Gil's Still Our Guy
CD: Gil Shaham with Lan Shui/Singapore Symphony Orchestra: Chen and He: The Butterfly Lovers; Tchaikovsky: Violin Concerto
Back in the day, several members of the Bethesda classical music mob, a rotating cast of singers, musicians, and other enthusiasts, informally adopted the slogan "Gil's our guy" in promoting recordings from the young violinist Gil Shaham. Privately I called it "Paying for Gil's Strad" but couldn't tell you if we succeeded.
But our devotion was honest enough and, in my eyes, richly deserved. People do get rather militant about their pianists, fiddlers, and cellists, after all. There's lots of love to go around for Joshua Bell and Hilary Hahn, for example, and you have your Heifetz partisans. Then there's the friend of mine who won't bother to listen to any fiddler who isn't Itzhak Perlman.
Those of us in the Gil Shaham camp were very taken with his musicality, sensitivity, and that vibrant artistry. It wasn't just the repertoire, though that certainly had its appeal. Just reading the list of recordings on Deutsche Grammophon makes you want to lie down: the Sibelius and Tchaikovsky violin concertos; Messiaen's Quartet for the End of Time; Bartok, Brahms, Paganini; intimate little arrangements of Dvorak and Schubert; the usual array of romances; transcriptions from opera. Among the landmark works was Shaham's recording of both the Barber and Korngold violin concertos, along that suite from Much Ado about Nothing that has since won a place on classical radio play lists.
Granted, in some respects it wasn't your average career. Does anyone else remember Shaham's version of Vivaldi's Four Seasons on the Weather Channel? Then there was the inclusion of "A Transylvanian Lullaby" from Young Frankenstein on Shaham's Devil's Dance album of some years back. It's beautifully played, yes, but it does summon up images of Gene Wilder, Marty Feldman, and Peter Boyle. Maybe that's just what Shaham, by all reports a nice, unpretentious guy, had in mind.
So where did we get a man like this? By way of Urbana, Illinois, and Jerusalem, as it happens. Gil Shaham was born in the States but brought up both here and in Israel, and has since claimed New York City as his home. His studies took him both to Juilliard and Jerusalem, as well as Columbia University.
He displayed musical talent early but was apparently spared the competition route during his childhood. But the now legendary account of the teenaged Shaham being pulled out of high school to ride to the rescue when the London Symphony Orchestra needed a replacement for an ailing Itzhak Perlman is apparently true.
Did that mean "Kid, you're going out there a youngster but coming back a star"? Does it matter now? We have this library of diverse Shaham recordings, plus his active concert schedule, with more to come.
Still, even with Shaham's intriguing choices, I didn't see The Butterfly Lovers coming, though I'm glad he took it on. His recording with Lan Shui and the Singapore Symphony Orchestra has only just been released on his own label, Canary Classics, packaged with the Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto.
I can hear you now: "Say what?" Well, read the liner notes by Ken Smith, which not only make a good read but address the philosophy behind pairing the Tchaikovsky with Chen and He's composition. And if you want political and cultural repercussions of the latter work, you've come to the right place, because Smith gets into that as well. Just imagine living in a culture where classical musicians and composers run afoul of the authorities, which has happened more often than you might think.
I think you'll enjoy The Butterfly Lovers, a melding of the Western violin, orchestra, and tonal system with Chinese melodies, themes, and musical techniques. Next to the Yellow River Concerto, it's one of the few pieces of Chinese music familiar to Western audiences, and one of the more accessible ones. It is, however, rare that a Western violinist would take it on.
Shaham had performed the work with the Singapore Symphony Orchestra several years back, and to my ear he seems at ease with this bittersweet, sometimes delicate composition. Perhaps that's a reflection of the sensitivity and versatility that has marked his career to date.
At this writing, we can expect Gil Shaham and his sister, the classical pianist Orli Shaham, to perform at the Strathmore in Bethesda on February 8th, 2008. See you there.
Back in the day, several members of the Bethesda classical music mob, a rotating cast of singers, musicians, and other enthusiasts, informally adopted the slogan "Gil's our guy" in promoting recordings from the young violinist Gil Shaham. Privately I called it "Paying for Gil's Strad" but couldn't tell you if we succeeded.But our devotion was honest enough and, in my eyes, richly deserved. People do get rather militant about their pianists, fiddlers, and cellists, after all. There's lots of love to go around for Joshua Bell and Hilary Hahn, for example, and you have your Heifetz partisans. Then there's the friend of mine who won't bother to listen to any fiddler who isn't Itzhak Perlman.
Those of us in the Gil Shaham camp were very taken with his musicality, sensitivity, and that vibrant artistry. It wasn't just the repertoire, though that certainly had its appeal. Just reading the list of recordings on Deutsche Grammophon makes you want to lie down: the Sibelius and Tchaikovsky violin concertos; Messiaen's Quartet for the End of Time; Bartok, Brahms, Paganini; intimate little arrangements of Dvorak and Schubert; the usual array of romances; transcriptions from opera. Among the landmark works was Shaham's recording of both the Barber and Korngold violin concertos, along that suite from Much Ado about Nothing that has since won a place on classical radio play lists.
Granted, in some respects it wasn't your average career. Does anyone else remember Shaham's version of Vivaldi's Four Seasons on the Weather Channel? Then there was the inclusion of "A Transylvanian Lullaby" from Young Frankenstein on Shaham's Devil's Dance album of some years back. It's beautifully played, yes, but it does summon up images of Gene Wilder, Marty Feldman, and Peter Boyle. Maybe that's just what Shaham, by all reports a nice, unpretentious guy, had in mind.
So where did we get a man like this? By way of Urbana, Illinois, and Jerusalem, as it happens. Gil Shaham was born in the States but brought up both here and in Israel, and has since claimed New York City as his home. His studies took him both to Juilliard and Jerusalem, as well as Columbia University.
He displayed musical talent early but was apparently spared the competition route during his childhood. But the now legendary account of the teenaged Shaham being pulled out of high school to ride to the rescue when the London Symphony Orchestra needed a replacement for an ailing Itzhak Perlman is apparently true.
Did that mean "Kid, you're going out there a youngster but coming back a star"? Does it matter now? We have this library of diverse Shaham recordings, plus his active concert schedule, with more to come.
Still, even with Shaham's intriguing choices, I didn't see The Butterfly Lovers coming, though I'm glad he took it on. His recording with Lan Shui and the Singapore Symphony Orchestra has only just been released on his own label, Canary Classics, packaged with the Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto.
I can hear you now: "Say what?" Well, read the liner notes by Ken Smith, which not only make a good read but address the philosophy behind pairing the Tchaikovsky with Chen and He's composition. And if you want political and cultural repercussions of the latter work, you've come to the right place, because Smith gets into that as well. Just imagine living in a culture where classical musicians and composers run afoul of the authorities, which has happened more often than you might think.
I think you'll enjoy The Butterfly Lovers, a melding of the Western violin, orchestra, and tonal system with Chinese melodies, themes, and musical techniques. Next to the Yellow River Concerto, it's one of the few pieces of Chinese music familiar to Western audiences, and one of the more accessible ones. It is, however, rare that a Western violinist would take it on.
Shaham had performed the work with the Singapore Symphony Orchestra several years back, and to my ear he seems at ease with this bittersweet, sometimes delicate composition. Perhaps that's a reflection of the sensitivity and versatility that has marked his career to date.
At this writing, we can expect Gil Shaham and his sister, the classical pianist Orli Shaham, to perform at the Strathmore in Bethesda on February 8th, 2008. See you there.
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