The Isidore Quartet performed at the Rockport Chamber Music Festival in June. From left: Joshua McClendon, Adrian Steele, Devin Moore, Phoenix Avalon. Jiyang Chen photograph
Focused recitals on Fauré and Ravel have provided an impetus to update Leonore Overture. I’ve missed a few months with some treatment, but will renew again at least with diary entries.
I was able to make it to the entire Rockport Chamber Music Festival, an easy trip since I just roll down Pigeon Hill to the Shalin Liu Performance Center. I used the performances as recuperation mainly—no preparation or notes, no reviews. Each evening was soothing and helpful, and being able to trade on my past writing is greatly appreciated.
RCMF rightly has a place with the best American summer chamber festivals. It was already top-drawer thanks to David Deveau’s leadership, and Barry Shiffman has brought an even deeper exploration of the remarkable availability of great performers. I’ll be at Shiffman’s other summer gig—the Banff String Quartet competition, which he directs—in August for a long-planned assignment. Performances at RCMF of two previous BISQC winners—Isidore and Marmen quartets—felt like a beginning of that assignment.
Yulianna Avdeeva performed a remarkable recital at RCMF on July 10, a digest of the Shostakovich preludes/fugues, and the Op. 24 Chopin preludes. Dover Quartet. Jonathan Biss (two late Schubert sonatas). Parker Quartet. Angela Hewitt did opening night with the Goldbergs.
The ensemble for a Fauré weekend at June’s Rockport Chamber Music Festival: From l: Joshua Bell, Irène Duval, Jeremy Denk, Blythe Teh Engstroem, Steven Isserlis.
Two programs of Fauré, with Denk/Bell/Isserlis, joined by Irène Duval and Blythe Teh Engstroem, were both refreshingly presented, and helped with my own transition to Tanglewood.
For Ravel. For months I had the Ravel weekend with the BSO and pianist Seong-Jin Cho marked, mostly for the symbolic value. Getting better for a typical TW summer stay felt like a mission back in February, and I was delighted to start a two-week stay with Cho playing all the solo Ravel piano music. I reviewed a similar recording back in the day (can’t remember the pianist), and the recital provided a return to something once well-known.
Cho played both concertos in one program, and then a recital of the complete solo piano music in another. I missed the concertos, but made it to July 16th Ozawa Hall solo marathon (three hours, two breaks). The BSO released a new recording of the concertos at the recital, and the room was full to the brim. Cho brings Korean pop-star energy to his performances, and that feels nice just by itself.
His technique—organically fluid, so facile he shows off with gestures here-and-there—enhances his artistry. Since he makes everything effortless.
And he brought this music alive—a chronically sequenced journey through Ravel—a timeline of Ravel alone, at the keyboard. As a program, it wasn’t complete—the musical mix wasn’t intentional, just chronological. I think it was a tough program on listeners—besides long.
Ravel’s solo piano music has a great deal of silence. Sonic spaces, sustained notes drifting—Ravel’s turbulent, virtuosic moments—like Gaspard, the Toccata in Tombeau—come after long, contemplative sound vacancies. Apart from that, and the augmenting creep of jazz and music-hall idioms as Ravel composed during the 00s, 10s, 20s, are the only conclusion for me, if one is necessary.
He’s a bad man. Bryn Terfel whispers to Seok Jong Baek, part of the BSO’s engaging Tosca July 20 in the Shed at TW. Hilary Scott photograph
I am not missing the prep that goes into reviewing regularly that much, but a semi-staged Tosca by the BSO with Nelsons, Opolais, Terfel and sensational tenor Seok Jong Baek made me wish I had a deadline to meet. What a score, and with three terrifically matched soloists. Yuja plays Proko 2 this afternoon. I’m here in anticipation of Gabriela Ortiz’s music during FCM, next weekend, and staying for Matthew Aucoin’s Music for New Bodies in early August. Cheers.
Andris Nelsons conducts the Tanglewood Festival Orchestra with pianist Yuja Wang. July 2025, Hilary Scott photograph.