{"id":37795,"date":"2016-07-26T08:47:36","date_gmt":"2016-07-26T12:47:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/?p=37795"},"modified":"2016-07-26T08:50:03","modified_gmt":"2016-07-26T12:50:03","slug":"scrutiny-pedja-muzijevic-toronto-summer-music","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/2016\/07\/26\/scrutiny-pedja-muzijevic-toronto-summer-music\/","title":{"rendered":"SCRUTINY | Pedja Muzijevic Mixes Old And New At Walter Hall"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Pedja
Pedja Muzijevic (Photo courtesy www.pedjamuzijevic.com<\/a>)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Toronto Summer Music Festival<\/h3>\n

Haydn Dialogues. Haydn: Sonatas (4); Oliver Knussen: Sonya\u2019s Lullaby Op. 16; John Cage: In a Landscape; Jonathan Berger: Intermezzo. Pedja Muzijevic, piano. Walter Hall, July 19, 2016.<\/strong><\/p>\n

I first encountered the artistry of Pedja Muzijevic just last month at the Spoleto Festival USA in Charleston (SC), where he played both harpsichord and piano in Geoff Nuttall\u2019s fabulous chamber music concerts. With this happy experience in mind, I was delighted to have a second opportunity to hear him, this time in his own recital program at the Toronto Summer Music Festival.<\/p>\n

Muzijevic is a solid performer, at home in many different styles, and with a thoughtful approach to program planning. On this occasion, he presented four Haydn keyboard sonatas, separated by three short works by contemporary composers. As Muzajevic pointed out in his remarks from the stage, there is no musical connection between these particular works, but he hopes that the juxtaposition will help listeners hear both the recent works and the Haydn in fresh ways. While admiring the thought behind this idea, I am not so sure that these particular pieces gained or lost by being placed before or after each other.<\/p>\n

Perhaps the problem was that, since both the contemporary works and three of the Haydn sonatas are slight in stature, it probably doesn\u2019t matter much how each one is placed in relation to the other.<\/p>\n

The true masterpiece presented on this night \u2014 properly placed at the end of the program \u2014 was Haydn\u2019s Sonata in C major Hob.XVI:50. It is no accident that this was the longest of the Haydn sonatas played by Muzijevic. In this piece, Haydn took the time to really develop his ideas, starting with a Bachian contrapuntal approach in the first movement. The finale, with numerous quizzical phrases that seem to stop in midair before they have even begun, is inimitable Haydn.\u00a0Muzajevic added to the fun by raising an eyebrow now and again as he played these delightful passages. All in all, this was great music played by a master.<\/p>\n

One of the contemporary works was John Cage\u2019s In a Landscape<\/em> written in 1948. As it happens, I reviewed a new recording<\/a> of the optional harp version of this piece, featuring Val\u00e9rie Milot (Analekta AN2 9880) last week. Written to accompany dancers, In a Landscape<\/em> may serve that purpose very well depending on the choreography; as a concert piece, however, the best one can say may be that it is quiet and soothing.<\/p>\n

The program also included an early work by British composer, Oliver Knussen, included perhaps to give this concert some kind of connection to TSM\u2019s overall theme this year, London Calling: Music in Great Britain.<\/em> In any case, Sonya\u2019s Lullaby Op. 16<\/em> was intended by its composer to be \u201can incantation to sleep.\u201d Oddly, the music, while mostly quiet, rises to a fairly powerful outburst that might well lead to nightmares rather than sweet dreams.<\/p>\n

#LUDWIGVAN<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

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Pedja Muzijevic raises an eyebrow at Toronto Summer Music recital with a mix of Haydn and contemporary gems.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":37796,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[5723,76,19,52,59],"tags":[1529,4759,3357],"yst_prominent_words":[],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2016\/07\/Pedja-Muzijevic.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p9bakr-9PB","amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37795"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=37795"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37795\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":37800,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37795\/revisions\/37800"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/37796"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37795"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=37795"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=37795"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=37795"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}