I attended a piano recital at the Austrian Embassy, last Thursday (4/18)
as did at least one other list member, Lawrence Sherwood, who met w/ me
there, he recognizing me by the New Yorker magazine that I told him I would
be flaunting.  From our conversation, it appears that we both enjoyed the
program greatly, w/ perhaps a slight reservation to which I'll come back.

The program consisted of a club sandwich, in which Beethoven's last three
piano sonatas were the bread slices filled in w/ two Poesies (Nos.  1 and
3) by Thomas Daniel Schlee (b.  1957).  The program was introduced by a
charming lady (who if recollections of earlier recitals at the embassy
are accurate is its cultural attache) who introduced Schlee as an Austrian
composer not well known in the USA, but not well known in Austria either.

(As I usually do in posts of this type, I disclaim all pretensions at being
a critic of music or performances.  I'm easy to please and if I like the
composition I usually hear it through what might put off others as flaws
in the performance.)

The pianist, Clemens Zeilinger, is the winner of several competitions
and scholarships.  He opened the recital w/ Beethoven's Opus 109.  It is
perhaps my favorite Beethoven sonata, mainly because of the tenderness of
its opening lines as I recall from a first hearing over fifty years ago
on a Schnabel recording, a tenderness that persists even as the movement
itself becomes more complex, and which recurs after a stormier middle
movement in the caressing theme and variations that comprise the final
movement.  I found that tenderness singularly missing in this performance.
To me it sounded almost as though he was subduing an opponent.  I remember
the work pretty well and heard it "through" the performance and was even
somewhat reconciled to it by the last movement.

Mr.  Zeilinger then addressed the audience about the piece he had just
played, which interestingly he seemed to perceive just as I did, despite
what I felt about his interpretation.  Characterizing Bach's WTC as the
Old Testament of keyboard music, he felt that Beethoven's last three piano
sonatas comprised its New Testament.  He also told us a bit more about the
Schlee pieces.  He warned us that these were "modern" pieces but reassured
us that they were also short.  They were, as the title indicated,
"Poesies", i.e., not sonatas, or other works w/ a definable form, intended
to "float" w/ nothing touching the ground other than an underlying two-note
theme heard at the beginning.  These works had been written by Schlee just
after his wedding night when he was quite happy.

We've all endured extended Internet discussions about "modern" music
and how its appreciation may require a little effort and the shedding
of prejudices, including repeated listenings, and I myself have great
appreciation for some music that in my younger days was still considered
"modern".  I listened to the first Poesie w/ this background.  No, I didn't
find it cacophonous but I didn't find it particularly pleasing either.  In
pieces of this sort I often find myself wondering how the quality of the
work would be materially changed if, instead of one particular note being
played, we were hearing another.  The transcendental experience of hearing
the unexpected and realizing that it was actually the inevitable, is often
missing.  And so it seemed here.  If it was written the morning after the
composer's wedding night, there was nothing suggesting the post-coital,
although I'm not sure how I'd recognize its musical depiction.

There followed the Opus 110, perhaps a "stormier" piece than the Opus 109,
which may be why I didn't have the reservations about his performance of
that piece that I did regarding the earlier work.  He described the final
movement as an expression of gratitude over Beethoven's recovery from an
illness but no allusion was made to the famous "Prayer of Thanksgiving upon
Recovery from an Illness" in his Opus 132 Quartet.  I don't know whether,
separated as the two works are by over twenty opus numbers, it was the same
illness.

It was during the intermission that Lawrence and I met up and compared
notes.  I also took the opportunity to buy a CD of Zeilinger playing
Shostakovich's First and Second Piano Sonatas and the earlier Preludes
(Opus 34, the ones sans fugues).  Those here who may have read about my
experience in buying a new car, the CD player of which needed replacing,
will be pleased to learn that the CD played fine in the replaced player.

After Schlee's Third Poesie, we heard Beethoven's last (Opus 111) sonata.
Zeilinger gave some oral program notes about this as well, explaining that
the first movement was familiar Beethoven (what I've been describing here
as "stormy") and then described the second movement consisting of a theme
and variations, all in the same tempo but composed for successively faster
following notes (I hope I've done justice to his description in my layman's
recollection), leading in the third variation to what Stravinsky is
supposed to have called the "Boogy Woogy" variations.  For me the sublime
portion of the work comes just afterwards, when the theme seems to be taken
apart, reassembled, all through the most amazing trills and w/ variants to
the melody of untold beauty.

There was an enthusiastic ovation, w/ flowers, at the end, w/ mercifully,
no encores.

Walter Meyer