The Light in the Forest
Maverick Concerts 2008 Season
by Peter Aaron
Built just outside of the village of Woodstock in 1916 by Maverick Art Colony founder Hervey White, Maverick Concert Hall is a beautiful, hand-hewn wooden “music chapel” in a fairy-tale forest setting; similar, perhaps, to the rural “composing huts” used by Gustav Mahler, who along with Franz Schubert is the focus of the hall’s 2008 season. While the Maverick’s towering, barn-like scale would certainly have dwarfed Mahler’s more intimately designed sheds, which actually makes the structure one the Austrian composer, famous for his ambitious, large-scoped works, would very well likely have found most agreeable.
“Oh, Mahler would have absolutely loved the Maverick,” says conductor Alexander Platt, now entering his sixth year as the music director of the event, which is the oldest continuously running summer chamber music festival in America. “And being a modernist he would’ve also approved of what we’re doing with our Woodstock Legends series, which presents concerts by jazz and other, for lack of a better term, ‘non-classical’ artists throughout the season.”
Der Mahler, as he was known around his native Vienna, and Platt actually go back a ways. The conductor became the toast of the classical world in 1991 when he reconstructed conductor Erwin Stein’s “lost” 1921 chamber arrangement of Mahler’s Fourth Symphony using only the vague notes Stein had made in the margins of the full symphonic score. “[Arranging the piece] was a very mysterious story,” recalls Platt, 45, who worked with Stein’s daughter to decipher her late father’s handwritten instructions. “The parts that Stein had prepared for the individual players were lost. So making the chamber version was painstaking work, far more complex than I’d imagined it would be.” Platt’s arrangement of the composition has since been picked up and performed and recorded by leading orchestras around the world. Platt, who also conducts Wisconsin’s Waukesha Symphony and Indiana’s Marion Philharmonic Orchestra and has led numerous prestigious orchestras around the world, first conducted the Fourth himself at Maverick in 2003 and will reprise the work as the penultimate performance of this year’s festival.
But as lengthy a history Mahler has with Platt, the composer’s ties to America of course go back even farther, 100 years to be exact. 2008 marks the centennial of Mahler’s historic and influential arrival in New York to lead the Metropolitan Opera and the New York Philharmonic. So what better way for Maverick to celebrate than with a full season honoring Mahler, his milieu, and his fellow Romantic-era pacesetter, Schubert? The festival, which runs from June 29 through August 31, promises Viennese chamber music by Mahler contemporaries like Brahms, Bruckner, Korngold, Ives, Debussy, and the masters of the Second Viennese School as played by pianists Frederic Chiu, James Tocco, Babette Hierholzer, and the Miro, Daedalus, Borromeo, and Pacifica string quartets.
Much of Schubert’s greatest chamber music will also be performed by such artists as the Tokyo, Shanghai, Amernet and American string quartets, Trio Solisti, and the cello-and-piano duo of Zuill Bailey and Simone Dinnerstein; Schubert’s cello quintet will be played by the St. Lawrence String Quartet with the Ying Quartet’s cellist, David Ying. Two intimate “Schubertiade” evenings will be given by New York City Opera soprano and Dutchess County resident Nancy Allen Lundy and pianist Marc Peloquin; in a program titled A Modern Schubertiade, Peloquin will combine the piano music of Schubert and the music of David Del Tredici. (Previously at Maverick, Platt famously premiered a chamber version of Del Tredici’s renowned 1970s masterpiece Final Alice, earning raves from the New York Times and the composer himself.)
One of the top musicians set to appear at Maverick’s eclectic, local artist-oriented Saturday-night Woodstock Legends series is Woodstock master guitarist and lutist Frederic Hand, whose music blurs the lines between classical, folk, and jazz. “Playing at Maverick is a very unique experience,” says Hand, a returning performer. “It’s almost like an outdoor concert, because the far end of the hall is completely open. But the all-wood construction makes the acoustics just extraordinary—even though there’s absolutely no amplification whatsoever, you can still hear every single nuance. It’s a beautiful space.” Also booked for the Woodstock Legends series are reed player Steve Gorn, the long-running String Trio of New York, and jazz pianist Marilyn Crispell. (Hand, Crispell, violinist Maria Bachmann and cellist Zuill Bailey will each also offer solo performances for Maverick’s series of Young People’s Concerts on Saturday mornings.)
