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RECITAL REVIEW
December 2, 2004
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By John Lutterman
Hats off, gentlemen…a genius? Well, perhaps not, but there's no denying
that cellist and composer Clancy Newman is an exceptionally gifted and
accomplished young musician, and it certainly seems safe to predict that he
has a major career in his future. It is easy to forget that most of the
great composers of the Western canon were acclaimed performers and that,
until recently, most of the great performers were also well known
composers. In today's highly specialized musical world, in which the
boundaries separating composers, performers and audiences appear to be
inexorably widening, it is extremely gratifying to encounter such a
successful example of a musician working against the tide.
Although his physical approach to the instrument is rather eccentric,
Newman, winner of the 2001 Naumberg Competition, has an impressive
technical command of the cello and draws on an unusually broad palette of
colors and articulation. He clearly has a sophisticated understanding of
musical structure, and an imaginative, often quite witty approach to
phrasing.
Pianist Noreen Cassidy-Polera was a fine chamber music partner. At the
beginning of the program, in Samuel Barber's darkly lyrical Sonata of 1932,
it seemed that she might be relegated to a background accompanying role, but this was most likely the result of overcompensating for the rather dry
acoustical properties of the hall. Once she found her stride, which did
not take long, her playing provided a lively response to Newman's
imaginative excursions.
Four Pieces for Solo Cello, Newman's own, which ended the first half of the program, is an engaging work and effectively displayed his technical prowess. Since it employs rhapsodic structures, framed within sectional forms, I found myself wondering just how much had been fixed in notation and how much was improvised on the spot. This is not intended as criticism — indeed, it is hard to say which would be the more impressive accomplishment. The influence of the many great twentieth-century works for solo cello was evident in much of the piece; Newman made particularly effective use of textures and extended techniques reminiscent of Hindemith, Britten and Kodaly, but there were also plenty of postmodern nods to popular and “world” music. The first piece, “Avant garde improv,” was a dissonant romp, featuring blues riffs and passages that called to mind Jimi Hendrix's experiments with feedback and distortion, while the third, “Trance music” was built around a pizzicato drone, much like the Bordone of Britten's first cello suite, but also explored melodic formulas characteristic of North African music. The remainder of the program was made up of meat-and-potatoes repertoire: Brahms's F major Sonata and Chopin's Polonaise Brilliante, works that offer an unequivocal test of interpretive acumen. The Brahms was appropriately stormy and passionate, and it was wonderful to hear such an unabashedly personal and distinctive approach. In addition to being a responsive chamber music partner, Cassidy-Polera is a phenomenal pianist, able to go along with tempos considerably more brisk that most pianists are willing to attempt. The only disappointment in Thursday's performance came in the lyrical opening passage of the Chopin. Here, Newman's sound became rather heavy and some of the ornamental passages were labored and rhythmically stiff. This was surprising, especially since the more virtuosic filigree passages later in the work were tossed off so nicely, seemingly without effort. But let's not quibble; the performance in general was of a very high caliber. Apart from these minor caveats, the treatment accorded the original “hats off” composer and promising young artist was very convincing.
(John Lutterman is a cellist and musicologist. He holds a DMA from SUNY
Stony Brook and is currently pursuing a Ph.D. in historical musicology at UC Davis.)
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Clancy Newman