Chamber Music Albuquerque, New Mexico, 2010
Superb…. a ne plus ultra musical experience.
Dan Franklin Smith performs “La Vida Iberiana”
Superb.
That is the quality that I promised in notes to friends, to invite them to the pleasure of Dan Franklin Smith’s performance of his well-crafted program of piano music that has a common root in the sounds of Spain. He performed in New Mexico: on Saturday evening, December 4, 2010, in Alamogordo; on Sunday afternoon, at the Sims Auditorium in Albuquerque.
The scope and shape of the program were pitch-perfect. The opening substantial Turina Sonata Sanlucar de Barrameda gave full evidence of the excellence of Dan’s sensibilities and powers of execution that were the hallmark of his presentation: exquisite delineation of voicing and dynamics; flowing, breathing melodic lines; spot-on shadings in texture; technical prowess so endemic to his musicality that one hardly noticed—but there it was, serving Turina’s ideas, in double thirds, playful sparkling, atmospheric clarity, and quasi-fugal lines. The narrative of the Sonata—which could have seemed disjunctive—was clear and engaging to the audience, whose active stillness bespoke engaged listening.
The following Cancion y Danza of Mompou breathed a delicate melancholy (in other hands, it might have been lugubrious), and the contrasting, typically Spanish pulses of 6/8 and 3/4 were excitingly presented, here and elsewhere in the program. As for the Infante El Vito: variations show off both the composer’s skill and the performer’s chops, and Dan gave delight in some of Infante’s over-the-top array—agogics, embellishments, head-spinning changes in tonality, glissandi (here and elsewhere, these were pure silk, smoothness to make one think she had heard all the microtones in between the ivories) —such that one thought: what next?
In his remarks about the repertoire (and perhaps, the composers) that must have been new to most listeners, Dan mentioned the “big three” of Spanish music: Albeniz, de Falla, Granados. Only the last-named was on the program: the well-loved (but often ill-played) La Maja y el Ruiseñor, which initiated the second half of the program. The smoothly seductive beauties of intertwining lines, lyrical phrasing, and excited, shimmering bird calls of the piece were perfectly presented, and the more-notes-on-more-notes texture was clearly, effortlessly played.
What followed were shortish works of Jose Vianna da Motta (more excitingly articulated rhythms in Chula da Douro), Heitor Villa-Lobos’s Alma Brasileira (symbiotic, well-proportioned pairing of tune and accompaniment), a tango—Sin Rumbo—from Astor Piazzolla (a subtle range of colors from a mid-keyboard-lying piece), and from the Puerto Rican composer Hector Campos-Parsi, Santa Maria: jazzy, accented, infectious, fun-for-all rhythms. There was a bonus: a work from Carlos Surinac: Canzon y Danza, and Dan showed off the in-your-ear sounds of this rarely heard composer’s oeuvre.
To conclude: Three South American Sketches from Andre Previn. Yes, Andre Previn, from his Hollywood days. (if you can find it, do read his “No Minor Chords,” in which the musician writes, with wonderful humor, of his early years.) Dan is well up to the wit of the opening Festivo, a jazzy perpetuum mobile; he made much of the north-of-the-border turns of phrase in Flor de Jardim; and the dance-y, intensely instrumental sounds of Mina d’Agua were appropriately cheeky and capering.
Encore: Louis Moreau Gottschalk’s Danza Cubana, with its eight zillion trills; this was a delight, and a true crowd-pleasing finis to a performance that had it all. In short: superb.
—Composer Elizabeth Lauer Online Report, Chamber Music Albuquerque, New Mexico, 2010
Nota bene: In a city where the Steinway store is closing its doors, selling off—at very low prices—its last remaining instruments; where its symphony orchestra cannot raise bare-necessities funds to pay its musicians and personnel, one must exclaim Bravo! to the Albuquerque Chamber Music group for bringing Dan Franklin Smith to its stage. He is a seasoned artist, musically persuasive and technically accomplished, and he gave a ne plus ultra musical experience to listeners.
Elizabeth Lauer is both a composer and pianist. Her works, mainly in the fields of chamber and vocal music, are published by Carl Fisher, Arsis Press, Kjos Publications and ACA Composer Editions. She has performed in recital, with orchestra, and as chamber musician in numerous venues in NYC, CT, FL, PA, and the French Riviera.