O’Riley Plays Persuasive Stravinsky

There’s no substitute for the feisty color schemes and well-tailored dynamism ofStravinsky’s ensemble writing. Piano versions of his famous works, though, offer something instructive, not to mention savory to the ears, as readily heard in Christopher O’Riley’s Stravinsky-rich recital Tuesday night in Ventura’s Church of Religious Science.

The recital was a midway stretch in the sixth annual Ventura Chamber Music Festival, continuing through this weekend, and in the end, it may well be the festival’s hidden treasure. The music itself has built-in wonder, and O’Riley, who has recorded an all-Stravinsky CD, brings an infectious passion to the project. The setting helped, as well, with chamber music--exotic, at least in context--enhanced by its historic site, the oddball Mayan-esque architecture of Robert Stacy Judd.

O’Riley opened with a piano reduction of “The Soldier’s Story” (heard in full regalia at the festival on Saturday), smaller in textural variety, of course, but fresh in impact. We heard the concentrated harmonic logic of the themes, and the use of prepared piano implements in the “Tango, Waltz and Ragtime” broadened the sonic options.

O’Riley states a persuasive case for the naturalness of hearing Stravinsky on the percussive, overtone-endowed piano. There were several memorable moments here, including the bracing ending of “The Soldier’s Story,” with its obsessive looping motif, and the joyous fanfare opening to “Petroushka,” all percussive ebullience.

Depending on whom you talk to, the ballet “Apollo,” a swerve away from gutsier Modernism to Neo-classicism, is not Stravinsky’s most riveting work. But it, too, is intriguing heard in solo piano format.

As a palette-cleanser, O’Riley played Scriabin’s Piano Sonata No. 8, an atmospheric sprawl compared to Stravinsky’s matrices of well-placed angles. The piece fans out from its initial chord into a private cosmos, into which O’Riley dove with proper faith and abandon.

The following afternoon, a completely different world presented itself, when tenor Jonathan Mack and pianist Vicki Ray gave an entrancing performance of Schubert’s great song cycle “Die Winterreise,” one of the greatest broods in Western musical. In effect, this was a delayed sequel to those musicians’ performance of “Die Schone Mulerin” at the festival a few years back. The two have an easy rapport, and Mack’s approach to the material is engrossing-exacting in declamation and tonal control. They should take their Schubert on the road.

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* The Ventura Chamber Music Festival continues through Sunday, with five programs in various venues. For tickets and information call: (805) 648-3146. Web site: https://www.vcmfa.org.