See also: Memorial for Sergei & 70 at 70 & Walden Premiere
Saturday, November, 8, I went to a free concert at the Valley Presbyterian Church on Wisconier Road in Brookfield. The concert was in celebration of the church's new grand piano and a grand piano it is indeed, especially in the capable hands that played this concert.....
The players were Maxim Vladimiroff, a Russian-born pianist and award-winning composer, his father, Sergei Vladimiroff, a beaming and emotive concert pianist, as well as two highly credentialed Russian string players who have both appeared with the Hartford Symphony: violinist Natalya Shamis, (a former concertmaster of the Moldavian Symphony Orchestra and later of the New American Chamber Orchestra), and cellist Zakhary Paranyuk who is a member of the Ridgefield Symphony Orchestra, the Brooklyn Chamber Orchestra, etc.
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The company was great too - I got to sit with an old friend, Leisa Vladimiroff, who is Max's wife, whom I haven't seen in quite a while - long enough to notice that their boys have grown quite a few inches, while I have been away!
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Back to the music! The opening salvo was Sonata for violin and piano (KV 378(317d) with its Allegro sections, sandwiching an Andantino sostenuto e contabile. Ms. Shamis showed her beautiful, energetic and singing lines, and Mr. Vladimiroff the younger played this lighter Mozart score with precision, balance and sensitivity.
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Next was an immediate change of pace. From the tidy elegant structure of Mozart, the program moved to Tchaikovsky, and Vladimiroff the younger was tag-teamed by his father, who specialty is emotion, caprice and surprise. Mr. Vladimiroff the senior played five sections (months) from The Seasons, which is "program music" composed to embody some well known Russian poems. It was all lovely - but I most loved the June and October selections because they were most meaningful to me.. In June one could feel the sea waves lapping at one's ankles, and the warm night sky arching above. In October it was impossible to not see leaves flitting slowly to the ground, and at the end even a single leaf, trembling and rocking in the breeze before it finally lets go and falls.
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For November and December, I couldn't grasp the metaphor and I think this prevented me from immersing myself in the music itself. November involved "not trying to catch up with the troika" according to the program notes, and I had no idea what the troika was.... December 's metaphor was wonderful, but I was unsure of its context. The program notes mentioned maidens on Christmas eve, removing their slippers and throwing them outside the gates. How wonderfully poetic! I would love to know more about that (someone comment and enlighten me....)
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From the Sesaons, the senior Vladimiroff moved to more Tchaikovsky - the Polonaise from Eugene Onegin (an opera based on a poem). This well-known and beloved composition almost makes one want to dance... As always, Vladimiroff played it with strength and subtlety.
After all this work, the players got to rest during intermission, during which a silent auction took place in the lobby. There was a lot of friendly conversation, and a few libations as well. (I am a coffee addict and always love fresh brew...)
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And fresh from intermission - I heard my favorite piece of the night - Etude in G minor Op. 33 by Sergei Rachmaninoff. Now, when listening to music, it's always best heard when one approaches it as a sunbather approaches the sun - peel off the protective artifice and allow the music to act directly on the most vulnerable areas of the self. This etude took me away, filled me with melancholy, and exaltation in its exquisite beauty all fabulously brought out by this fine player.
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Next on the program was a psychological wonder -- the father interprets the son!!! Sergei played Six Preludes, a modernist tone-row style composition by Maxim ! I loved the caprice, the smatterings of tones, contrasted with the heavier tread of discordant semi-chordal blocks of notes - yet this is not a completely atonal work. .
There was much context to center, and it was an interesting contrast to the surrounding works.
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Then, it was back to the intense emotional ride of Dmitri Shostakovich's Prelude and Fugue NO 24 in D minor, Op 87! It was most interesting to read in the program that this was a part of the composer's 24 Preludes and Fugues written written in tribute to Bach's own preludes and fugues. Listening with the form of Bach's works in mind - it was amazing what different effect emerged from Shostakovich's simmering furtive intensity - an intensity amply encompassed by Sergei Vladimiroff. The man must have been exhausted when he was finished playing it, so much energy went into the furious build of the fugal elements.
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He got to rest though - the next item was played by Maxim instead. The composition was another Mozart bookending the program: Trio, KV 502. And here is my second favorite work of the night. To me there is nothing so beautiful as the sound of the cello, and Mr Paranyuk is a wonderful player with superb tone! Perhaps as a mezzo-soprano, I am systemically partial to this rich sonority. Then when the cello's sound is woven with the sound of Ms. Shamis, singing violin, and Vladimiroff's artful energy, well, it's like a death by chocolate desert, except more serious, more expediant! It was so compelling my own head could not stop moving in some sort of sympathetic rhythmic echo. Oh what a marvel - Mozart, form and controlled flash, so well inhabited. This was truly a fine piece...
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There followed lots of applause and people rising from their seats. There was an encore, I am getting senile and cannot remember what it was. Then followed by
FOOD, conversations, more libations.
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Valley Presbyterian - congratulations on very satisfying event.
