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Education Student Achievements |
Sunday, March 16, 1997 THE OTTAWA CITIZEN MUSICREVIEW Duo-pianists enchant with ‘modern’ works Espace Musique presents Anagnoson & Kinton Piano Duo Where: Tabaret Hall, University of Ottawa, Friday only BY RICHARD TODD (The Ottawa Citizen) It wasn't a typical Espace Musique event. Duo-pianists James Anagnoson and Leslie Kinton performed five 20th-century works, but two of them were by Stravinsky and have been in the repertoire for two or three generations. By no stretch of the imagination were they "new music". That's not a complaint. To the contrary, putting genuinely new music in a context that stretches back to 1911, when Stravinsky's Petrouchka was first performed, is a good idea. If recent music were more frequently presented along with modern repertoire, it would undoubtedly attract larger audiences and gain wider acceptance. Not that Friday's audience was very large. The snow and freezing rain kept all but the most dedicated from hearing a fascinating evening of music. The program opened with Stravinsky's Dumbarton Oaks Concerto in an arrangement for two pianos by the composer. Nowadays this music sounds only vaguely modern, though it is complex enough to require close attention from the listener. Anagnoson and Kinton's playing is everything that duo-piano playing should be. A blindfolded person would probably think at first that there was only one pianist involved. After a few measures, it would become apparent that more than to fingers were needed to play all the notes, but the unanimity of those fingers would continue to astonish. Glrnn Buhr's Le reve revient… et puis encore se dissout is a complex work with thick textures, yet admirably lucid in its total effect. It is far more than an intellectual exercise, engaging the listener with musical thoughts. Speaking of musical thoughts, Mark Johnston has some interesting ones. His Toccata in E minor for two pianos is a work of personality and contrapuntal sophistication. A listener who didn't know who Johnston is would probably guess that he was a young composer, in his late teens or early 205 perhaps, of conservative bent but unmistakable talent. The only problem with that picture is that Johnston, who is just 10 years old, was only nine when he wrote the toccata, which won the 1996 Ottawa Youth Composition Prize. I've never heard such good music by so young a composer, present or past. It's rare for so young a composer to receive as good a performance as Anagnoson and Kinton provided. He must have been pleased. Pierre Gallant's Canonic Variations on a Theme by Mozart, originally written for the performers, is most engaging. It is thoroughly accessible and possesses a nearly Brahmsian gravity and drive. The program ended with a solid reading of Stravinsky's piano-four-hands arrangement of his 1911 ballet Petrouchka. It was good enough to remind us what a timeless, masterpiece the ballet is, but not enough to avoid comparison with the familiar and original orchestral version. --Richard Todd is an Ottawafreelance writer Sunday, March 16, 1997 |
