 PERFORMING ARTS
Fred Hersch Whether improvising in the jazz mode or writing music for concert performance, pianist Fred Hersch creates expansive melodies that touch the heart yet retain a little beguiling mystery. With the help of pianist Blair McMillen and the Gramercy Trio, Hersch explored both sides of his output Friday night in the Library of Congress's Coolidge Auditorium, as part of the library's series presenting American composer-performers. In the first half of the concert, which featured Hersch's notated music, lovely themes outstayed their welcome in "Lyric Piece for Trio" and "Tango Bittersweet" (played by Hersch and Gramercy violinist Sharan Leventhal), as Hersch didn't do much with the themes besides state and restate them. The piano miniatures "Saloon Songs" and "Little Midnight Nocturne," on the other hand, effectively concentrated his melodic invention. And in his "24 Variations on a Bach Chorale," Hersch contrasted lyrical stretches with pointillistic deconstructions, steely chords delineating the harmonic structure, and ecstatic runs up and down the keyboard, all of which McMillen rendered vividly and grippingly. When Hersch sat at the piano after intermission to play jazz, he began with striking statements -- showers of pristine high notes in "Endless Stars," a melancholy dance in "Sarabande," the noble ballad of "At the Close of the Day" -- but took them on journeys no one could premeditate, pushing and pulling tempos, breaking down and rebuilding harmonies, even constructing new melodies from shattered materials, all the while making everything seem fresh and inevitable at once. (From its rarefied beginnings, "Endless Stars" eventually became a gentle rag.) His melodic sense shone here as well, but the spontaneity made for a compelling and fascinating counterweight. -- Andrew Lindemann Malone © 2007 The Washington Post Company |