MUSIC - The Post-Classical Ensemble
Saturday, May 21, 2005; Page C05
by Cecelia Porter
"Planos," by Mexican composer Silvestre Revueltas, "sounds like 300 mariachi bands all playing at once," conductor Angel Gil-Ordoñez said at a concert Thursday by the Post-Classical Ensemble at the Mansion at Strathmore. "Planos" ("Layers") began and ended the evening in smashing performances -- with six more works in between.
The entire program was devoted to music by "Mexican revolutionaries," Gil-Ordoñez said, "who not only worked amid the turmoil of the last century's Mexican revolution, but also revolutionized Mexican music" with a new fusion of indigenous styles and the classical musical language of Paris and Vienna.
These words rang true not only for "Planos" but also for works by Manuel M. Ponce and Carlos Chavez. The ensemble's coursing solos and energetic teamwork nailed down the counterpoint of ideas in "Planos," a virtual battle among sustained dissonances, hammering rhythms and folkish motifs.
Four musicians joined in Revueltas's String Quartet No. 4, keeping the audience focused on their clashing bows and fierce attacks of massed polytonal chords. The foursome also played Chavez's String Quartet No. 1 in a stirring succession of gentle lyricism and suspenseful austerity.
Ponce's grandnephew, Omar Herrera-Arizmendi, played four of the composer's piano pieces, combining introspection with folkish Mexican melodiousness and the ferocious pianistic demands of a Chopin or Liszt.
© 2004 The Washington Post Company
Return to top.
Click here for the concert program (pdf).
Review One: A Mexican Musical Revolution
Review Two: The Post-Classical Ensemble
