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DYAO, Pianist Pompa-Baldi, Plus 30 Years
Contributed by: Robin McNeil on 10/29/2007

Last Sunday afternoon, October 28, The Denver Young Artists Orchestra performed a concert in Gates hall at the University of Denver's Newman Center. As they celebrate their 30th year, they are led by the gifted Adam Flatt. The DYAO is surely counting its lucky stars that Flatt is their Music Director and Conductor. He is in his seventh year with this orchestra - proof that he is able to communicate with 89 high school students and mold them into a remarkable orchestra with remarkable discipline.

At this concert the DYAO performed Decoration Day from the Holidays Symphony by Charles Ives. Ives was an American composer - 1874-1954 - who was one of the first to use non-standard forms and harmony. Composers Elliot Carter and Aaron Copland - among others- pushed his music to the forefront and helped Ives become an established composer.

Decoration Day is a marvelous piece that describes the early Memorial Day in the history of America. Though its harmonies and form seem ordinary today, there were many who decried its break with the traditional aspects of romantic music of the previous century. These naysayers were cheerfully called "lily boys" by Ives who never minced his words and often engaged in name calling with other composers. But Ives was really a sentimentalist at heart, and this work contains Adeste Fidelis (in a minor key, making one recall Mahler), Nearer My God To Thee, and a few other hymns that concert goers find familiar. It truly is a description of the placing of wreathes and flowers on the graves of those who have fallen in battle. The opening pianissimo was remarkable in its balance across the sections of the orchestra. The intensity throughout the piece from this youthful orchestra was amazing, and very strong evidence that simply because musicians are young doesn't mean they can't do the job put before them. It is also evidence that Adam Flatt does not talk down to them - he simply shows them how to work and work together.

The highlight of the afternoon was Beethoven's Fifth Piano Concerto, the Emperor, which was performed by Italian pianist, Antonio Pompa-Baldi. Pompa-Baldi was a Silver Medalist at the Cliburn competition, but he has won the gold medal at the Cleveland International Piano Competition, the Marguerite Long-Jacques Thibaud Competition, and he has performed at all of the important halls in the US not to mention Europe and Japan. Pampa-Baldi is a very strong pianist. He studied with two of Italy's best teachers: Annamaria Pennella and Aldo Ciccolini. But it is important to understand that Pompa-Baldi's student days are most certainly over. He is a true concert artist who maintains thirty-eight concertos in his repertoire including the rarely heard Liszt Totentanz. He has taught at the Oberlin Conservatory and is now Distinguished Professor of Piano at the Cleveland Conservatory of Music.

Pompa-Baldi is an exceptional pianist. The Beethoven was perfect Beethoven, and what a thrill it must have been for the young artists in the DYAO to have such a pianist play with them. And what an education. Pompa-Baldi was totally at ease - how many times has he performed this piece? - and always, always, there was such an incredible sense of ensemble between him and Flatt. Their communication never flagged and they really seemed to be sharing in the joy of performance of such a marvelous piece of music. Their phrase endings were always precisely together, and Flatt followed every nuance that Pompa-Baldi shaped. It may have been where I was sitting, but at times it seemed that Pompa-Baldi could have been a little softer. It was as if he was aware that he was performing with a very large orchestra - which, of course, he was - and did not wish to be covered up by it.

I might add that finally, finally, a truly fine concert artist had a truly fine piano on which to play. It was a Hamburg Steinway. Steinway pianos are built in New York and in Hamburg, Germany, and the Hamburg Steinways are vastly superior to the New York Steinways. Praise goes to the Lamont School for having such a fine piano.

The Rachmaninoff (1873-1943) Symphonic Dances made up the second half of this exciting program. Originally written for two pianos, Rachmaninoff later orchestrated the three-movement piece and dedicated it to Eugene Ormandy and the Philadelphia Symphony Orchestra. In many ways, this last work by Rachmaninoff, already ill from cancer, seems to reflect all of his tragedies and obsessions of his riches-to-rags life. He was born to wealth and nobility, but all was lost - partly because of the revolution in Russia - when he came to the US in 1917. This sought after conductor had to start over as a concert pianist, where he found renewed fame and a solid income.

Throughout this monumentally difficult piece one can hear the Dies Irae theme, parts of the Doxology from the Russian Orthodox mass, and always there is the imitation of bells. In Russia, Rachmaninoff lived within hearing distance of cathedral bells, which were always rung particularly on Easter and for weddings. But many times in this set of three dances, Rachmaninoff seems to be pushing the harmonic envelope with pronounced dissonances. Unlike other composers of his time, he does resolve the dissonances, but in this work those resolutions seem to take longer and longer. Most striking, is the vitality and energy that are reflected in this work of dances. The rhythms, at times, seem to be almost maniacal, and that is one aspect that makes this work so difficult for the orchestra. And consider the age of the members of the DYAO. They deserve immense credit because they performed this piece so well. Adam Flatt deserves immense credit for being able to lead an orchestra with such young members to such mature heights.

It was so totally refreshing to see so many young people in the audience. No doubt they were family members and school friends of those in the orchestra, but, nonetheless, they came to a program of serious music. All of the orchestras in the metro area should strive to get students to concerts. What an education it would be for them, and what a joy.




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CONTRIBUTOR INFORMATION

Robin McNeil

Littleton , CO

Robin McNeil has posted 698 stories and 0 comments since joining on 9/14/2005. Robin McNeil 's average story rating is 5.
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