United States Aspen Music Festival 2025 [12]: Harris Hall, Aspen. (HS)
Recitals at the Aspen Music Festival have a more piquant flavor this year, which I like on two counts: it interests me more, and audiences seem to be enthusiastic. They certainly were responsive Tuesday in Harris Hall for violinist Augustin Hadelich and pianist Orion Weiss, who could have done a standard-issue program of Beethoven and Brahms sonatas. Instead, they picked pieces from their 2024 album American Road Trip, an eclectic selection of works for violin and piano by American composers.
The near-capacity audience leapt to their feet and shouted in response to Haitian-American composer Daniel Bernard Roumain’s ‘Filter’ for solo violin, inspired by rock guitarist Jimi Hendrix solos. It was unlike anything in the classical canon, although I mused that if the early twentieth-century Belgian virtuoso Eugène Ysaÿe had ever heard Hendrix, he might have built one of his unaccompanied violin sonatas around these guitar licks.
The rest of the program was also unconventional – Ives’s violin sonata ‘Children’s Day at Camp Meeting’, John Adams’s Road Movies, Copland’s ‘Hoe Down’ and a truly off-the-wall set of miniatures by Stephen Hartke inspired by Japanese netsuke figurines.
If anything, all these pieces sounded even brighter and livelier than on the duo’s recording, especially ‘Hoe Down’ (performed at a faster pace than most orchestras might play it) and the encore, mid-twentieth-century jazz violinist Eddie South’s ‘Black Gypsy’, delivered with a funkier edge than the CD has.
‘We are seeing many more thematic programs offered to us’, said Patrick Chamberlain, the festival’s vice-president for artistic administration. ‘Often, an artist will offer us a choice of programs and, if given that choice, I’ll almost certainly pick the thematic/narrative one’.
There are some big winners among this season’s highlights. Forward-leaning recitals from earlier included cellist Sol Gabetta and violinist Patricia Kopatchinskaja’s musical detours, presented by two classical musicians locked in with each other like a rock group. Violinist Pekka Kuusisto and composer-pianist Nico Muhly focused on inventive contemporary music that is eminently approachable, including appealing works by each of the soloists. Seong-Jin Cho’s marathon Ravel evening, in which he played every note written specifically for solo piano by the French composer, was a revelation, with his attention to detail and a relish for the early-twentieth-century composer’s innovations.
Soprano Anna María Martínez framed an eclectic program of arias and songs in July to represent mileposts in her personal story. Pianist Steven Osborne’s jazz-inflected recital included a thumping piece by Rzewski Winnsboro, ‘Cotton Mill Blues’, that seemed destined to outdo Charles Ives for audacity. He then explored transcriptions of Keith Jarrett (who was famous for improvising two-hour concerts) and delivered a spot-on evocation of Bill Evans in Gershwin’s ‘I Loves You Porgy’.
Guitarist Sharon Isbin focused on Latin-American music in her 13 August performance, as opposed to her usual Spanish recitals. She started out with two exquisitely detailed transcriptions for guitar of familiar piano pieces (by Spanish composers) emulating the guitar, shading and caressing Llobet’s arrangement of Granados’s ‘Andaluza’ and Segovia’s of Albéniz’s ‘Mallorca’.
Then it was on to South America and to Miami, with pretty renditions of études by Villa-Lobos, a charming Venezuelan ‘waltz’ and a samba with percussion (provided by Jonathan Haas and friends). The biggest was Miami Concerto for Guitar & Orchestra, a new piece by Karen LeFrak that appealed most in its heartfelt slow movement, ‘Romántico’ (lovely enough to stand on its own). The outer movements of rhythmic dance music would make a very good movie score. An encore, ‘Recuerdos de la Alhambra’ by Francisco Tarrega, framed the evening with one of the most a popular Spanish pieces actually written for guitar.
On the surface, Yefim Bronfman’s Thursday program of Robert Schumann, Brahms, Debussy and Prokofiev could seem too familiar, except that the major selections are not what most pianists would choose by these composers. Even the exception, Schumann’s ‘Arabeske’ in C major, felt in Bronfman’s hands like we were listening in as the composer improvised the phrases. Subtle hesitations, changes of pace and dynamics felt absolutely right.
Brahms’s youthful Piano Sonata No.3 is not on the composer’s A-list. Written when he was 20, before he was recognized as one of the nineteenth century’s composing giants, it is a show-off piece atypical of the oh-so-serious and elegant Brahms we expect. Bronfman used the versatility of his touch on the keys to find majesty in the long slow movement and create excitement in the gradually intensifying rhythms in the finale.
Book 2 of Debussy’s ‘Images’, less often played than Book 1, offered another magical slow movement with ‘The Moon Descending on the Temple That Was’ which seemed to hover in the air. Prokofiev’s Piano Sonata No.7 was a whiplash change in style, as percussive and rhythmic as the Debussy was Impressionistic. It was hard to miss how the riotous finale fit so well with the unconventional style of so many of this year’s recitals. It drew a thunderous ovation.
To continue with the sharp contrasts between one piece and the next, the encore was a heartfelt, blissfully legato ‘October’ from Tchaikovsky’s Seasons.
Harvey Steiman
Featured Image: Violinist Augustin Hadelich and pianist Orien Weiss © Blake Nelson
12.8.2025, Recital: Augustin Hadelich (violin), Orion Weiss (piano), Harris Hall.
Ives – Violin Sonata No.4, ‘Children’s Day at the Camp Meeting’
Stephen Hartke – Netsuke
Daniel Bernard Roumain – ‘Filter’
Barber – Excursion in G-flat major
John Adams – Road Movies
Copland – ‘Nocturne’; ‘Ukulele Serenade’; ‘Hoe Down’ from Rodeo
Beach – Romance
13.8.2025, Recital: Sharon Isbin (guitar), Aspen Festival Ensemble / Elizabeth Schulze (conductor), Harris Hall.
Granados/Llobet – Spanish Dance No.5 ‘Andaluza’ from Twelve Spanish Dances
Albéniz/Segovia – ‘Mallorca (Barcarolle)’
Villa-Lobos – from Twelve Études
Lauro – Vals Venezolano No.3 ‘Natalia’
Sávio – ‘Batucada’ from Cênas brasileiras
Karen LeFrak – ‘Habanera Nights’, ‘Urban Tango’, Miami Concerto for Guitar & Orchestra
14.8.2025, Recital: Yefim Bronfman (piano), Harris Hall.
R. Schumann – Arabeske in C major
Brahms – Piano Sonata No.3 in F minor
Debussy – Images Book 2
Prokofiev – Piano Sonata No.7 in B-flat major