The New Merkin Concert Hall
by Steve Dalachinsky
Since its makeover
and re-opening I've visited the "new" Merkin about a dozen times hearing
and for the most part enjoying such varied programs as Ligeti's piece for 100
metronomes to Frank London's take on a Yiddish passion play to the Music of
Eric Dolphy to Kagel/Coleman to Margaret Len Tang's take on Cowell coupled with
a brilliant solo recital by Sylvie Courvoisier and the latest installment of
Elliott Carter's 100th year on the planet.
This last one accompanied by a conversation with Carter who, just weeks shy
of hitting the big 1-0-0, is as witty, intelligent and vibrant as ever. (He
also never seems to change those red socks.)
The evening titled ELLIOTT CARTER: The First Hundred Years consisted
primarily of Carter's pieces composed for winds with the added bonus of Ursula
Oppens performing the difficult 2 Thoughts, 2 piano solo pieces that for me
were the major highlight of the evening. She later joined the New York Woodwind
Quintet for Carter's 1991 piece Quintet for Piano and Winds.
Other pieces included solo works for bassoon, flute and clarinet as well as
duo pieces and the miraculous Eight Etudes and a Fantasy for Woodwind
Quintet. The surprise of the evening, not announced in the program, was
a recent piece Carter had written for 2 clarinets that sailed us toward the
evening's conclusion.
As usual the pre-concert conversation, principally about creating for winds,
was the highlight for me and went something like this:
Carter: "
when I taught, the students always wrote timed pieces, so
I tried to show them special ways and unusual combinations to deal with instruments
to stir up the stupid students imaginations."
As for ensemble writing the idea is to "keep the voices very distinct as
to produce different sonorities as part of the piece
the point being to
make the instruments sound as different from each other as possible but then
as with the last etude write fast and shifting to have them sound as similar
(one voice) as possible." As for the French horn, he remarks that it is
always refreshing to invent a piece to incorporate this instrument into the
woodwinds, finding new sounds within the solo registers.
Gunter Schuller
once asked Carter after hearing an early piece that incorporated the horn why
Carter couldn't write more interestingly for that instrument and now that way
of composing has become the model.
Carter also spoke
of writing one note that gets sustained and therefore creates the possibilities
of infinite variations. He mentioned that in older music the idea was to write
in four very distinct parts but that now one can write with particular sounds
in mind rather than just melody or tempi.
"Playing Elliott's
music teaches you how to play your instrument," Oppens chimes in at one
point. And so it is when you hear all these wild layered, textured pieces, many
of which have no theme, and no contrast between thickness, thinness or registers
yet can be "expressive without rhythmic or linear interests."
When asked how
he felt when he composed and how he felt about the title The First 100 Years,
he stated, "I can't say that I'm the same person who writes all those notes
and I never think about my age. It's a bit tiresome already hearing about these
100 years. I GOT IT."
And so it goes.
Carter turns 100 on Dec. 12 [2008] preceded by Messiaen's 100th on Dec. 11th.
As for the new
Merkin makeover. If you like red that's the biggest change besides rearrangement
of the toilets, the concession tables and box office. The insides of the hall
are exactly the same. Great guts. Great little hall. Great sound. But I'm warning
you. DON'T even be a second late for the music or you'll be locked out until
the applause or the next available selection is about to be played. See you
there and leave your tuxedos at home.
NYC 12/08
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