MOZART ON A DIET

posted by James Reel

MOZART Piano Concertos: No. 11; No. 12 (chamber versions). String Quartet No. 4 * Janina Fialkowska (pn); Ch Players of Canada * ATMA SACD2 2531 (Hybrid multichannel SACD: 62:58)

The booklet photo is what looks to be a century-old photo of a girl, possibly hooded, grasping a large umbrella for balance and high-stepping across a tightrope. Perilous balance really has nothing to do with this release of Mozart’s own reduction for piano and string quartet of his K. 413 and 414 piano concerti. By the nature of the composition, the piano reigns supreme except in the tutti passages; these are, after all, concertos, not piano quintets (actually sextets; here, a double bass is added for welcome support at the bottom end). Yet these players treat the scores as chamber music as much as possible; the piano is placed behind the strings, recital style, rather than up front, concerto style (the placement is quite distinct, thanks to Atma’s superb DSD sonics). Soloist Janina Fialkowska is by no means reticent, but she feels no obligation to play forward; she’s happy to engage in interplay with the strings when Mozart allows it, and otherwise plays like a sonata soloist, without muscling through the score.

Compared to the great Mozart keyboard concertos that would soon follow these first efforts of his Viennese maturity, the items at hand can sound rather insubstantial in their standard orchestral garb; in this reduction, Mozart’s melodic felicities emerge to greater effect. (And there’s no reason to lament the loss of the original woodwind lines, which frankly aren’t as delectable as what Mozart would be producing just a few concertos hence.)

Mozart wrote the two concertos on this disc at the same time as K. 415, in 1783, and regarded them as an informal unit, designed to make a splash with the Viennese public, publicizing his own skills as a pianist and as a composer while also generating scores that could be published for the home market. It’s a shame, then, that these performers (or the label) fill out the disc with an early Mozart string quartet rather than the K. 415 concerto. The quartet is well-played, at least. The strings have warmth, and while there’s nothing impulsive or really intense in the playing of the quartet or the concertos, neither are these bland sight-reading sessions. The best word for these performances: gracious.

—James Reel

I DON'T

posted by James Reel

This week in the Tucson Weekly I review a likeable production of an unlikable show:

Live Theatre Workshop has pulled from the archives I Do! I Do!, a dusty little musical from the creators of The Fantasticks. In 1992, when I reviewed a version of I Do! I Do! at another theater company, I wrote that the company "lavishe(d) a wonderful pair of singing actors on a show that nearly undermine(d) the foundation of social conscience" upon which that theater had built more than 20 seasons. However, LTW has never pretended to be a theater of social conscience; it's an organization that does its best to entertain people, usually with pretty good material, in a very small space. I Do! I Do! certainly entertains a lot of people, but that task must fall to the two cast members, because the material is as stale as 40-year-old wedding cake.

See me take a bite out of it here.

MIDORI GOES TO SCHOOL

posted by James Reel

All right, now we’re getting caught up with my contributions to Strings magazine. The current issue contains my cover feature on Midori’s ambitious efforts as a music educator:

Yes, it took tireless practice and dedication for Midori Goto, at age 11, to become a pigtailed prodigy playing in the world’s most prominent halls. But now that the violinist is in her 30s, instead of coasting through a conventional concert career, she’s working even harder. Not content to merely show up and play, Midori has positioned herself as today’s leading performer-educator. She wedges concert engagements into a remarkably full schedule that includes chairing the strings department and holding the Jascha Heifetz Chair in Violin at the University of Southern California’s Thornton School of Music. She also creates community-engagement events in the United States and Asia through her Orchestral Residencies Program and projects called Music Sharing, Midori & Friends, and Partners in Performance. Consider her datebook this past February. At the beginning of the month, Midori did a week-long Orchestra Residency Program in Des Moines, Iowa. Midmonth, she joined the Miró Quartet, Marc-André Hamelin, and Johannes Moser in the first two of three programs of a series she devised for New York’s Lincoln Center that examines the musical influences and cultures of Tōru Takemitsu and Alfred Schnittke. At the end of February, she took off on a European recital tour with pianist Charles Abramovic. All this, and USC, too. “She’s a force of nature,” declares Margaret Batjer, Midori’s USC faculty colleague and concertmaster of the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra. “She has more energy and more ideas and is more on the ball than anyone I know. It’s amazing to me that she has this whole other life beyond what she does at USC, because her commitment here seems to be full-time to us.”

