News

Vivacious Ambassador Kristie A. Kenney presented at the embassy ballroom four masters in a concert of contemporary American piano music. Ms. Kenney’s prefatory remarks stressed the universal appeal of music: Black, white, tall, short — all are music lovers.

The brilliant pianists, in order of performance, were Milton Ruben Laufer of Puerto Rican and Cuban descent, Chicago-born pianist-conductor Jeffery Meyer, Texas-born Roberta Rust of Euro-American-Sioux ancestry, and Canadian Jacques Despres.

Laufer opened the program with Gershwin’s Three Preludes. Despite Gershwin’s scant formal musical training, he used his inexhaustible reservoir of melodies to produce works of complex rhythms and modulations which remain novel, fresh and spontaneous. A musicologist observes, “their piquancy, wistfulness, charm and tenderness have not been dissipated by time”.

His Preludes are described thus: “Allegretto is of rhythmic interest, a marriage of the tango and the Charleston. Andante is a three-part blues, its melody set against a rich and exciting harmony. Rhythm is again the predominant element in the third Prelude, Allegretto, and helps to create a joyous, abandoned feeling”.

Laufer’s rendering was audaciously vigorous and brisk, his changes of rhythm singularly abrupt, as demanded when Rotating Hexachords, composed by Arthur Gottschalk and flamboyantly treated by the pianist, showed its sixth intervals and six-note scales, closely reflecting the title. The Grand Rag Tango — a world premiere performance — conveyed an infectiously danceable, pulsating drive.

– Rosalinda L. Orosa