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Varieties of Musical Experiences New York
Baisley Powell Elebash Recital Hall CUNY Graduate Center
08/27/2026 -
Reimagining Classical: Anton Rubinstein: Piano Sonata Number 3 in F Major, Opus 41 (I. Allegro risoluto e con Fuoco); Ellis Ludwig Leone: Quiet Hours (World Premiere); Trois Allumettes (For M.H.; Michael Stephen Brown: Twelve Blocks; Florence Price:Adoration (Arranged for clarinet and piano by Elaine Fine); Paquito D'Rivera Bridgetower Reimagined; Clara Schumann: Piano Trio in G Major (Andante), Opus 17; Astor Piazzolla: La Muerte del Ángel; ; Libertango
Han Chen, Jerome Lowenthal; Ursula Oppens, Rasa Vitkauskaite, Ellis Ludwig-Leone (Piano); Jonathan Cohler (Clarinet); Neave Trio: Anna Williams, violin; Mikhail Veselov, cello; Eri Nakamura, piano
”If you don't walk away from a buffet feeling like you need a nap, you're doing it wrong."
Anon
A.Rubinstein, H.Chen(©Painting by Ilya Repin/Courtesy of the artist)
At first glance, the program for Reimagining Classics resembled a menu of the most variegated buffet. Nine “dishes” in the space of 90 minutes. Composers either obscure or with obscure titles. Bits and pieces from longer works. Artists ranging from a young Taiwan-born glittering pianist to a pair of iconic 20th Century artists. Music ranging from a virtuosic mid-19th Century sonata to a jazzy version of Beethoven’s Kreutzer.
What could possibly tie this music together for a single concert?
The solution? The variety–-of centuries, artists, styles, and cultural approaches–gave an original appreciation. Add to this introductory comments and discussions by the composer and/or artists.
The verbal compėre for all the talks was Han Chen, a pianistwho showed his virtuosic chops with the opening movement of Anton Rubinstein’s Third Sonata. Rubinstein died a few years before the recording machine, but he is depicted as titantic, volcanic, and the picture of a post-Lisztian giant.
His problem was that, though born in Russia, his music leaps with Germanic mid-Romantic show-offy forms. Everybody tried to out-do Liszt, but few accomplished this.
Han Chen has made a recording of Rubinstein, and his single movement here was flashy, loud, with fireworks, glissandi and pounding chords. I’ll still take Liszt, Alkan and (the later) Medtner over this, but Rubinstein, like Han Chen, must have been (and still is) a dynamo.
After this, the two dreamy well-crafted works by Ellis Ludwig-Leone were a fitting respite. But nothing, nothing, prepared the audience for the following Twelve Blocks. Not only was premiered and performed by the great Jerome Lowenthal and Ursula Oppens, but Ms. Oppens had been the “geographic” inspiration,
U.Oppens, J.Lowenthal(©Rambeau d’Harrar)
Twelve Blocks were the twelve blocks which composer Michael Stephen Brown walked to reach Ms. Oppens’ apartment. But the music had more than simple explosions and interplay by both pianists. We also had the words, going through Mr. Brown’s peripatetic mind, but here it was spoken in French and English by both pianists, sometimes recited, sometimes whispered.
Did we follow in Mr. Smith’s footsteps? No, that would be too easy. This was abstract music, interlaced with the words of Verlaine. And whether understood or not, Mr. Smith provided us with his own mind. The Oppens/Lowenthal duo worked their piano key with poetry, music and their century-plus experience.
The piano-clarinet duo of Rasa Vitkauskaite and Jonathan Cohler started with a pleasing inconsequential piece by Florence Price, After this came–what I considered–-the most magnetic work of the evening.
Paquito d’Riveras’s Bridgewater Reimagined started with a few bars of Kreutzer Sonata (this re-arranged for clarinet). That was the name later given to Beethoven’s Bridgewater Sonata, named for the composer’s African-European fiddle friend.
Those few bars morphed into Henry Bridgewater’s own songs. After that all links were severed. The next section was not “our” jazz. This was pure Gottschalk jazz, itself transmogrified into a courtly, African-Cuban rhythms (again merci, M. Gottschalk) and more “reimagined” 18th dances with a 21st Century lilt.
Whew!
The final music was played hy the exuberant Neave Trio. Not than an aphoristic Clara Schumann Andante was more than a bagatelle. After this, our own New York/Italian/Argentine genius Astor Piazzolla was given exuberant high-spirited pacing to end this strange concert.
To renew the food metaphor, this buffet had some withered lettuce, some well-grilled chicken–-and marvelous sections of Beluga caviar, Maryland Crab Cakes and even a few measures of Champaign. A variagated tasty outing indeed.
Harry Rolnick
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