|
Back
When the Pianist Paints New York
The Crypt, Church of the Intercession
05/07/2025 -
Tyson Gholston Davis: ...Expansions of Light
Franz Schubert: Piano Sonata in C minor, D. 958
Jonathan Biss (Pianist) 
J. Biss/T. G. Davis
(© Peter Stevens-Wikimedia Commons/tysongholsdaviscomposer.com)
“‘Winter light’ like the artwork, is deeply contemplative in nature, providing a meditative and ethereal atmosphere in which the music flows through. While studying the canvas, it became apparent to me that the essence of ‘Winter Light’ is one of great concern to the expansion and development of a singular visual motive. Hues of bright golden bronze in the upper left of the canvas sweep in a downward fashion gradually to the right; this amorphous, draping background is influenced by muted dark shades of brown, green, and orange.”
Tyson Gholson Davis
“...everything in it has meaning–not just every note but every gesture, every marking. Every choice feels significant and feels like it’s made with intentionality. And that strikes me as maybe the difference between good music and bad.”
Jonathan Biss, on Tyson Gholson Davis’ ...Expansions of Light
Entering the Crypt down in the Church of the Intercession, one feels the place and the music not made for each other. Those great Gothic arches, the darkness, the candles on the stage call for Orlando DeLassus or Palestrina. A hidden choir, a Mass or Lament.
In other words, this crypt, one of the two major venues of “Death of Classical” (the other is Greenwood Cemetery mausoleum) is a fitting place for the liturgical and the macabre. Not (as last night) for one of the world’s finest pianists. So fine, in fact, that the Gothic arches disappeared (podiatrists might call them fallen arches), and one had room only for the two–in an eerie way–connected works.
One was the physically dying Schubert, who ignored the Grim Reaper and painted a supremely variegated sonata. The other was Tyson Gholson Davis, who literally used the piano to give an impression of a particular painting itself.
The Schubert was of course the most familiar. And like all Schubert late sonatas, classification is impossible. If it begins with a Beethoven storm, it continues with jolting major-minor changes, with a slow movement that might–might–have revealed the inner Schubert. (How nice to think that. The reality is that Schubert’s composing was isolated from his earthly life.) And finally, of all improbable things, a tarantella.
Last night the C Minor Sonata had, as its exponent, Jonathan Biss. Mr. Biss could be called a Schubert “specialist”, though he would resent that word. What we had last night was a pianist who defied the resonance of the Crypt and sailed through all the contradictions, all the puzzles of each movement.
At the start we did have the stormy Beethoven aura, but Mr. Biss eschewed imitation. This opening was a voyage through storm and solace, through sudden rests and cascades of notes tumbling over each other.
Ms. Biss didn’t try to tie them together. From the first two notes, he let the notes themselves speak volumes.
TheAdagio could have been an inward repose, but again, the artist somehow made the quietness turn into drama. The third movement was hardly danceable, for his changes of tempo offered our attention. And launching into that real Italianate finale, one could–with the feet of a Gene Kelly–actually dance through it.
The Schubert was the second work. The start was new to most of the audience. If few in the audience knew of Tyson Gholson Davis or the work commissioned by Jonathan Biss himself, ...Expansions of Light, fewer knew that mesmeric work had a secret revealed by the composer.
Winter Light
A few of Mr. Davis’ other works had been inspired by the late renowned abstract expressionist Helen Frankenthaler. The picture above shows her Winter Light, a work beguiling and inspiring him.
Not that Mr. Davis ever meant to “duplicate” it à la Mussorgsky’s Pictures. Not can I look into the mind of Mr. Davis.
What can be said without argument is that the three-movement work (which he retitled ...Expansions of Light) has its own points and glimmers of pianistic light. Yet these single notes at the top and bottom of the piano gamut don’t radiate, don’t beam.
Instead the notes are resting notes, glowing softly. At first they resembled any futuristic piano piece. A note here, a note there, and we, the audience have to figure out their algorithm.
Yet that was far from true. Instead, Mr. Biss played comforting (if discordant) chords between these points of light. As if Mr. Davis had painted primary colors and softened them with harmonies of hues.
The final two movements weren’t, at first hearing, much different than the opening Arietta. But by the end of 17 minutes, one was brought into the music, one went with the flow.
After the ending silence ...Expansions of Light had been changed from a musical replication, an inspiration or an intuitional composition, Mr. Davis and Mr. Biss offered shadows, tints and breathing pianistic breadth.
Harry Rolnick
|
