Eugene weekly., June 19, 2003, Page 14, Image 14

After treating your
ears at the Bach
Festival, treat the
rest of yourself to
SWEET
LIFE!
!
It’s a shame the Bach Festival offers only
one concert on period instruments — this one
features violin, cello, and harpsichord — par-
ticularly given the early music experts on the
UO music faculty. But this year’s looks like a
dandy, combining the familiar (one of Bach’s
harpsichord toccatas and a sonata for violin
and harpsichord) with the more obscure
(Uccelini, Castello) and the better known
(Frescobaldi, Domenico Gabrieli, Biber) earli-
er Baroque composers.
Wednesday, July 9, 8 pm
The Tao of the
Well-Tempered Bach,
Soreng Theater, Hult Center,
Wednesday July 9.
This show sold out last year, and probably
will this time, too, as pianist Levin and Tai Ji
master Al Huang explore Bach’s keyboard
masterpiece, The Well Tempered Clavier.
Sweet Life
Saturday, July 5, 8 pm
Friday, July 11, 8 pm
www.sweetlifedesserts.com
Robert Levin and Ya-Fei Chuang,
duo piano recital (Beall)
Bach and Ballet
Eugene Ballet,
Festival Chamber Orchestra (Silva)
683-5676 • 755 Monroe St.
Sun - Wed till 9:00 • Thurs -Sat till 11:00
"
Any new work by one of America’s finest
composers, John Harbison, is worth hearing, and
pianist Robert Levin (who made his name as a
Baroque and Classical scholar and performer)
and his wife, award-winning pianist Ya Fei
Chuang, will play Harbison’s second piano
sonata, which premiered earlier this year.
The show also includes “La Valse,”
Ravel’s deconstruction of waltz music
(metaphorically evoking the first world war’s
destruction of the old order that spawned the
high society waltzes) and Romantic works by
Chopin and Rachmaninoff.
Sunday, July 6, 4 pm
Berg Violin Concerto,
Brahms German Requiem (Silva)
It’s strange to hear the words “atonal” and
“beautiful” in the same sentence, but Alban
Berg’s haunting 1935 Violin Concerto manages
to be that rare 12-tone work that genuinely
touches listeners’ emotions. Berg was a student
of Arnold Schoenberg, who originated atonali-
ty but never forced his students to follow his
path or rigid rules. This masterpiece, which
even quotes Bach, moves fluently from placid-
ity to anguish to melancholy serenity.
Berg’s great concerto was intended as a
requiem for a friend’s child (Manon Gropius)
and wound up being a requiem for the com-
poser, who died shortly after writing it and
before it could be performed.
Johannes Brahms’ popular (if turgid)
German Requiem offers secular solace
for those who are left behind when their
loved ones die; it’s been in the air a lot
since Sept. 11, 2001 and was also per-
formed at the opening of the Hult Center
20 years ago.
Monday, July 7, 8 pm
Festival Baroque Ensemble (Beall)
No matter how well performed the
Baroque music at the Oregon Bach
Festival, almost none of it really follows
its composers’ intentions, because the
OBF still clings to the outmoded use of
modern instruments and tunings to per-
form music that was written for instru-
ments quite different from today’s
descendants. It may be understandable to
use the more powerful modern versions
to project enough sound to carry through
the cavernous Silva Hall (much larger
than the venues this music was written
for), but Beall Hall offers an ideal venue
for the leaner, more transparent sounds
of period instruments.
14 JUNE 19, 2003
“The Tao of the Well-Tempered Bach”
Al Huang, Robert Levin (Soreng)
Bach’s other concertos are every bit as
compelling as the Brandenburgs, and the
Concerto for Oboe and Violin in C Minor is
one of the most powerful ever written, the
wistfulness of its pastoral second movement
giving way to the taut drama of its punchy
final movement.
The Orchestral Suites are more playful, as
befits a series of dances, and the two per-
formed on this concert feature flute and other
wind instruments. All the music in this show is
among Bach’s best and most familiar. See
accompanying story, “Bach and Ballet,” for
more on the music of this concert.
Sunday, July 13, 4 pm
Bach Magnificat Mozart C Minor Mass (Silva)
Most listeners know the poignant story of
Mozart’s unfinished Requiem, but it’s not the
only magnificent piece of sacred music he left
incomplete. Even truncated, his Mass in C
Minor is one of the great sacred works of the
Classical era, and will certainly appeal to fans
of Bach and Beethoven’s efforts in this form.
Bach’s exultant Magnificat remains one of his
most popular pieces and one of the finest for
chorus and orchestra — a happy climax to this
year’s festival. !
Ya-Fei Chuang,
Beall Concert Hall,
UO School of Music,
Saturday July 5.