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Loony Tunes and Luscious Melodies New York
Merkin Concert Hall, Lincoln Center
05/01/2025 -
Erik Satie: Trois Petites Pièces montées
Franz Schreker: Kammersymphonie
William Bolcom: Cabaret Songs
Measha Brueggergosman-Lee (Soprano)
Parlando, Ian Niederhoffer (Conductor)
M. Brueggergosman-Lee (© Lisa MacIntosh)
“Before I compose a piece, I walk round it several times, accompanied by myself.”
Erik Satie
“Once I know what the first page is, then the rest will come.”
William Bolcom
Two vital, essential, unexpendable reasons to go to Merkin Hall last night. One was to hear the orchestral magic of Franz Schreker live (not on YouTube). The second was to visit, for the third time in the past decade the indescribable, radiant, glowing, dramatic voice of Measha Brueggergosman-Lee.
I mean literally indescribable. She took a septet of the late William Bolcom’s Cabaret Songs, of the few hundred he wrote. And while I wish they had been printed in the program, and while Ms. Brueggergosman‑Lee didn’t quite enunciate the Arnold Weinstein lyrics of Song of Black Max from the DeKooning Kids or Toothbrush Time or The Total Stranger in the Garden, she didn’t need to.
Every word, every comma, every syllable brought forth drama, tears, laughs, shouted exaggeration, whispered secrets. The songs were Kurt Weill style, Gershwin style, pure Blues, monodramas Pierrot lunaire style (she sings that as well, just as Schoenberg wrote his own cabaret songs) In a sense she inhabited every letter of every word. Ms. Brueggergosman‑Lee glittered with eyes, body and (not least) her voice. Like her extravagant dress, she laughed through an unrehearsed between‑song monologue (cracking up conductor Ian Niederhoffer and his Parlando chamber orchestra).
Best of all, it would have pleased (and honored) composer William Bolcom. Unlikely as it might seem initially, Bolcom’s teacher was Olivier Messiaen. On second thought, Messiaen must have drilled into Bolcom’s head that every note–whether jazz or blues or Latin, mystical or just plain lyrical–must be significant. No fillers.
William Bolcom took that to heart and brain. His non‑vocal works are always inventive, ever interesting. His songs are always simply fabulous. Unlike that other American “serious” song‑writer, Ned Rorem, William Bolcom was never afraid to venture on the dark side, the daring side.
And Measha Brueggergosman-Lee (oh, how I love to spell that name) was more than collaborator. Whether the Latin American beat of Song of Black Max or the transvestitism of George, last night she was Bolcom’s most joyous avatar.
Parlando, that superb chamber group, could have been excellent accompanists, but they had no chance against Ms. Brueggergosman‑Lee. They did have their chance in the preceding 25‑minute Chamber Symphony by Franz Schreker.
I. Niederhoffer and Parlando (© Samuel A. Dog)
No room to go into his biography, save that Schreker was Monégasque by birth, a highly successful German conductor and composer through the Mahler/Goldmark eras–and was totally banned from public performances in 1933 by the Nazis. (Yes, he was half‑Jewish.) Searching through the ConcertoNet archives, I see that Schreker is frequently played in Europe. But last night was his first performance in America. And I had only heard a few of his opera overtures on YouTube.
Those few works had the most gorgeous tunes and harmonies both Impressionist and late Romantic German. In fact the opening of the Chamber Symphony is as haunting as the opening of Ravel’s Daphnis.
From there, my interest sadly sagged. Perhaps they needed a pinpoint‑more sensitive orchestra or conductor. Perhaps the fault was its length with its swirling melodies with little apparent structure. Or perhaps it was that mixture of styles (each done with great craft) that led to my soporific reaction.
The opening was a tiny work by Erik Satie. He wrote few orchestral works, but his Trois Petites Pièces montées–either a stuffed piece or a pastry!–had the right length (about four quick minutes), the quirky trumpet calls, the circus melodies and the totally irrelevant story of Gargantua and Pantagruel to be surrealistic surprising, plain super fun. Parlando had fun playing it as well, with drums, trumpet calls and Satie‑satire.
In the words of the comic book, these were Loony Tunes and Merry Melodies.
Harry Rolnick
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