Somewhere in The Seat of the Soul, author Gary Zukav wrote that we have to combat darkness by reaching for that thing called "light". With recent American events including the interception of pipe bombs, the assassination of two African-Americans in a Kentucky grocery store by a man who said "Whites don't kill whites" and the anti-Semitic Pittsburgh massacre, it's more than safe to say that we all need some light now. Not light as in "levity", but "light" as in affirmation of all that is good in humanity.
On Friday, October 26, 2018, we had a moment to witness that light. It was on that evening, in the the midst of many of us reeling from the evil that had been unapologetically unleashed across the United States, that American violinist and New York City Ballet concertmaster Kurt Nikkanen presented a recital of works for unaccompanied violin that included Stephanie Ann Boyd's Nostrobis.
Nostrobis is a fourteen-minute, seven-movement sonata for unaccompanied violin that takes its inspiration and musical material from world cultures and regions including Central America, the African continent, and the South Pole. This work is a commission from 2017-2018 that included thirty-five violinists from across the globe and received its premiere in "traditional venues, but also with performances at national landmarks like the Great Wall of China, in embassies, at a Syrian refugee camp in Jordan, in Faroe Island churches, and others."
This performance was Mr. Nikkanen's second appearance on The Spire Series, an annual series featuring both musicians and visual artists presented in the stunning Gothic Revival sanctuary of Baltimore's First & Franklin Presbyterian Church.
I first heard Kurt Nikkanen on the same series in March 2015 when he presented a program that included both the D Minor Partita and the C Major Sonata of J. S. Bach, and that performance was incredibly enlightening: in addition to Mr. Nikkanen's profound understanding both of Baroque performance practice and applying that understanding to modern violin performance, he took the time to explain the rhythmic differences of the Chaconne and the Sarabande.
Mr. Nikkanen's intellectual acuity and violinistic prowess were again evident in his October 2018 performance, as he opened the concert with Bach's Partita No. 3 in E Major. After an elegant and virtuosic Preludio (after which the very eager audience instantly burst into applause), Nikkanen became the "dance master", playing the six movements that follow the Prelude as true dances with spontaneous yet more than convincing ornamentation.
The E Major Partita was followed by Eugene Ysaye's hair-raising Violin Sonata No. 2. Dedicated to Jacques Thibaud, this sonata is well-known both for quoting the opening of Bach's E Major Partita and the inclusion of the Dies Irae in many forms.
While the "obsession" may seem to be with the E Major Partitia, Ysaye's brilliance is that he also captured the spirit of the Furies - female spirits of justice and vengeance in both Greek and Roman mythology. As the Furies punished their victims by driving them mad, Nikkanen's reading of this sonata made even more sense: in addition to the obsession with perfecting motives and gestures found in Bach's E Major Prelude, he shared the Dies Irae as another obsession throughout all four movements. From the ending of the second movement (titled "Sarabande") through the third, a captivating yet disturbing medieval homage to religious figures (titled "Danse des Ombres" - Dance of the Brothers) and the final movement - titled "Les Furies" and containing fiendinsh trippe-stopping (there were three of them - Aletca, Megaera and Tisiphone), Kurt shared a profound understanding of how to bring programmatic music alive in ways that may have escaped many fiddlers including myself.
Nostrorbis came after the intermission, and included Nikkanen stomping rhythms during "Luxor" a movement based on Ghanaian music, later visiting sounds recalling the Mexican "Dia de Muertes"(Day of the Dead) and interpreting the sounds of a digeridoo.
Nostrobis was followed by a most compelling reading of Bach's A Minor Sonata, BWV 1003. The four movements flowed effortlessly, beginning with a very spacious and melancholy Grave which was followed by a heightened sense of musical energy in the Fugue. These were followed by the Andante and a quick and lively Allegro (again ending with arpeggiated ornamentation that almost recalled the ending of the E Major Preludio that opened the concert).
We are fortunate to have a series like The Spire Series in Baltimore. One of Baltimore's best-kept secrets, The Spire Series is one of the most vital concert series in this city. All performances, whether by internationally-acclaimed artists or equally gifted artists who have chosen Baltimore as home, are compelling and of incredibly high artistic quality and how grateful am I to have this just a few blocks walking distance from my home!
The next concert on The Spire Series promises to be tremendous as well: on Friday, November 30, mezzo-soprano J'Nai Bridges (whom I had the pleasure of meeting in March at the International Saint-Georges Music Festival in Guadeloupe) and pianist Mark Markham will perform a recital featuring works by Mahler, Ives, Copland and a selection of Spirituals in advance of their December 13 performance in New York's Carnegie Hall!
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