phone during the concert on Wednesday, August 3.  The discourteous behavior would ordinarily enrage me.

Yet prior to the performance the Chinese national explained he was communicating with friends and family in Taiwan who were closely monitoring the Chinese military drills around the contested island.

Compositions by Joseph Haydn, Béla Bartók and Antonín Dvořák sounded especially consequential as my new friend frantically doomscrolled.  Might, as he implied at intermission, the event be among the last concerts on earth?  And how precisely would I want to go out?  

I consume gobs of reggaeton for the same reason other people swallow pharmaceutical mood elevators. Yet I’d be mortified if Bad Bunny was playing when the world ended.  Escher String Quartet would provide a far more suitable sendoff.

Even though one member of the acclaimed quartet committed minor flubs during the concert presented by the Heartland Chamber Music Festival, the gorgeous Haydn, queasy Bartók and sublime Dvořák works riveted the audience of about 300.  And at only $10 a ticket, the recital was an economical end-of-the-world bargain.