United States Aspen Music Festival 2025 [10]: Klein Music Tent, Harris Hall, Aspen. (HS)
Handel’s Messiah can carry a wider, more all-encompassing meaning if it is not wedged between concerts of Christmas carols in December. With Dame Jane Glover conducting her own Chicago-based Music of the Baroque Chorus, a particularly adept ad-hoc orchestra and a quartet of well-chosen solo voices from the Aspen Opera Theater and VocalARTS program, Wednesday’s savory account in the cozy confines of acoustically perfect Harris Hall proved a performance for all seasons.
All hail Dame Jane! She strode to her place center stage without a podium, baton or music stand for a score. She used her hands, her body and indefatigable energy to bring the music of this familiar and popular oratorio to vivid life. The performance hit all the right inflections, rhythms and expressions with elegance and, when necessary, power. She was a conjurer of the music’s magic.
The chorus, 26 strong, is one of the most responsive vocal groups I have ever heard. Every inflection served a purpose, whether it was delineating the intertwining lines of counterpoint, gloriously enlivening the famous ‘Hallelujah’ chorus or articulating the soothing harmonies of the extended hug of the closing ‘Amen’.
The four soloists impressively enunciated the words (taken from English-language scripture). Musically, the standouts were Jonghyun Park and Ashlyn Brown (who, earlier this summer, sang the roles of Ferrando and Dorabella in Così fan tutte, review here). Park’s polished lyric tenor carried the meanings as well as the notes. Brown’s flexible mezzo-soprano may have softened on the low notes in arias written for a true alto, but she caught their flow and character. Bass-baritone Jared Werlein, who is singing roles at Deutsche Oper Berlin this year, conveyed the authority necessary in his solo moments, and soprano Jennifer Robinson (who was rather fidgety when she wasn’t singing) lavished a creamy voice on her arias.
The orchestra, mostly strings for much of the evening, benefited from some excellent pumping up with timpani at the end and occasional brightness from an oboe and three trumpets. The continuo – Michael Beattie (harpsichord and electric organ), Sanghyeok Park (cello), Andrew Salaru (bassoon) and Anderson Bernal (bass) – kept things moving with refinement and zip. The perfect sound of 500-seat Harris Hall, much better than a stone cathedral or a big symphony hall, plus Glover’s masterful leadership made for an unforgettable experience.
The biggest debacle of the season came on Tuesday in a recital by pianist Lang Lang. The first piece, Fauré’s lovely Pavane in F-sharp minor, revealed some of the pianist’s well-known mannerisms, including sudden changes in tempo and dynamics. Things only got more bizarre in Robert Schumann’s Kreisleriana where Lang Lang exaggerated every aspect of the piece to the point where nothing made sense.
After an intermission, a selection of 11 Chopin mazurkas was even more disheartening. A mazurka is a dance, but anyone trying to dance to Lang Lang’s rhythms, which sped up and slowed down randomly, would have tripped. There were more flourishes and physical gestures than substance. It was quite the show, just not music as we know it. The program culminated with Chopin’s Polonaise in F-sharp minor, a show-off piece for sure, but any semblance to a cohesive narrative was purely coincidental.
The rapt audience lapped it up, and they leapt to their feet for standing ovations. The few musicians I recognized in the audience tried to hide scowls.
It was much better in Harris Hall when Aristo Sham presented his first recital in Aspen as the winner of the gold medal in June’s Cliburn Competition. Curiously, the first half of his program echoed two recent Aspen piano recitals. Comparisons? Here goes.
The first two pieces were also on Tom Borrow’s program in July. Rachmaninoff’s arrangement of three movements from J. S. Bach’s Partita No.3 for Unaccompanied Violin in E major, in Sham’s hell-bent tempos, demonstrated dazzling technique, and Busoni’s arrangement of the Chaconne from Bach’s Partita No.2 for Unaccompanied Violin emerged with more clarity than Borrow’s.
Sham loves a big crescendo, and he can play loud with the best of them. In the pianistic Everest that is Ravel’s Gaspard de la Nuit, a technical challenge for any pianist, the difference between Sham’s playing and that of Seong-Jin Cho on 22 July was most evident in how they interpreted Ravel’s depictions of water which permeate the piece. Cho emphasized its liquid nature, painting a pointillist picture of water’s movement. Sham’s extra-sharp clarity celebrated the splash, as if every drop of water had its own note. Both made the most of Ravel’s unique musical world, in their own way.
The second half was another matter. At nearly an hour’s duration, Beethoven’s Piano Sonata No.29 needs a dramatist’s touch. Sham seemed more interested in speed. (Few if any pianists actually heed Beethoven’s blazing-fast metronome marking at the beginning, because it lacks drama.) Repetitions here felt exactly the same as what preceded. He did get more expressive in the Adagio sostenuto, but by the time we got to the Fugue in the finale, I was weary.
A no-nonsense presence, Sham wasted no time on flourishes, nor in communication with the audience. He walked out, settled for a moment at the piano and started to play. After the Beethoven, he took only one bow before returning to the piano for a pleasant encore – Brahms’s Intermezzo No.1 in E-flat major.
Monday in Harris Hall, the percussion ensemble filled the entire stage with drums, mallet instruments, cymbals, chimes and other paraphernalia not usually thought of as musical instruments. The musicians delivered their customary program of discovery and, when it all clicked, sheer joy. The group’s organizer and conductor, Jonathan Haas, allowed as how this year’s collection of students is the best in his Aspen experience. They showed it right from the top, in Haas’s arrangement of ‘Train to São Paulo’ from Philip Glass’s film score to Powaqqatsi. Rhythms drove with pizzazz and found all sorts of sonic colors.
Of the rest, the most impressive was Tan Dun’s Elegy: Snow in June, an 18-minute fantasia featuring a solo cello (Miles Reed) and a kaleidoscope of percussion both Japanese and Western. All hands were marvelous. A sassy arrangement by Javier Diaz of Phil Collins’s pop song ‘In the Air Tonight’ brought things to a lively finish.
Harvey Steiman
4.8.2025, Recital: Percussion Ensemble / Jonathan Haas (conductor), Harris Hall.
Philip Glass / Jonathan Haas – ‘Train to São Paulo’ from Powaqqatsi
Javier Diaz – ‘Alchemy’
Stewart Copeland – ‘The Bells’
Tan Dun – Elegy: Snow in June [Miles Reed, cello]
Phil Collins / Javier Diaz – ‘In the Air Tonight’
5.8.2025, Recital: Lang Lang (piano), Klein Music Tent.
Fauré – Pavane in F-sharp minor
R. Schumann – Kreisleriana
Chopin – Mazurkas; Polonaise in F-sharp minor
6.8.2025, Handel’s Messiah: Jennifer Robinson (soprano), Ashlyn Brown (mezzo-soprano), Jonghyun Park (tenor), Jared Werlein (bass-baritone), Music of the Baroque Chorus, Aspen Festival Ensemble / Dame Jane Glover (conductor), Harris Hall.
7.8.2025, Recital: Aristo Sham (piano, 2025 Cliburn Competition winner), Harris Hall.
J. S. Bach / Rachmaninoff – Prelude, Gavotte and Gigue, from Partita No.3 in E major for Unaccompanied Violin
J. S. Bach / Busoni – Chaconne from Partita No.3 in E major for Solo Violin
Ravel – Gaspard de la nuit
Beethoven – Piano Sonata No.29 in B-flat major, ‘Hammerklavier’