As he speaks on the phone from New York, where he’s about to conduct a performance by the Brooklyn Philharmonic, it’s clear that Platt is excitedly looking forward to returning to the region for another exceptional run.
“I work in other places throughout the year, but Maverick has become central to my existence, both personally and professionally. Anyone who attends one of the concerts at Maverick can look forward to the most authentic musical experience possible. It’s a chance to hear the world’s greatest music in the absolute purest setting.”
Maverick Schedule
June
Su 6/29 | 4 PM • SHANGHAI QUARTET • Schubert and Friends
Schubert: Quartettsatz in C Minor, D. 703
Grieg: String Quartet No. 1 in G Minor, Op. 27
Chen Yi: From the Path of Beauty (2007)
Ravel: String Quartet in F Major
July
Sa 7/5 | 8 PM • THE 2008 WOODSTOCK BEAT
A benefit concert for the Woodstock Byrdcliffe Guild
with the Canadian group NEXUS and special guest PETER SCHICKELE
For tickets, contact the Guild at 845.679.2079
Su 7?6 | 4 PM • TOKYO STRING QUARTET • Afternoon in Vienna
Haydn: String Quartet in G Major, Op. 76, No. 1
Webern: Langsamer Satz
Beethoven: String Quartet in A Minor, Op. 132, “Heiliger Dankgesang”
Sa 7/12 | 11 AM • YOUNG PEOPLE'S CONCERT • FREDERIC HAND, guitar
Sa 7/12 | 8 PM • WOODSTOCK LEGENDS I: FREDERIC HAND, lute & guitar
Bach and Beyond, Renaissance Lute and Sephardic Songs
J. S. Bach: Suite for Guitar
Jazz Improvisations and Brazilian Samba
Su 7/13 | 4 PM • DAEDALUS STRING QUARTET with FREDERIC CHIU, piano
Mahler’s World: Intimate Voices
Mozart: String Quartet in C, K. 465, “Dissonant”
Sibelius: String Quartet, “Voces Intimae”
Schoenberg: Three Piano Pieces, Op. 11
Korngold: Piano Quintet in E Major, Op. 15
Yamaha Piano Series
Sa 7/19 | 6 PM • NANCY ALLEN LUNDY, soprano
BABETTE HIERHOLZER, piano, ETHAN SLOANE, clarinet
Schubertiade I: The Shepherd on the Rock
Schubert: Piano Sonata in B flat, D. 960
Hugo Wolf: Songs from The Italian Songbook
Schubert: The Shepherd on the Rock, D. 965
Yamaha Piano Series
Su 7/20 | 4 PM • PACIFICA QUARTET • Not About Schubert
Mendelssohn: String Quartet No. 2 in A Minor, Op. 13
Prokofiev: String Quartet No 2 in F Major, on Kabaradian themes, Op. 92
Beethoven: String Quartet in F Minor, Op. 95, “Serioso”
Sa 7/26 | 8 PM • WOODSTOCK LEGENDS II: STEVE GORN and FRIENDS
Evening Ragas
Su 7/27 | 4 PM • THE FITZWILLIAM QUARTET of ENGLAND
Quartet-in-Residence at Cambridge University • Cambridge Connections
Mozart: Divertimento in D Major, K. 136
Jeremy Thurlow: New Work (World Première)
Tchaikovsky: String Quartet No. 2 in F Major, Op. 22
August
Sa 8/2 | 11 AM • YOUNG PEOPLE'S CONCERT •
MARIA BACHMANN, solo violin
Sa 8/2 | 8 PM • WOODSTOCK LEGENDS III: STRING TRIO OF NEW YORK
James Emery: “The River of Orion”
John Lindberg: “Journey Platz”
(The presentation of The River of Orion by String Trio of New York has been made possible with support from Chamber Music America’s New Works: Encore Program, funded through the generosity of the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation)
