I can’t think of a better way to unwind from PES (post-election stress) than to attend the first CAMA Masterseries concert of the season at 8 p.m. Friday in the Lobero Theatre. The master in question will be superb pianist Richard Goode, making his fifth appearance as a CAMA artist.
Maestro Goode will play Joseph Haydn’s Variations for Piano in F-Minor, Hob.XVII:6 (1793), a “March” and five dances by Wolfgang Mozart, Ludwig van Beethoven’s Piano Sonata No.26 in E-Flat Major, Opus 81a, “Les Adieux” (1810), Leoš Janáček’s suite, In the Mists/V Mlhách for Piano (1912) and an “Impromptu,” four “Mazurkas” and a “Fantasie” by Frédéric Chopin.
If the Janáček stands out among all these beloved and thoroughly established classics — the most recent of which was composed before 1849 — it is not because it is out of place or unworthy. CAMA has hailed Goode as “one of the world’s leading interpreters of Classical and Romantic piano music,” and Janáček’s music partakes deeply of both sensibilities while sticking admirably to his own path.
I venture to predict that, in all this illustrious program, it is In the Mists that will immediately capture our attention, hold us in its spell for its duration, and stay with us long after the Lobero lights come up and we have filed out.
Janáček died in 1928, but for the past two to three decades, his music has been gradually — and, apparently, irresistibly — colonizing our concert programs. This, despite the fact that he wrote so little compared with the other titans on this program, or even his own contemporaries. His complete works for solo piano fit comfortably on two DGG Lps. Yet, his two astonishing string quartets are poised on the brink of the status of standards, if they have not already achieved it; chamber orchestras regularly turn to his Idyla (Idyll) for String Orchestra (1888) and his Mládí (Youth) for Wind Sextet (1924), and, of course, his Sinfonietta (1927) has, for more than 50 years, been a staple of symphony orchestras everywhere.
And even his operas — into which he poured most of his creative energy, and which are the most characteristic expression of his genius — are starting to be heard, despite the considerable barrier of the Czech language, thanks to the championing of young conductors and composers like the wunderkind Matthew Aucoin with his enthusiasm for The Cunning Little Vixen, “the great-great-great Janáček opera.” While his best-known opera is doubtless Jenufa of 1903, I have lately been obsessing over his 1928 setting of Dostoyevsky’s From the House of the Dead, finding it inexhaustible.
Tickets to Goode’s performance are $39 and $49. They can be purchased in person at the Lobero box office, 33 E. Canon Perdido St., by phone at 805.963.0761 or online by clicking here.
Goode will, moreover, lead a masterclass at UCSB starting at 6 p.m. Thursday in Karl Geiringer Hall (UCSB). Participating students are Ching Yun Chen (Mozart’s Piano Sonata in Bb-Major, K.570), Pinshu Yu (Schubert’s Impromptus D.935, Nos. 1 & 2) and Petra Persolja (Beethoven’s Sonata in E-Major, Opus 109, Mvts.1 & 2).
This event is free and open to the public, but, owing to the size and shape of the venue, it would be a good idea to make reservations and to be on time. Reservations can be made at the UCSB AS Ticket Office (UCEN Room 1535, across from Corwin Pavilion), by phone at 805.893.2064 or by email at ticketoffice@as.ucsb.edu.
— Gerald Carpenter covers the arts as a Noozhawk contributing writer. He can be reached at gerald.carpenter@gmail.com. The opinions expressed are his own.