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Parlando, the affable and adventurous chamber orchestra led by Ian Niederhoffer, offered a fascinating concert on Sunday that was also just plain fun. The theme of the program, titled “Sidewalk Tango,” was music inspired by the bustling activity and constant change of a big city.
Sidewalk Tango
It could be Berlin, where in the years after World War I German-Jewish composer Erwin Schulhoff was inspired by visiting American military bands carrying the seeds of what became jazz. It could be Hong Kong and Guangzhou, where South Korean composer Unsuk Chin (coincidentally based today in Berlin) felt the electricity of those cities in the unruly sounds of amateur street performers. Or it could be Parlando’s home town of New York City, which situated and helped energize the great Argentinian innovator Astor Piazzolla as he invented nuevo tango. “Sidewalk Tango” brought these three composers together in a concert that bubbled with wide-eyed urban energy.
In his 1921 Suite for Chamber Orchestra (or Jazz Suite), WV 58, Schulhoff sought to convey the spirit of “jazz” as he heard it from those military bands. What he actually came up with was a series of short pieces based on popular dances and musical trends of the time. So instead of Allemandes and Courantes, he begins with a brassy and percussive “Ragtime,” followed by a dreamy “Valse Boston” reflecting the slow Americanized Boston waltz. Parlando’s fetching performance of the latter spotlighted numerous individual orchestra members, with particularly warm solo work from concertmaster Joel Lambdin and (an instrument I’m always rooting for) the bass clarinet played by Chris DeChant.
Schulhoff’s dark “Tango” combined the hypnotic mien of Ravel’s “Bolero” with an arch melodicism that brought Kurt Weill to mind. The whimsical “Shimmy” drew laughs with a slide whistle and what sounded like a bicycle horn punctuating what felt like a brisk walk down city streets. “Step,” a kind of march scored for percussion only, forefronted a four-person percussion section. And the suite closes with a colorful movement called “Jazz” that suggested a silent movie score. Altogether it was a thoroughly winning rendition of the now more-than-century-old suite, and one that made it possible, if just for a few minutes, to forget that two decades later the composer perished in the Holocaust.
Parlando and Unsuk Chin: Bringing the Noise
Unsuk Chin’s Gougalōn is another suite of six movements, just as evocative as the Schulhoff but dramatically different. It takes seriously the chaotic aspects of city life. The Prologue presents a rhythmic bedlam, with wailing violins and harsh strumming of the inside strings of the piano. The dirge-like “Lament of the Bald Singer” layers flute and clarinet over solemn plucking of the bass viol and guitar-like strumming of the cello strings, while a muted trombone whines cartoonishly.
“The Grinning Fortune Teller with the False Teeth” and the “Episode Between Bottles and Cans” feature the percussionists prominently, with a furious xylophone explosion opening the atonal former and the latter sounding just like you’d expect. Insect-like strings join keening woodwinds and incipient brass in the droning “Circulus vitiosos,” which reminded me more than anything else of the Velvet Underground. And the closing movement featured ominous growling from the bass viol along with shivery violin sounds evolving into a rhythmic procession.
I could only sit back and admire the way conductor and musicians held together in this suite. (My wife’s sum-up: “Orchestra falling down the stairs.”) Niederhoffer’s wry introductions always make sure we know the background and inspiration for the selections. That makes difficult music like Gougalōn intelligible. Aspects of this music are decidedly and purposefully unpleasant. Parlando made Chin’s work not only listenable but engaging and even enlightening.
Piazzolla in New York
Bandoneon player and composer JP Jofre joined the orchestra for a generous, sweeping performance of the Suite Punta del Este by Piazzolla. A modernist take on Romanticism characterized the first movement. The second was absolutely sublime with its beautiful chorale featuring solo violin as well as bandoneon. The final “Fugue,” an intricate tango journey, gained from especially nice work from the woodwinds. Inspired, I imagine, by Jofre’s exquisite sensibility, Parlando’s performance was again inspiring here.
A robust and optimistic composition by Jofre, full of syncopation and danceable rhythms, was the icing on the cookie.
A program that includes Piazzolla will always draw me, I can’t deny it. But the juxtaposition of his music, played by an accomplished orchestra and a master bandoneonist, with Schulhoff’s volatile cultural milieu and the explosive expressionism of Unsuk Chin made for a crackling good concert experience.
See Parlando’s website for their upcoming events, including a concert featuring the early electronic instrument the ondes Martenot and a cabaret-themed event with soprano Measha Brueggergosman-Lee.
