Midday Masterpieces (12/5/18)

Mackenzie Melemed, piano

Six Moments Musicaux – Sergei Rachmaninoff
Five Preludes, Op. 16 – Alexander Scriabin
Sonata Tragica – Nikolai Medtner

The six movements of the Rachmaninoff were all fairly similar. The first was slightly ethereal, but also had a building intensity and volume. The second had a bit more range from the piano keyboard and featured fancy finger work. A strange side note, during this movement we were treated to construction noise from the sidewalk directly outside of the Jerome L. Greene street-side performance space. Amazingly, a WQXR employee was able to convince the workers to hold off while the concert was going on. Mighty impressive, WQXR! At this point, it was a little difficult to figure out where one movement ended and another one began, so I’ll just combine my comments as though the piece was through composed. At times the piece came close to being amorphous but was still interesting. One movement was a lot quicker, with an almost perpetual motion feel—sort of an eerie dance. Denser, dark chords followed that were expressive but not sinister. This sounded a bit familiar to me and seemed to have a variation with the left hand being more rhythmic. A song-like section followed, mostly in the right hand while the left had had a constantly repeating rhythmic motif. The piece finished with a tour de force movement.

Scriabin’s preludes were also somewhat airy but still had substance and an odd beauty. They also included dissonances where you didn’t quite expect them. My notes simply concluded with ‘five little jewels.’

Medtner (a composer new to me) wrote his Sonata Tragica as a one movement sonata that was the fifth and final work in his Op. 39 “Forgotten Melodies”. It had a dramatic opening and then jumped right into virtuosic phrases in a type of a stream of consciousness composition. After a rather frenzied section, there were explosive phrases for the left hand leading right back to that stream of consciousness feel, with an extreme range of volume and an extreme range of power.

All of the music was new to me and very well played by Mr. Melemed. All in all, a great midday masterpieces concert. I’ve already reserved for the new year.

A word about Midday Masterpieces. It is a joint venture between WQXR and the Juilliard School. That said, these students are in the very advanced stages of their Juilliard studies—many, like Mr. Melemed, have won prestigious competitions, both at Juilliard and in the world in general. With any luck (because that is what a lot of this comes down to) these students will become world-class musicians.

ConcertMeister