I just returned from ten days at the Aspen Music Festival, staying with
MCML member Jane Erb and her significant other, Gairt Mauerhoff.

Some highlights:

Hearing Leon Fleisher play two-handed.  His right hand has been out
of commission for probably thirty years, but in recent times he has
occasionally played two-handed.  In this particular concert he played
the radiant Schubert four-hand piano 'Fantasia' with his talented pianist
wife, Katherine Jacobson.  Then he conducted thirteen of his Aspen faculty
colleagues in Hindemith's Kammermusik No.  1, Op.  24a.  After the interval
he, along with violinist Kyoko Takezawa and cellist Thomas Grossenbacher,
the Brahms Second Piano Trio in C, Op.  87.  Sterling, and inspiriting.
For those of you who don't know, Grossenbacher is principal cellist in
the Zurich Tonhalle Orchestra.

The next day es gibt the Franz Schreker 'Kammersymphonie', which I'd
never heard before and was quite taken with; it's language is Strauss
cum impressionism.  This was followed by the Brahms double concerto with
Alexander Kerr (concertmaster of the Royal Concertgebouw) and Eric Kim
(principal cello of the Cincinnati Symphony).  The concert concluded with
a clean and dandy Haydn's Symphony No.  104, the 'London'.  All conducted
by Alan Gilbert, a young man we've watched 'grow up' in Aspen, summer
after summer; he's now conductor of the Stockholm Philharmonic.

Then Katherine Jacobson and Antoinette Perry (each the wife of a better
known pianist-husband) playing the bejeezus out of Ravel's two piano
version of 'La Valse.'

A couple of days later Takezawa returned to play a luminous performance
of the Szymanowski Violin Concerto No.  1, a piece I adore.  It had been
preceded by John Adams ever-present 'Short Ride in a Fast Machine', a piece
whose worth and interest elude me.  After intermission was a somewhat
wayward Mahler First, conducted by James de Preist.  He pulled the tempi
around, particularly in the second movement, and certainly wasn't following
Mahler's markings very closely.  (I had a score at the dress rehearsal and
noted that he seemed to alter the tempi in variance with Mahler's explicit
markings.) The trio of the second movement was so SLOW.  Ach!

My first night there the Chamber Symphony played a gossamer Vaughan
Williams 'Fantasia on a Theme of Thomas Tallis.' And we got to hear it
almost twice through because towards the end a siren somewhere nearby -
I was informed that it was summoning Aspen's volunteer fire department -
wailed on and on.  Finally Peter Oundjian, formerly first violinist of the
Tokyo String Quartet and now a busy conductor, turned around and said.
'We'll wait, and then we'll start again.' Wise choice.  It was even better
the second time.  Earlier in the concert Fleisher had played Prokofiev's
uninspired 4th piano concerto, the one for left hand alone.

Other things heard:  the Dvorak wind serenade, the Stravinsky Octet,
Varese's 'Integrales'.  The Dvorak violin concerto played by the violin
concerto competition winner.  A rough-and-ready Pictures at an Exhibition
by a student orchestra.

Far and away the best student performance I heard was a young quartet,
together less than a year at Juilliard and coached by the American String
Quartet's Laurie Carney, playing the Debussy Quartet.  I don't think I've
heard a better performance, frankly.

I also attended two of the student competitions - Jane Erb is in charge
of them, as well as the student concerts.  The first was a forgettable
vocal competition, limited this year to bel canto arias.  How many times
can you hear a mezzo warble 'Non piu mesta' (from Rossini's 'Cenerentola')
before you want some Berg or Wagner!

But the piano competition!  My, my!  The chosen piece was the Beethoven
Fourth Piano Concerto, with suitable cuts (and accompanied by a secundo
piano playing the orchestra part), lasting about thirteen minutes.  There
were eleven contestants and there wasn't a weak player in the bunch.  The
winner was the unflappable 15-year-old YuJia Wang from Victoria, B.C., who
had, because of a mix-up, to play with an accompanist she'd never rehearsed
with before.  The one she'd rehearsed with didn't show up in time (and
caused a stink because he tried to blame his lateness on the changes in
the order due to a contestant dropping out at the last moment).  She will
be starting Curtis in the fall and will study with Gary Graffman.  Not
too shabby.

Whew.  I went on and on.  Sorry about that.  But it was a joyous visit to
Aspen - my thirtieth in the past 31 years.

And I came away with close to sixty hours of music on CDs that I burned,
copying from Jane and Gairt's enormous and eclectic collection.  Things
like Alfven and Alwyn symphonies, piano and orchestral music of Geir
Tveitt, Nikolaeva's recording of the Shostakovich preludes and fugues, Earl
Wild playing the Schumann quintet with a string orchestra, a truckload of
Flemish music by folks like Mortelmans, de Boeck, Benoit, Gilson, van Hoof,
etc.  Lieder und Balladen by Carl Loewe.  The complete keyboard music of
Jan Pieterzoon Sweelinck.  (Thank you, Radio Nederland.) Orchestral music
of Dargomizhky, Gliere, wind quintets of David Maslanka.  Etc.

Enough. I'll quit.

Scott