I
had heard about the Piano Push play project, started by Meagan
McGeorge, and even passed a woefully locked (!) piano in Pioneer Square
last month, but had so far failed to connect with the pianos until last
Friday, when strolling at dusk past the Portland Art Museum, I heard the
sounds of the Chopin b minor scherzo. In the warm air, the sound was
like a hybrid element floating towards me, natural, but still
thrillingly unnatural. Outdoor piano music is strange, yet it felt just
right all the same, like dipping my toes in a warm brook. In the
plaza which leads up to the Art Museum bookstore stairs, there are
places for people sit on the steps facing the performer, walk
through, or simply eddy in the center of space like warm water round a
stone.
I
was just in time for the last performance on the outdoor Push Play
pianos, which have been in Portland for the past few months. A
concentrated and sober Jesse Waldman of PSU was nimbly completing some
of the seemingly endless recapitulations of the theme on a not entirely
tuned piano (at least, it seemed pre-well-tempered in the key of b
minor) while a very enthusiastic member of the public, (who might be
labelled "transient", but probably has a preferred name, like Bob),
conveyed his enjoyment by loud humming, whooping, weeping, and generally
showing all manner of enthusiastic reaction to the music while sitting
on a ledge not three feet from the performer. They say it was this way
in the day of Mozart at the opera, and there were no open containers or
throwing of peanuts, so I felt no compunction against this character; at
the same time I marveled at the outdoor pianists themselves, who
needed a little extra forbearance given the circumstances: the picture
of unrestrained revelry right next to one of sober musical
application is not often seen.
After
Mr. Waldman finished the Chopin scherzo, singer Maria Karlin took the
stage, accompanied by Meagan McGeorge. They started the slow, moving
aria, "Lascia Ch'io Pianga" by Handel. Ms. Karlin's singing was
authoritative and immediately captured the passersby. Her ornamentation
on the repetition of the theme was solidly felt and unrushed, providing a
luxurious languor to the outdoor setting. The sound lured people in
to mill quietly in an undetermined manner in the open space of the
plaza, like schools of fish near a possible food source. In addition to
the fairly intentional audience seated on the steps to the museum
bookstore, ten or twenty people paused, and more passed, all quiet. A
couple hovered uncertainly and prayerfully for a few moments right in
front of the singer and pianist and then simply plunged down on the spot
in twain, as if they were being sucked down a whirlpool drain. Runners
passing through the north park blocks paused on the ledge of the plaza,
putting up their feet and slowly doing leg stretches in time to the
music. A group of people on those wheel-bike things hovered like bees
for several moments before getting a cue from their Star Trek-like
commander and moving silently on. Ms. Karlin went on to sing Purcell's
"When I am Laid," "Deh vieni no tardar" from Mozart's Marriage of
Figaro, Puccini's "O mio babbino Caro," and "Asturiana" from "Siete
Canciones Populares Espanoles" by Manuel de Falla. During one of the
pieces, the increasingly avuncular Bob took out his harmonica and
actually blew a note in tune. Pretty impressive.
Ms.
Karlin and Ms. McGeorge gave up the piano to Asher Fulero, a pianist
with a full-bodied piano sound, and a dramatic, impressive dynamic
range. His grip on this piano really made it sing. His music has a
pop/jazz sound, and after his first piece , his version of "On the
Chin", by Tortoise, which sounded familiar, people were making guesses
as to who the composer was. (No one knew the Tortoise tune and I myself
was guessing Burt Bacharach).His second piece was inspered by
Chopin's Impromptu in C minor, which he analysed harmonically as an
OSU student and rewrote. It contains recognizable and
tantalizing fragments of the Impromptu, but I couldn't identify it. It
was during Fulero's impressive rendering of a crescendo to a forte in
this piece when an art museum security guard approached Bob, who had
just gone one step too far by making a general request of the audience
for a light. He was motioned off the property and restricted to the park
blocks, a drama resulting in a shouting and motioning that seemed to be
a twilight pantomime of the piano music. Well done, Bob! You have to
say he really feels things, and is a great improviser and art lover,
even if his understanding of the classical piano recital etiquette is a
bit tarnished. Mr. Fulero then peacefully went on to his last tune,
"Squirming Coil," by Phish.
The
piano was then taken up by other pianists, most of whom were PSU
students. Not necessarily in order, some of them are: Theresa Silveyra,
who gave a vigorously healthy, rhythmic version of "Sleepwalker's
Shuffle" and "Nightmare Fantasy Rag" from "The Dream Rags," by William
Albright; Meagan McGeorge, who played "Mysterious Barricades" by
Couperin, and preludes by Galuppi and Kuhnau; and Liz Kohl, who ended
things popularly with "Somewhere out There" from "Fieval Goes West".
After
the recital, the soprano Maria Karlin explained the genesis of her
connection to Meagan McGeorge: the two met in a disco band, named
Ancient Heat, and went on to another one called Federale, which is in
the spaghetti western genre.Mr. Fulero and Ms. Karlin know each other
from OSU, where both studied music. Meagan McGeorge is the well-known
instigator of the Piano Push Play project, which, if this recital is any
indication, may become a wildly popular way to share piano music in
urban settings.
After the recital, the piano was not at all left lonely, and was still being played vigorously around 10 pm, when I left.
No comments:
Post a Comment