Duo-piano recital belongs to special genre

By Burt Saidel

Finally, I was able to hear master pianists and dear friends, Tiraje and Robert Ruckman, in one of their duo-piano recitals.  For a dozen years, the very stars have confounded my earnest desire to hear them play.

Dr. Robert Ruckman, is the chair of the music department at Sinclair College.  Both he and his wife, Tiraje, who is a native of Turkey, are very active in musical and community affairs. This year, the formerly unfriendly stars realigned themselves to allow me to attend their concert.  In the past, the March schedule they chose for their recital coincided with our annual ski trip to Utah.  This year, it did not.

What became the problem was the appearance of the storied Julliard String Quartet at the Vanguard Concert series. The stars have all manner of tricks up their radiant sleeves.

The sudden storm which paralyzed the East coast kept the quartet in New York, unable to come to Dayton.  A nearly standing-room crowd at Sinclair’s Blair Hall contained quite a few smiling would-be Julliard attendees.  Since the quartet will be rescheduled, we can have both!  Thank you, stars.

The program, Rachmaninoff, Bernstein and Piazzolla, was as varied and exciting as any concert in recent memory.  Robert, in true professorial fashion, gave an excellent mini-lecture, complete with slide photos, before each piece. It is no wonder that he is such a popular teacher.

Two-piano music is a special genre. One piano can emulate an entire orchestra. Two pianos, playing as one instrument, can become an entire orchestra.  The Ruckmans are truly wed, as a couple and as musicians.  They are able to explore the music with clarity, emotion and excitement in a manner rarely heard.

Rachmaninoff, a great pianist as well as a great composer, created a magnificent fabric in his Fantasy-Tableaux. Each of the four sections was truly symphonic and masterfully played.  Each of the sections was a new experience for the audience.
West Side Story is one of the great achievements of musical theater.  It is a masterpiece which weds classical music with every modern genre. Bernstein extracted the Symphonic Dances from the musical for orchestra. The Ruckmans played a special arrangement for two pianos which mesmerized the audience.
The final major work was Seven Tangos by the Argentine master of that rhythm, Astor Piazzolla.  Robert announced that Piazzolla had written over 650 tangos.  

Unfortunately, I cannot dance to a single one of them but was enraptured hearing them by two piano masters playing as one instrument.

After hearing this recital, I’m going to consult an astrologer to make certain that I will not miss them again.

The Beard of Avon

Shakespeare has been called “The Mirror of Mankind.”  His plays, songs, sonnets, every scrap of his writings have been examined by scholarly microscopes for over four centuries.

One controversy has never gone away.  It is the possibility that Shakespeare did not write “Shakespeare.”  Francis Bacon, Edward DeVere and other Elizabethan contemporaries have been “nominated” to be the real Shakespeare.

The Dayton Theatre Guild has entered the debate with a play making up for lack of scholarship by adding a great deal of fun.  Playwright Amy Freed has written The Beard of Avon which fleshes out the controversy.  Her characters speak of the complexities of Elizabethan life in a clear and delightful manner.

Natasha Randall, known as a wonderful actress and totally darling person, took on “Beard” as her first directorial experience.  She had the perfect space, the intimate Theatre Guild arena stage and a lush field of talent from which to choose her cast.

No scholarly problems were solved but we did get to meet some of those famous personae in a most engaging manner.  Paul Edwards made Will Shakespeare a properly bumbling opportunist.  Megan Cooper made Will’s wife, the shrewish Ann, outdo even Kate in Taming of the Shrew.  (She did become for several hilarious moments in Act II, the most naïve and darling strumpet imaginable.)  Mike Rousculp’s as the ever-present strolling minstrel added to the smooth flow of the action.

The pivotal part, the assumed author of the plays, at least the plots of the plays, Edward DeVere, Earl of Oxford, was masterfully exposed by versatile Mark Diffenderfer.  Craig Roberts, in Elizabethan drag, was the hilarious “actress” of the spoof.

Reneé Franck-Reed has always been a star of opera, musicals and drama.  Her portrayal of Queen Elizabeth was certainly one of her finest roles.  Her appearance electrified the scenes and gave pith and moment to the stratified life of her court.
Again, the Theatre Guild has gone exploring.  Again, they found a small pot of gold.

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March 27, 2007
Volume 16, No. 13

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