Pianists who dream of a concert career must learn to love
Rachmaninoff’s second piano concerto: the thing known as “the Rach 2”
(pronounced “rock”). The Russian composer garlanded his biggest hit
with ripples and ripples of notes, all sheathed in big Romantic (yes,
with a capital R) chords that ring and peal atop the orchestra. But
Rachmaninoff, a refugee from the Russian Revolution of 1917, wrote and
revised his piano concertos in order to pay the rent. Meanwhile
he wrote some of his finest music not for piano and orchestra but for a
far more impractical—and utterly noncommercial—arrangement:
two pianos.
Rachmaninoff called his Symphonic Dances “my last
flicker.” Beset by illness and despondent that he might never return to
Russia, he wrote the Dances in 1940 for the Philadelphia
Orchestra. The generic titles of the three movements, “Noon,”
“Twilight,” and “Midnight,” don’t tell us much; the taciturn
Rachmaninoff once decreed, “Titles are a giveaway.”
While the later orchestral version of the Dances shimmers and
struts, the original two-piano Dances cuts closer to the bone,
leading a triumphant march inexorably into decay and dissipation.
Rachmaninoff gives plenty of foreboding clues: The pastoral gallop of
the opening of “Noon” relents before a compact music-box tune that soon
grows wistful. The middle movement stretches the galloping theme into a
morose waltz that in turn hints at the slimy resurfacing of the
submerged medieval hymn Dies Irae in the final “Midnight.”
After the work’s premiere, one critic captured Dances perfectly,
calling it “a rendezvous of ghosts.”
Years earlier, in 1901—in fact the same year as the Rach
2—Rachmaninoff wrote Suite No. 2 in C minor for two
pianos, a dazzlingly giddy piece without the filler and dowdiness of
the overhyped concerto. I especially love the heart-stopping
“Tarantella” that storms implacably up and down the keyboard,
settles into a series of warbling trills, and finally yields to
joyously pounded chords.
As few ensembles bother performing music for two pianos, I’m eager
to catch the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center’s concert devoted
to this side of the great Russian composer. Three pianists, including
the legendary Gilbert Kalish, trade off on the Dances and the
Suite No. 2. Another trio drawn from the elite of New York
classical players, pianist Gilles Vonsattel, Ida Kavafian on violin,
and cellist Gary Hoffman, tackle Rachmaninoff’s youthful Trio
élégiaque No. 2. Don’t miss it. 
The Chamber Music Society of
Lincoln Center perform Wed Nov
5 at the Recital Hall at Benaroya, 200 University St, 800-838-3006,
7:30 pm, $25/$38.
Fri 10/31
MONKSTONE THEOCRACY
Pianist Bill Anschell and company play the sweetly discordant and
often sentimental tunes of legendary jazz icon Thelonious Monk. Last
summer Anschell explained his adoration of Monk. “The music keeps you
on track,” Anschell vouched. “You won’t play a string of eight notes or
swing-inspired melodies. Monk’s music has a spirit of its own. Monk
brings humor into jazz without making fun of what he’s playing or being
cheesy.” With guest vocalist Carolyn Graye. Hiroshi’s Restaurant,
2501 Eastlake Ave E, 726-4966, 7:30–10 pm, free.
ELEKTRA
This Richard Strauss opera has no overture, save for one
introductory chord that writhes and stuns. Elektra writhes and stuns,
too: Bent on avenging her father Agamemnon—the Mycenaean king who
left to command the siege on Troy—Elektra’s heroic struggle is to
resist by surviving, only to die in a dance of death after her revenge
succeeds. Seattle Opera corralled a fine pair of casts, notably
including Rosalind Plowright, who sings on Nov 1, as the desperate and
paranoid Klytämnestra. When I saw both casts several weeks ago,
Elektra’s “death dance” didn’t quite climax; nonetheless this
production is very good. Also Sat Nov 1. See www.seattleopera
.org
for details. Sung in German with supertitles in English. McCaw Hall,
321 Mercer St, 389-7676, 7:30 pm, $25–$172.
LIBERATION MUSIC ORCHESTRA
Legendary bandleader and composer Carla Bley teams up with bassist
Charlie Haden, who helms the ongoing revival of this swinging, agitprop
jazz orchestra. Town Hall, 1119 Eighth Ave, 547-9787, 8 pm,
$23–$32.
Sat 11/1
MARCIN WASILEWSKI TRIO
Having become cult favorites for backing Polish trumpeter Tomasz
Stanko, this piano, bass, and drums trio inhabits the sparsely
populated netherzone between the spiky, poetic disorder of freely
improvised music and straight-ahead jazz. Triple Door, 216 Union St,
547-9787, sets at 7 and 9:30 pm, $20/$22, 21+ after 9 pm.
MOZART’S REQUIEM
The Cathedral Choir of St. James and Cathedral Soloists present
Mozart’s Requiem in its intended setting, the church. St.
James Cathedral, 804 Ninth Ave, 382-4874, 7:30 pm, free-will
donation.
WAYNE HORVITZ
The Earshot Jazz Festival commemorates the 20th anniversary of
Horvitz’s arrival in Seattle with a three-night microfestival. A
seminal presence in the 1980s New York downtown avant jazz
scene—Horvitz collaborated with John Zorn, Butch Morris, and many
others—the composer and his wife, Robin Holcomb, have continued
their compelling cross-genre explorations fusing jazz, classical, and
song-based music. The couple has been quietly generous, too, lending
their presence to benefit gigs and much more to the local avant scene.
Tonight, Horvitz revives his early 1990s rampaging jazz-rock group
Pigpen with tough-guy saxophonist Briggan Krauss; on Sun Nov 2 at the
Seattle Art Museum Horvitz joins a trio with longtime compadres drummer
Bobby Previte and trumpeter Ron Miles; on Mon Nov 3, the West Coast
version of Horvitz’s New York Composers Orchestra takes the stage at
the Triple Door. Tractor Tavern, 5213 Ballard Ave NW, 547-9787, 8:30
pm, $16/$18, 21+.
Sun 11/2
ORCHESTRA SEATTLE
A superlative conductor of baroque music, George Shangrow leads the
band in three works by J. S. Bach, the Missa Brevis in F major,
BWV 233 and two cantatas, “Sie werden aus Saba alle kommen,” BWV 65 and
“Nimm von uns Herr, du treuer Gott,” BWV 101. First Free Methodist
Church, 3200 Third Ave W, 800-838-3006, 3 pm, $10–$25.
