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Exquisite Playing, Eccentric Music New York
Weill Recital Hall, Carnegie Hall
11/16/2025 -
Richard Strauss/Franz Hasenöhrl: Till Eulenspiegel – einmal anders! [1]
Johann Sebastian Bach: Brandenburg Concerto No. 3 in G Major, BWV 1048 [2]
Dmitri Shostakovich: Symphony No. 15, Op. 141 (arranged by Viktor Derevianko) [3]
The Met Orchestra Chamber Ensemble: Anton Rist (Clarinet). Evan Epifanio (Bassoon), Roy Emenella (French horn), Sylvia Danburg Volpe [1], Caterina Szepes, Katherine T. Fong, Jechae Lee [2], Yurika Mok [3] (Violin), Shmul D. Katz, Mary Hammann, Garret Fischbach (Viola), Dorothea Figueroa, Kari Jane Doctor [2], Mariko Wyrick [3] (Cello), Edward Francis‑Smith (Bass), Jonathan C. Kelly (Harpsichord); Howard Watkins (Piano, Celesta), Parker Lee (Timpani, Percussion), Robert L. Knopper, Steven White (Percussion)
Brandenburg Ensemble (© Doug A. Pupp)
“I have in accordance with Your Highness’s most gracious orders taken the liberty of rendering my most humble duty to Your Royal Highness with the present Concertos, which I have adapted to several instruments; begging Your Highness most humbly not to judge their imperfection with the rigor of that discriminating and sensitive taste, which everyone knows Him to have for musical works, but rather to take into benign Consideration the profound respect and the most humble obedience which I thus attempt to show Him.”
J.S. Bach in dedication of his Brandenburg Concertos
(And you thought Trump demanded servility??)
“I don’t myself quite know why the quotations are there, but I could not not include them.”
Dmitri Shostakovich on his Symphony No. 15
Two millennia after Greek edifices lost their gaudy paint jobs, a pair of obscure pianist-composers erased the brilliant colors from two of the 20th century’s greatest colorists. The result, as we heard this afternoon, with players of the Met Orchestra Chamber Ensemble, was exacting, interesting and... well, certainly eccentric.
Actually more chimerical than eccentric. Dmitri Shostakovich had suggested that his 15th Symphony orchestra be “bigger” is possible. Russian‑Israeli Viktor Derevianko shrunk it down to four percussionists (including a piano), a single violin and a single cello.
Viennese composer Franz Hasenöhrl played his prank on Till Eulenspiegel’s Merry Pranks not only by decreasing Strauss’s massive orchestra to five players (thankfully retaining clarinet and horn), not only shortening it down by 50 percent, but by giving Till a reprieve. Yes, he mounted the gallows platform. But that terrifying clarinet shriek was cut entirely!
Compassionate, though today’s clarinet player, Anton Rist, would have loved to shatter the timbres.
Actually, this opening work had such fine playing from both solo horn and clarinet (in their original roles), that one could almost forgive the cuts and alterations for Strauss’s original score. (And had he been paid for it, the worldly composer would have approved.)
The arranger did the impossible with tricks worthy of Till himself. How do you imitate percussion rumbling? The double bass does the job. How do you imitate the climax of each Till‑prank? Simply put the treble violin and clarinet (not the composer’s E flat clarinet) and stick in all the bass, and it sounds like a miniature storm.
Of course one might scorn a single violin imitating the original 32 fiddles. Strauss was an orchestral magician. Hasenöhrl was that sorcerer’s apprentice.
The next work was not only authentic, but followed Bach’s original ensemble perfectly, even the sometimes optional mini‑cadenza, by Katerina Szepes. We had no wonderment here. All we had were ten of the finest string players in the New York, all from the Met. The three fast movements were played in (what I surmise) was Bach in the jauntiest mood, augmented by the gorgeous Baroque‑style Weill chandeliers.
For the next work, I was reminded of a friend’s comment after we heard Mahler’s Symphony of a Thousand. “Pretty good,” he said, “but I still prefer Mahler’s original version for solo harmonica.”
D. Shostakovich/V. Derevianko (© Wikipedia Commons)
Shostakovich’s 15th Symphony is a terrific romp-funeral-romp. Yet translating the whole huge orchestra to one violin and one cello–with three percussionists imitating the composer’s own massive consort–was a prestidigitation. And with such brilliant soloists–especially Howard Watkins playing piano and celesta together–it came close to working.
In fact, most was an entertaining (if not fascinating) metamorphosis. Did we want the cello to take the trombone part? Could the piano imitate winds and brass? Did those violin harmonics replicate the second-movement climax? Could the last‑movement Glinka romance for the orchestra have the same resonance with piano and then violin?
Shostakovich Ensemble (© Doug A Pupp)
Actually, I could have enjoyed the very audacity of Derevianko’s arrangement (which the composer permitted!). Inevitably missing, though were those blazing, monumental, full-bodied orchestral climaxes from the first two movements and later.
For space reasons, I could not mention every name, except that they were all vivid, expressive, the balances were excellent. True enough, the kettledrum and bass drum were so loud (as the composer wanted) that the other soloists almost shrank back.
Never mind. Hearing such grand artists, whether replicating, solo‑ing, or, in the Bach, creating a shimmering moving web, was an maximized (not minimized) afternoon’s treat.
Harry Rolnick
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