Su 8/3 | 4 PM • TRIO SOLISTI • Schubert and Paris
Schubert: Notturno in E flat, D. 897
Ravel: Piano Trio in A Minor
Mussorgsky/Ravel (arr. Trio Solisti): Pictures at an Exhibition
A MAVERICK MINI-FESTIVAL: GREAT VIENNESE QUINTETS
Sa 8/9 | 6 PM • SAINT LAWRENCE STRING QUARTET with DAVID YING, cello
Schubert and Vienna
Haydn: String Quartet in E flat, Op. 9, No. 2
Alban Berg: Lyric Suite
Schubert: Cello Quintet in C Major, D. 956, Op. Post. 163
Su 8/10 | 4 PM • BORROMEO QUARTET with MICHAEL KLOTZ, viola
Mahler’s World: Vienna and Budapest
Hugo Wolf: Italian Serenade
Bartók: String Quartet No. 1 in A Minor
Bruckner: String Quintet in F Major
Sa 8/16 | 11 AM • YOUNG PEOPLE'S CONCERT •
Marilyn Crispell, improvisatory piano
Sa 8/16 | 8 PM • WOODSTOCK LEGENDS IV: MARILYN CRISPELL,
improvisatory piano, Celebrating her new album on the ECM label
Yamaha Piano Series
Su 8/17 | 4 PM • AMERNET STRING QUARTET, with JAMES TOCCO, piano
Schubert and America
Schubert: String Quartet in E flat, Op. 125, No. 1
Vittorio Giannini: Piano Quintet (1932)
Dvorák: String Quartet No. 10 in E flat, Op. 51
Yamaha Piano Series
Sa 8/23 | 11 AM • YOUNG PEOPLE'S CONCERT • ZUILL BAILEY, cello
Sa 8/23 | 6 PM • ZUILL BAILEY, cello, SIMONE DINNERSTEIN, piano
Schubertiade II: Schubert on the Hudson
Schubert: Impromptus for piano, Op. 90, D. 899
Bach: Suite for Unaccompanied Cello No. 6 in D Major, BWV 1012
Joan Tower: Très Lent (in honor of her 70th birthday)
Schubert: Sonata in A minor for Arpeggione and Piano, D. 821
Yamaha Piano Series
Su 8/24 | 4 PM • MIRÓ QUARTET
Mahler’s World: Ives, Debussy, Brahms
Ives: String Quartet No. 1, “The Revival Meeting”
Debussy: String Quartet in G Minor, Op. 10
Brahms: String Quartet in A Minor, Op. 51, No. 2
FINAL WEEKEND
Fr 8/29 | 8 PM • MARC PELOQUIN, piano
Schubertiade III: Schubert and Del Tredici
Schubert: Moments Musicaux, D. 780
David Del Tredici: Ballade in Lavender (2004)
Schubert/Franz Liszt: Gretchen at the Spinning Wheel; Serenade
Schubert/Marc Peloquin: The Dwarf
David Del Tredici: S/M Ballade (2006)
Yamaha Piano Series
Sa 8/30 | 6 PM • THE MAVERICK CHAMBER PLAYERS
ALEXANDER PLATT , conductor
MARIA JETTE, soprano, STEPHEN HARGREAVES, piano
Mahler and Friends: The Heavenly Life
Mozart: “Alleluja” from Exultate, Jubilate, K. 165
Aaron Jay Kernis: Lullaby (1990)
Aaron Jay Kernis: Simple Songs (1991)
Bruckner/Erwin Stein: Adagio from Symphony No. 7
Mahler/Erwin Stein/Platt: Symphony No. 4 in G Major
Su 8/31 | 4 PM • FRIENDS OF MAVERICK CONCERT [for donors] •
THE AMERICAN STRING QUARTET • A Schubert Farewell
Mozart or Beethoven String Quartet TBA
Berg: String Quartet, Op. 3
Schubert: String Quartet No. 15 in G Major, D. 887, Op. Post. 161
Maverick Concerts are made possible in part with funds from the New York State Council on the Arts, a state agency. Program subject to change. Please refer to www.maverickconcerts.org for updated information. |
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