Music in Review

MUSICIANS FROM MARLBORO


Readers’ Opinions

Jennifer Taylor for The New York Times

Maurizio Pollini played Karlheinz Stockhausen and Beethoven Friday.

When the Marlboro Music Festival in Vermont first sent its performers on tour under the Musicians From Marlboro banner in 1965, one of the participants was the violinist Arnold Steinhardt. A year earlier, Mr. Steinhardt had co-founded the Guarneri String Quartet, now one of chamber music’s most enduring ensembles. The quartet regularly plays at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, but when Mr. Steinhardt appeared there on Friday night, it was as mentor to a current crop of young Marlboro musicians.

Mr. Steinhardt played second violin in a memorable account of ’s String Quartet No. 8. Playing first violin, the position that carries much of the narrative impetus in this moody, occasionally tormented piece of musical autobiography, was Lily Francis, whose graceful solo lines conveyed a poignant fragility. The violist Yu Jin and the cellist Wendy Law, both accomplished, powerful players, seemed to relish the work’s more obsessive passages.

By comparison, Dvorak’s Piano Quartet in E flat was a sunny frolic. Mr. Steinhardt, Ms. Jin and Ms. Law were joined by the pianist Anna Polonsky, a chamber musician of exceptional refinement. Compared with the Shostakovich, this was slightly rough-hewn. Still, telling details emerged: Ms. Law’s surpassingly sweet solos in the second movement, Ms. Polonsky’s rollicking dulcimer evocations in the third, Ms. Jim’s ardent lines in the finale, Mr. Steinhardt’s dignified contributions throughout.

’s Piano Trio in G (K. 496), which opened the concert, provided further evidence of Ms. Polonsky’s appealing touch and compelling interpretive skills. STEVE SMITH

AMERICAN STRING QUARTET Weill Recital Hall

Looking back was the theme of Friday’s Walter W. Naumburg Foundation concert at Weill Recital Hall — part of a series celebrating past winners of its prestigious prize. And the American String Quartet, which won in 1974, did just that.

First, it looked back to Alban Berg’s Op. 3 quartet, mellow and organic, playing with a dark throatiness from the opening crunchy second violin line, like a footstep in dead leaves: each phrase subtle, reined in, refracted through all the instruments to yield ever new patterns, like colored beads in a kaleidoscope.

Then it looked to the recent past with an emotional “Triptych” written about 9/11 by Robert Sirota, president of the . It is a challenge, today, to convey chaos in a tonal language: the first movement, illustrating the fall of the towers, struggled to go beyond agitation, rising and falling from long-held notes, dying away, that sought to hold together the dispersing clouds of music. The second movement was a sorrowful meditation, while the third sought to make peace with a kind of lullaby that evanesced in fillips of ascending notes.

For the Schubert C major quintet the group looked back to its original cellist, David Geber, who after a wild and slightly muddy first movement coalesced with the others into a single, remarkable organ of sound. Peter Winograd’s first violin sent out questioning phrases while the other players steadily built in intensity; when the phrases returned they had clearly been answered, but the intensity continued to build for the remainder of an edge-of-the-seat performance. ANNE MIDGETTE

MAURIZIO POLLINI

Some people live faster than others. Schubert’s life, it can be argued, was not tragically short but was lived at high velocity. Then there is Maurizio Pollini, who plays piano music at such speed that we can only stand by the roadside and try to catch glimpses of it whizzing past. Elegant, thoughtful and vastly cultured, Mr. Pollini seems to exist in a time continuum all his own. I am sure he hears his own playing with perfect clarity. I wish I could keep up with him.

Listeners at Carnegie Hall on Friday had rare opportunities to catch their breath. One was at the start, in the Stockhausen Klavier stücke Nos. VII and VIII. The first is really about silence, with isolated strokes on the piano acting as boundary markers subdividing the empty spaces. The second speaks a rhapsodic Romantic language but with violent contrasts of bass and treble and in a language removed from the past.

Those wanting to make an early evening of it were probably grateful for the Schumann “Kreisleriana” that came after. When asked by the music, Mr. Pollini can ruminate and linger with great beauty. Elsewhere, he takes the “very” and “extremely” of movements marked “extremely agitated,” “very excited,” “very lively” and “very quick” (I translate from the German) at their word. 1 /n /n

The True Value of the iPod

"If music be the food of love, play on." Ah, that William Shakespeare – he really nailed it with that line when it comes to the world's love affair with music. We need it, as it is the essence of our very survival, and we, as humans, can never get enough of it. Our appetite and desire for music will never be satisfied, so why bother fighting the urge? Give us more, and we will ingest and enjoy it gleefully.

Now, when Shakespeare coined that phrase, he was probably referring to someone playing a lute, and not listening to ye old iPod. However, if there is a common thread between Shakespeare's declaration that we all require music and the world's favorite portable MP3 player, it is that the iPod, because of its incredibly convenient design, can constantly feed the world of its hunger for tunes.

Anyone who is on a quest for new and excellent music knows how valuable the iPod is for reaching that goal. Download something you've always wanted to hear onto your iPod, and an instant discovery has been made. A new band that you've always wanted to check out is now in your iPod and waiting for you. To link it back to the opening line of this article, if you find it pleasing, you ask for, and seek out more. And if you find the taste of that particular band unpalatable, you simply reject it and move on to the next item on the music buffet line. Either way, the hunger is always there, and the iPod is always ready, willing and more than able to attempt to satisfy it.

More than just feeding from the computer, the iPod also shares its music goodies through community. If you are an iPod owner, and you locate another iPod owner, chances are, if you ask that iPod owner for a listen of what's on his or her iPod, that iPod owner would be more than happy to share his audio bounty with you. There is a common bond between iPod users that directs them to share their music with other iPod users. Now, while contained in a local neighborhood, the selection of songs my be stale, the international and universal appeal of the iPod presents an unlimited feast for the ears and the soul. If you ever find yourself in another country with your iPod and locate a local with their iPod, ask to exchange songs. They may be more than willing to do so, and you will enjoy an instant sampling of the local music cuisine!

Shakespeare was dead-on (as usual), about his definition of our need for music. Eating the same food over and over again, while providing the necessities of life, does not deliver the joys of it. Listening to the same music over and over again will eventually tire out the soul and the ears. We need to try, and listen to new things, and the iPod is the perfect international restaurant located on our computers to go for a sampling!