Music

Autumn Classics series kicks off Anchorage concert season

The Alaska Airlines Autumn Classics chamber music series opened on Friday with an impressive program of weighty masterworks. While the return of the series each September is always a welcome sign for music lovers, signaling the start of Anchorage's traditional concert season, this performance was not as impassioned or inspired as I recall hearing in previous years.

Awadagin Pratt started things off with Ferrucio Busoni's recasting of Bach's Chaconne in D Minor for solo piano. It began well enough with the different voices distinctly separated and independently polished in the early variations. Pratt brought a high degree of nobility to the more meditative passages and an overall sense of struggle to the piece.

The loud parts, however, seemed mushy, lacking nuance. Busoni -- who tended to favor the ponderous to the airy as both a composer and pianist -- probably played it in a similar fashion, but in much bigger venues. While I've heard some good renditions of mammoth piano repertoire in the Recital Hall at the UAA Fine Arts Building, there have also been several occasions when ear protection would have been welcome. The room, with its bright, brittle acoustics, may be too small for a concert grand at full volume. That said, the audience's response to this work was the most enthusiastic of the night.

Beethoven's Violin Sonata in A Minor, in which Pratt was joined by violinist Benjamin Breen, also had issues with the volume. There were spots where the piano drowned out the violin's fast, virtuosic passages. I wondered if some of Breen's fine fingerwork might have been more audible had the piano lid been lowered from its full-open position.

It remained wide open in the final work, Brahms' Trio in C, with cellist Zuill Bailey joining the other two players. This time the strings were consistently heard clearly. The two center movements were most satisfying, in terms of both individual efforts and ensemble cohesion.

The audience gave a standing ovation, rising somewhat more tentatively in the steep balcony, where standing too quickly could lead to an accident. But they sustained their applause only long enough to allow one extra bow from the players. Two or more curtain calls have been the pattern in the past.

THE ALASKA AIRLINES AUTUMN CLASSICS series continues with performances of work by Mendelssohn, Arensky and the Liszt Piano Sonata at 4 p.m. Sunday, Sept. 13. The Ying Quartet will be the guest artists in the programs at 7:30 p.m. Sept. 18 and 19, and 4 p.m. Sept. 20. All programs take place in the UAA Fine Arts Building Recital Hall. Tickets are available at centertix.net. The Ying Quartet will also present a free sample concert at noon, Friday, Sept. 18, at the Anchorage Museum.

Mike Dunham

Mike Dunham has been a reporter and editor at the ADN since 1994, mainly writing about culture, arts and Alaska history. He worked in radio for 20 years before switching to print.

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