Word: hodgkinson
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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What You Didn't Know: Internationally renowned pianist Randall Hodgkinson has an office and practices regularly in the house...
...Hodgkinson, a professor at the New England Conservatory of Music, opened the program with Dallapiccola's Quaderno Musicale di Annalibera, a set of 11 variations upon a twelve-tone theme that the composer created for his daughter and presented to her on her eighth birthday in 1952. In the pre-concert lecture, Harvard professor John Stewart illuminated, a la First Nights, the history of Dallapiccola's career and discussed points of interest like the Simbolo, a four-note theme derived from the letters in "Bach." As concertmistress Stephanie Misono turned the pages of his score, Hodgkinson breezed through the simplistic...
...After Hodgkinson's applause-accompanied exit from the stage and the discreet lowering of the lid of his piano, conductor James Yannatos took his place in front and led the orchestra into--surprise--Dallapiccola's Variations for Orchestra, a reiteration of the themes that had just resounded from the piano. If the atonal phrases had been disjointed in the piano score, they were fully severed and disconcertingly tossed together in the full orchestral rendition. Rhythms and chords seem to collide haphazardly; though the multi-instrumental texture of the piece gave greater depth to Dallapiccola's notes than the solo piano...
...reappearance of Hodgkinson was well-received, too, as the interludes between full-orchestral sections allowed the spotlight to fall on Hodgkinson's effortless technique: his hands, often motionless, hovered over the keyboard while his fingers whirred underneath. Whether the cascading piano notes meshed with the backdrop provided by the orchestra or disappeared beneath them entirely, the combination was perfectly engineered. The audience showed its approval in wild applause, delaying intermission until Hodgkinson and Yannatos had been brought back three times...
Friday's finale proved no less majestic than the Dvorak of November, even though the orchestra had had less time in which to prepare their repertoire. Even the Dallapiccola pieces were bearable, if only for the novelty of watching Randall Hodgkinson and the talented orchestra attack the variations. Variety is, after all, the spice of life...