The Review is In

A Texas Music Festival showcase worthy of German masters: No flash trash in XiaoWang's Sibelius

Maestro Lavard Skou-Larsen
Melanie Stegemann
Cynthia Woods Mitchell Young Artist Competition winner, violinist Xiao Wang,takes a bow after the first movement of the Sibelius Violin Concerto in D minor.
Xiao Wang performing unaccompanied Bach in KHOU's Great Day Houston.

It's a rare occasion when I think of Bach while listening to Finnish classical music, but just as Xiao Wang ripped through the arpeggiated cadenza of the first movement of the Sibelius Violin Concerto in D Minor at Saturday's Texas Music Festival "German Masters" musicale, I was certain that this young emerging fiddler knew his baroque solo partitas and sonatas like most know the ABCs or the words and gestures to "I'm a little teapot."

As the winner of the Cynthia Woods Mitchell Young Artist Competition, also the recipient of the Audience Choice Award, the 25-year-old Chinese violinist earned a spot on the evening's playbill. That was the opening of the epic showpiece, a concerto that remained somewhat hidden and obscure until the early '90s.

Wang's winnings also include a solo engagement at Gewandhaus zu Leipzig concert hall in Germany with the Akademisches Orchester Leipzig next year.

Just like Sibelius, Bach is an all or nothing thing. You get it, it's transcendent or it's as boring as watching a slideshow of someone else's family reunion — yawn.

The audience was (mostly) in a quiet trance holding on to Xiao Wang's every nuance across this 17-minute large scale sonata form movement.

To "get" Bach one must parse through the harmonic language to glean the implications and tendencies of each note, discern their function and interpret their intended journey. Only then can musical intuition be based on the tonal building blocks and structures that hold emotional significance. Skip that step and it's a free for all, in other words, a mess that may appear pretty on the surface, but it's as senseless as gibberish.

It's often that the first cadenza in the Allegro moderato is treated like a "let-me-show-you-how-fast-I-can-play-a-gazillion-notes" passage. But this isn't the kind of flash trash Sarasate, Paganini or Wieniawski penned. Rather it's worthy of Father Bach, where hearing how each tone develops a sequence and, at the same time, extends a melodic line is what's mesmerizing.

Moreover, key centers matter. D minor and modulations B-flat major and minor, G minor each have a distinct color. Listeners without perfect or relative pitch may not be able to pinpoint tonalities, but aesthetic instinct doesn't rely in note labelling to garner expressive prowess.

Wang got Sibelius just as he understands Bach, evident by this Great Day Houston performance.

And despite one mannerless couple who decided it was appropriate to change seats and converse while Wang tolled his first three notes, his Sibelius was technically and artistically solid. Courtesy of spot on octave double stops, soaring melodies and thick (not short, but stout) tenor-esque riffs sul G and one intense, well-paced cadenza prior to the recapitulation, the audience was (mostly) in a quiet trance holding on to his every nuance across this 17-minute large scale sonata form movement.

The intimate setting surely helped, and so did the focus and balance of maestro Lavard Skou-Larsen, whose gaze at times was fixed on Wang's bow strokes.

Yet every once in a while Skou-Larsen looked at the brass; and we all know what happens when the conductor looks at the brass.

Strauss & Brahms

Here are the German masters the title spoke of, both richly indulgent, perchance a bit stout like the above mentioned teapot.

What was remarkable about the performance of Strauss' tone poem Death and Transfiguration can be attributed to Skou-Larsen's understanding of how to work with students. He tamed what they do best (gutsy, passionate playing) and affixed sensitivity and control. Solo woodwinds and strings had space to add personality, but without losing metric structure.

Yet every once in a while Skou-Larsen looked at the brass; and we all know what happens when the conductor looks at the brass (stand behind the horns as I did while putting a video piece together, you'll know what I mean). I admit to having aversion to Skou-Larsen's faster tempi at the coda during rehearsals. In performance, in context, his interpretation felt right, poignant and tranfigured — as it should — fitting for the theme that John Williams lifted for Superman.

When it came down to Brahms' Symphony No. 3 in F major, fatigue seeped in for the opening Allegro con brio, a side-effect of an ambitious, chop-busting program — though that didn't last too long. A charming, bucolic second movement invigorated the musicians enough to render a gorgeous, stereotypically-German Poco allegretto where the flutes and horns floated atop a heavy texture.

The closing movement, well, that was just chromatic oscillating fun.

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Movie Review

Daniel Craig shines in Queer, an unapologetic tale of love and loss

Photo courtesy of A24

Drew Starkey and Daniel Craig in Queer.

As recently as the late 2010s, if a movie was made about an LGBTQ+ character, it was more than likely about their coming out experience. Romance, if it existed, was typically chaste, and actual sex was almost completely out of the question. Things have changed dramatically in the 2020s, to the point that a major movie star has no issue starring in a film called Queer.

Based on the 1985 novella by William S. Burroughs, the film features William Lee (Daniel Craig), whom everyone calls just Lee, a writer living in 1950s-era Mexico City who spends most of his time haunting local bars with friends like fellow writer Joe Guidry (Jason Schwartzman) and hitting on younger men. His early interactions in the film seem to indicate that Lee has a bad reputation within the local gay community, as multiple people avoid him or give him odd looks.

Lee senses an opportunity when he encounters a newcomer, Eugene Allerton (Drew Starkey). Despite some awkward interactions, the two of them start spending time together, although Lee has much more invested in the relationship than Eugene does. Their hit-and-miss bond continues until Lee, who’s starting to get into drugs in addition to the booze, convinces Eugene to accompany him on a trip to South America.

Directed by Luca Guadagnino and written by Justin Kuritzkes (making their second straight film together after Challengers), early on the film seems to be mostly about the divide between an older person who’s grown comfortable in his ways and a younger person who’s living a relatively carefree life. The introduction of drugs into the plot changes things, though, with Lee searching out more ways to open his eyes to what the world has to offer.

Guadagnino and his team use some interesting visual storytelling techniques to introduce ideas that may not be present in the actual script. The most successful, demonstrated in multiple scenes, is the superimposition of movements by Lee over what’s actually taking place in the scene. The subtle overlay gives the audience insight into Lee’s true feelings, showing what he can’t or won’t say out loud.

Music also plays a big part in how the plot is perceived, with the use of anachronistic songs from Nirvana and Prince serving to heighten certain moments. The score by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross is not as in-your-face as the one they did for Challengers, but it complements the film well, especially when the plot starts to get trippy in its final half hour.

Craig, who appears sweaty and disheveled for much of the film, is about as far from the suaveness of James Bond as you can get in this role. He takes multiple risks with his performance and almost all of them pay off. Starkey’s character is subdued by comparison, but still comes off well. Schwartzman and Lesley Manville are given showy roles, with both using altered appearances that make them nearly unrecognizable to deliver memorable performances.

Queer is not as accessible as Challengers was storytelling-wise, but the fact that it tells a story about gay men living their lives as they see fit with no interference or questions shows how far the film world has come in a short period of time. It also continues Guadagnino’s streak of making audacious films in a way that few other filmmakers are willing or able to approach.

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Queer is now playing in theaters.

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