Critic's Notebook: Five concerts

Dear blogosphere: I'm afraid I can't enthrall you by posting a list of the food I ate for breakfast or hurling standard obscenities at the political faction I loathe this week. So here instead are my thoughts on a more mundane topic: a week of Philadelphia music 25 Oct 09-01 Nov 09.

Smith 3-0

Give Kile Smith a hat trick. This composer's setting of two praise psalms— #113 and 150, for numbers geeks— continued a streak that includes the piece for horn and orchestra that the Classical Symphony debuted two seasons ago as well as the Vespers that Smith composed for Piffaro last season. Lyric Fest unveiled the psalms at a program devoted to "world spirituality in song."

Smith wrote the settings for two of the most appealing instruments in the Philadelphia region: Suzanne DuPlantis's mezzo and the massed voices of the Pennsylvania Girlchoir. Many of the best operatically trained art song vocalists seem to create a character to deliver the song, as if they were developing a role in an opera. DuPlantis turned Smith's script into an exuberant religious rite that placed a buoyant leader in front of a group of enthusiastic young followers.

Lyric Fest backed up its promise of world-encompassing religious music with a surprisingly moving program that included novelties like an Eskimo chant to the creator, sung by the Girlchoir, and classics like Mozart's Laudate from the Solemn Vespers, sung by a promising newcomer, soprano Lorraine Hinds.

Ethnic maybe, good yes

The other major debut on last week's schedule was the Philadelphia premiere of a violin concerto by the Iranian composer Behzad Ranjbaran, with Elisa Lee Koljonen as soloist and JoAnn Falletta leading the Curtis Orchestra. Ranjbaran's notes say he used Persian modes and rhythms and tried to suggest the sound of the Persian kamancheh— an ancient forerunner of the violin— but I didn't hear anything in the concerto that sounded particularly ethnic. The work conveys some of the flow and color that you might expect from music from that part of the world, but it's essentially a beautiful concerto in the grand mode, reflecting its author's personality and creativity.

A question for feminists

Why don't we ever hear women conductors lead one of the major standard symphonies when they visit Philadelphia? Joanne Falletta's Curtis Orchestra program ended with Sheherazade. Why not Tchaikovsky's Pathetique symphony? Or Beethoven's Third or Fifth? Or one of Mahler's colossi? If the Air Force can let women fly A-10 Warthogs in combat, can't the music world assume female conductors can tackle big manly composers like Beethoven?

Music for wide piano benches

Michal Schmidt is a fine local cellist as well as a fine local pianist. For the latest "Music from the Houses" program on the Penn campus, pianist Matthew Bengtson took advantage of her double-threat status and scheduled three Bach arrangements that require extra hands on the keyboard.

All the arrangements were created by Hungarian composer Gyorgy Kurtag, and one of them even featured a part for two more hands played by the third member of the evening's ensemble, violinist Min-Young Kim. Kurtag devised an artistically successful novelty act— a tour de force that keeps all hands flying across the keyboard and recreates the rushing Bachian complexity you hear in works like the Fourth Brandenburg.

The threesome finished with a masterpiece of the chamber repertoire: the Brahms first piano trio. Their opening movement and adagio captured Brahms's unique mixture of contentment and pathos, and their finale delivered the kind of music that's so great to listen to that no one in his right mind would worry about its emotional, political or philosophical significance.

A tip

The Penn series seems to be semi-public, with no contacts on their handouts. If you're associated with Philadelphia's largest employer, you're missing a treat if you ignore their posters.

Who you calling Scandinavian?

In his remarks following the Chamber Orchestra's "Scandinavian Perspectives" program, conductor Dirk Brosse suggested that most of the composers on the program hadn't been particularly Scandinavian in style. Sibelius was the sole exception, in Brosse's opinion: His work had been heavily influenced by the Scandinavian landscape. To me, the five pieces on the program reflected the best attitudes I associate with that region: a healthy, balanced revelry in life's pleasures, including physical activity and (in this case) fiddling, dancing and rhythmic string music. But that's probably the kind of thought you get when you read too much.

And in addition

No memoir of this week's music would be complete without a mention of the Philadelphia Chamber Ensemble— the only series in which you can consistently hear leading Philadelphia Orchestra musicians cutting loose with music that combines winds, strings and harp in non-standard groupings.

The program opened with a chirpy (yes, that's the correct adjective) Beethoven trio for flute, violin and viola, featuring flutist David Kramer's distinctive full-rounded tone. The other names on the menu were less familiar: composer Florent Schmitt (1870-1958), with a suite for flute, harp, and string trio; Franz Berwald (1796-1868), with a septet for clarinet, bassoon, horn, string trio and double bass; and the Orchestra's retired principal bassoonist, Bernard Garfield, with two conversations for clarinet and bassoon. Aficionados who think chamber music consists of string quartets by a narrow circle of masters should give the Chamber Ensemble a look.