“iPalpiti fest beats strong” (Los Angeles Times / July 19, 2017)
LA Times feature on July 19, 2017:
iPalpiti 20th Anniversary Brochure
In order to see the brochure CLICK HERE
Los Angeles Times Review 2016
Russian conductor Eduard Schmieder leads the iPalpiti Orchestra of International Laureates in a concert Saturday at Walt Disney Concert Hall. (Dana Ross)
Rick Schultz
July 24, 2016 3:45pm
Of all the death-haunted composers in history, Schubert and Mahler stand close to the top. Some of their most compelling music in this vein — Schubert’s Piano Sonata in B-flat, the slow movements from Mahler’s 5th and 6th symphonies — transform our fears into something emotionally complex and ennobling, paradoxically becoming a source of insight and comfort.
For its 19th annual festival finale, the iPalpiti Orchestra of International Laureates celebrated life, love and death at Walt Disney Concert Hall on Saturday night in a program of Mendelssohn, Tchaikovsky and Schubert/Mahler.
Led by Russian conductor Eduard Schmieder, iPalpiti (Italian for “heartbeats”), consisting of 22 young professional string players from 18 countries, began with a solid account of Mendelssohn’s well-crafted early String Symphony No. 10. It was a fine warmup for what came next: the complete orchestral arrangement of Tchaikovsky’s evocative but seldom-performed “The Seasons,” a set of 12 short character pieces originally composed for piano in 1876.
The score, musical evocations of each of the 12 months, offered a rich showcase for the ensemble’s many gifts, including hushed pianissimo playing in “January: At the Fireside,” and breathtaking agility throughout. Alan Chapman, a host and producer of KUSC Classical radio, served as narrator, reading short Russian poems in English translation, prefacing each month with invigorating directness.
The slight tinge of melancholy in “October: Autumn Song” hardly prepared listeners for Mahler’s stunning 1894 arrangement for string orchestra of Schubert’s late String Quartet in D minor “Death and the Maiden” (D.810), which came after intermission. At the time, Mahler was working on his “Resurrection” Symphony. The kinship between the two composers — Schubert’s rather innocent reckoning with his own mortality and Mahler’s with his more modernist angst — came through viscerally in a rendition of moving depth and humanity by Schmieder and the ensemble.
Oddly, at around 41 minutes — the Busch Quartet’s famous 1936 version comes in at 33 minutes — Schmieder’s reading felt spellbindingly concise. Best of all, he delivered a magisterial, perfectly paced account of the second movement Andante. Schmieder made the larger ensemble sound string quartet-like, with transparent textures, and maintained the intimacy of chamber music, which is often lost in Mahler’s beefier version.
Enriching the score’s sonority, Mahler added a double-bass to the ensemble, played here by Brooklyn-born iPalpiti newcomer Levi Jones. Incidentally, the superb cellists were also new to the group, including Ofer Canetti (Israel-Austria) and Carl-Oscar Osterlind (Denmark).
Schmieder dedicated the festival, which ran July 7-24, to violinist, conductor, teacher and humanitarian Yehudi Menuhin, in honor of his centenary. Menuhin, who was born in the U.S. and died in 1999 at age 82, was one of Schmieder’s mentors and an early supporter of iPalpiti.
“Yehudi was a philosopher,” Schmieder told the audience after the Mahler/Schubert. “We talked about life and death.”
Menuhin once called young musicians “the connecting tissue of our humanity.” Schmieder echoed this abiding hope in his comments. All gloom was quickly dispelled when the conductor and iPalpiti offered a rousing encore, Carl Bohm’s “Perpetuum Mobile,” performed with Ferrari-like speed and nimbleness.
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Almanac Panorama [Russian national weekly] review
We would like to offer a translation from the review in the Almanac Panorama (Russian National Weekly):
Everything was so glorious and significant, beginning with the carefully thought-through program! How challenging it must be to combine in one concert Russian romanticism and sentiment with Gothic mysticism; how brilliant it is to unite two suffering souls—Tchaikovsky and Mahler—to elevate us listeners to the heights of human spirit!
The orchestra sounded almost crystalline, although “the veterans” were only a few, once more the reason to celebrate the Maestro!
It felt as if the conductor created music out of the air, the movements of his hands mesmerizing and commanding to both the musicians and the audience.
Eduard’s hand technique is amazing—this is a separate, big subject. The concert’s success is the absolutely appropriate result of the inspiration and selfless effort on the part of all the participants, on and off stage. We loved the printed festival brochure with its wonderful photos and very meaningful cover, not to mention its wealth of great information…
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KUSC’s Alan Chapman, who was a Narrator in Tchaikovsky Seasons, sat with me in the 2nd half and after Schubert-Mahler after “WOW” continued, “all EMI recordings do not come even close to this”.