Happy April Fool’s Day! As a violist, I take special pride in what is, along with bassoonists, our special day. It’s been a busy week. I’ve been in rehearsals for the two different concerts that we’re doing with the OSO this week: the subscription classical series which involves Leonard Bernstein’s Chichester Psalms, Samuel Barber’s Prayers of Kierkegaard, and Tchaikovsky’s ‘Pathetique‘ Symphony; and the Inside the Score concert this afternoon which concerns the behind the scenes workings of Beethoven’s ‘Pastoral‘ Symphony.
There was a concert preview in the Willy Week about the fact that all of these composers (on the classical concert) are gay, and that there must be some hidden subtext relating to gayness that links all of them. I’m not sure that you can turn gayness into a monolithic thing, but if this angle gets more butts in seats, then I’m all for the unusual take on our programming. The best part of the preview: the photo at the top of Carlos with the caption: Carlos Kalmar: not gay.
On top of the rehearsals for these programs, I’m deep into working on the repertoire for my April 7th recital at the Community Music Center. I’m definitely finding that my approach to pieces is really changing as I get older. I’m bumping up on the big four-oh, and I’m already opting for finding the joys in drawing out a phrase rather than blowing through it. It’s an unusual recital in that I’m really sharing it with four other colleagues rather than taking the spotlight all for myself. It’s partly out of laziness and partly out of greed. I knew that this time of year would be very busy, so I didn’t want to have to prepare an entire recital of solo and/or sonata pieces – the workload would be too great. Also, I love playing chamber music, and I have some incredible colleagues to make music with, so I thought it would also be fun to do some collaborative works with a few of my many favorite orchestral colleagues and friends.
In addition, the two ensemble pieces attracted me for different reasons. The Loeffler Two Rhapsodies is a favorite of mine, and having only done it once before with my oldest, best oboe friend Erin Gustafson at the Max Aronoff Viola Institute nearly 15 years ago, it was time to revisit with my OSO colleague Karen Wagner, whose playing I adore. It’s a piece which very much lives up to its rhapsodic title, and in the words of my intrepid and distinguished pianist Cary Lewis, ‘no one should ever have to play this piece for the first time.’ It’s slippery like an eel, this one.
The Beethoven Serenade for flute, violin and viola, Op. 25, is a work that I first got to know as a listener at a faculty recital at the Peabody Conservatory back in 1994. The performers were flutist Mark Sparks (now principal of the St. Louis Symphony), Earl Carlyss (former violinist of the Juilliard Quartet), and Roberto Dìaz (former principal violist of the Philadelphia Orchestra and now President of the Curtis Institute of Music). It was a tremendous performance, and they made the piece sound light and easy (as it should). I went back stage and asked Roberto (with whom I was studying at the time) how the piece was to put together. He replied that it was tremendously difficult to put together for the light character of the piece. That scared me off of the piece for quite some time, and it’s only now that I’ve decided to bite the bullet and give it a try. The fact that I’ve got two amazing colleagues (the violinist Shin-young Kwon and the OSO’s new principal flute David Buck) and friends to help me through it is all the better reason to give it a go.