You can find the full story here.

FRIENDS

posted by James Reel

Although some Tucson theater people would surely like to see me drawn and quartered, I am on friendly terms with several local actors, writers and directors. I try not to get into true friendships with them, unless I knew them before I got into the theater-criticism racket, because that could lead to all sorts of conflict of interest issues, real or perceived: Could a positive review of a friend be trusted? Could I bring myself to write negatively about a friend if that were warranted? Kathy Allen, at the Arizona Daily Star, has gone so far as to marry an actor, and she has to recuse herself from covering anything he’s involved in.

After the Tucson Weekly launched its own Facebook page for marketing purposes, it seemed logical that I, as the paper’s arts editor, should set up my own profile. At a site like this, other people can ask to become your “friend.” Some of these requests come from actual friends and family members; others come from people you may not know well (or at all) but share some of the interests you have revealed; others are just people trying to network, and make you aware of what services they might be able to sell you. (I occasionally get friend requests from cartoonists, who mistakenly believe I have any influence over what comic strips appear in the Weekly.)

What should I do when I get “friended” by some local theater person I don’t really know? At first I was reluctant to confirm or seek out such people on Facebook, because I held a very traditional interpretation of the term “friend.” How would it look if I were Facebook friends with all these people I have to write about? But eventually I realized that these people aren’t necessarily being displayed as true friends in the old sense. Facebook, MySpace and Twitter are social networking sites, and having “friends” there isn’t necessarily much different from mingling with people at a Chamber of Commerce mixer. So I decided to open myself to friendship, although I'm not going out of my way to initiate the contacts.

Am I wrong?

THE ART OF ALMQUIST

posted by James Reel

In the latest Tucson Weekly I offer the lowdown on Art Almquist, who is training actors and activists through the theater program at Tucson Magnet High School:

"I believe the human condition is something in constant need of examination and celebration," he says. "Art is something that can help you make sense of this crazy life. It's a tool for transformation; you get so wrapped up in it that it makes you able to understand something in your own life that used to be a mystery."

The full story lies here. While you’re at the site, check out the Mailbag section, which publishes the only really negative responses to my column about no longer subscribing to the Tucson Symphony. Unfortunately, both correspondents miss the point; the first is shocked that I would dare to express an opinion in a column, and both point to the Lord of the Rings concert as a successful attempt to bring in a younger audience—but the Lord of the Rings show was not a subscription concert, which was explicitly the subject of my column.

The first letter-writer, and one unpublished correspondent, have suggested that I be more supportive of the TSO in its time of need. But supporting mediocrity does not foster improvement, and I reject the notion that a mediocre arts organization is better than none at all. Whether the endeavor is arts, business or politics, if you’re going to do it, do it right, and if the present managers can’t, replace them.

UNASKED QUESTIONS (ANOTHER IN A SERIES)

posted by James Reel

Yesterday, UApresents issued a press release crowing that the campus impresario has ended the fiscal year about $90,000 ahead and with more than $1 million in advance ticket sales for next season. The press release is duly re-written with a couple of new quotes in the Arizona Daily Star this morning. But what neither the press release nor the rewrite told us is the state of the old deficit. A couple of years ago, the organization was a million dollars in the hole. Has the old debt been retired? Forgiven? Or does it still lurk there? It’s a simple question that should have been answered in the news story. And it would have been good to front-load the information that UApresents has been undertaking some severe cost-containment measures, including a reduction in attractions and periodic staff firings. Good newspapers are not merely conduits for image-polishing press releases.