Bach Festival: ‘Tales of Hemingway’ showcases Bailey, Daugherty at their finest
At Barrister Winery on Thursday, Zuill Bailey, distinguished cellist and artistic director of the Northwest Bach Festival, performed in an event that was as much a celebration as a recital.
Along with pianist Elizabeth DeMio, he performed two works that are important in his career: “Tales of Hemingway” (2015) by American composer Michael Daugherty, and the Cello Concerto No. 1 in A minor Op. 33 (1872) by Camille Saint-Saens.
As a 12-year-old, Bailey received a prize for his performance of the Saint-Saens concerto, leading to a public performance that could be said to have launched his career. The Daugherty work is the centerpiece of a recording featuring Bailey that just won three Grammy awards, including best classical instrumental solo and best contemporary classical composition, marking a new highpoint in his career. That an artist of this caliber has invested himself so generously in the cultural life of Spokane is cause for celebration.
“Tales of Hemingway” is a work for solo cello and large orchestra. Its antecedents – “Harold in Italy” (1834) by Hector Berlioz and the “Don Quixote” (1898) of Richard Strauss are not properly considered concertos, but rather symphonic suites based on famous works of literature, in which the central characters are represented by a featured stringed instrument: the viola in the Berlioz work, and by a viola (Sancho Panza) and cello (the Don) in Strauss’ masterpiece. In his own program notes to “Tales of Hemingway,” however, Daugherty refers to the piece as “my concerto,” and he’s right.
The piece is cast in four movements, each of which is based on a different work by Ernest Hemingway: “Big Two-Hearted River,” “For Whom the Bell Tolls,” “Old Man and the Sea” and “The Sun Also Rises.”
The first movement is the shortest, providing an introduction to or map of the spiritual journey traced by the ensuing three movements. It is a journey of transcendence of human limitations by means of an existential commitment to something greater than oneself. This is represented by passages of intensely yearning lyricism that confront and outlast violent and stormy interruptions. The warmth and power of Bailey’s opening phrases took one’s breath away, and the following passages of violent double-stops made one wonder whether his 324-year-old Gofriller cello could survive. The movement concluded with a passage in which the music ascends to the very highest notes on the fingerboard, which, in Bailey’s hands, retained their sweetness while staying miraculously on pitch.
If we use Beethoven’s concertos as a model, the concerto proper begins with “For Whom the Bell Tolls,” a tragic movement ending in the death of the protagonist. The movement contains the first of many passages that require the soloist to use the instrument in novel ways: tapping it, strumming it as though it were a guitar, even striking it with and without the bow. Bailey and the composer collaborated in the creation of many of these techniques, and, according to Bailey, some are still being refined.
Again, following the classical model, the third movement provides a comparatively tranquil relaxation of the tension generated by the stormy second movement and prepares the listener for the vigorous, exultant character of the final movement, in which Bailey’s virtuosity, and his close partnership with DeMio, reached new heights.
As one can hear on the award-winning CD, Daugherty’s orchestral score is a dazzling achievement, and one that is impossible to contain in a piano reduction. Nevertheless, DeMio’s mastery of the piece’s difficult cross-rhythms and delicate Spanish-flavored filigree was complete, providing unshakable support both to the cellist’s heaven-storming rages and delicate sighs.
After traversing Daugherty’s emotional hills and valleys, regarding the far more restricted landscape of Saint-Saens’ First Cello Concerto could be anticlimactic. Bailey’s and DeMio’s playing, however, was so brilliant and dashing, so filled with wit and delicacy, one could only be grateful for such a delightful conclusion to an unforgettable feast.