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Arts & Entertainment Preview - January 1998 B Y   A U S T I N   B A E R Prizewinner Leif Ove Andsnes at the Gilmore Festival Some budding talents thrive in a hothouse atmosphere, but not all. The pianist Leif Ove Andsnes, a master at twenty-seven, grew up uneventfully on the rugged western coast of Norway, playing soccer and not practicing all that much. At the comparatively ripe old age of sixteen he entered the conservatory in Bergen, a musically sophisticated city but hardly the big time, where there was quite simply no one in his league. His latest CD, a Schumann album for EMI, shows how beautifully he developed on his own. From the first bars one senses the power not of a personal "style" indiscriminately applied but of a searching imagination excellently served by supple, unimpregnable technique. Kudos to the Irving S. Gilmore International Keyboard Festival of Kalamazoo, which has named Andsnes its third "Gilmore Artist," an honor amounting to a quadrennial MacArthur for pianists. Unlike his predecessors, Andsnes qualifies not only as a musicians' musician but as a certifiable star. His prize money, some $300,000, is likely to pay not for promotion but for such luxuries as commissions of new music or recording projects unencumbered by commercial considerations. (As the co-director of a venturesome summer chamber-music festival in rural Norway, Andsnes is not likely to run short of ideas.) His Gilmore tenure commences on April 25, in a concert that kicks off this year's Gilmore International Keyboard Festival (616-342-1166). This month Andsnes has Beethoven on his mind. With the Los Angeles Philharmonic he plays the Piano Concerto No. 4, the most introspective and poetically mysterious of the five (January 16-18). On January 19 he joins a local chamber ensemble in the Quintet for Piano and Winds, op. 16. (for both programs call 213-380-1171). The Capital's Revival of the Song Recital Wolfgang Holzmair Good news from inside the Beltway: the renaissance of the vocal recital has spread to Washington. True, the constituency is small, but oh, the trend! The first series by the Vocal Arts Society, in 1991-1992, consisted of three concerts in a hall seating 150. Seven seasons later, twice as many evenings are offered, selling out in a hall twice as large. (The venue is the French Embassy.) According to managers who book their artists with the Vocal Arts Society, the fees are modest, but no one minds. An all-volunteer staff takes not a penny in overhead, and the talent -- a bright mixture of top names and stars-in-waiting -- is treated like royalty by an audience of connoisseurs. This month brings the extraordinary David Daniels, who is spearheading the countertenor exodus from the medieval and baroque ghetto (January 13). Next up is Wolfgang Holzmair, from Austria, as gifted an interpreter of Schubert, Schumann, and Wolf as any in the history of recorded sound (March 12). The final guest this season is Olga Makarina, a young Russian who appears under the aegis of the Marilyn Horne Foundation, an institution founded expressly to promote the vocal recital in America. For information call 202-265-8177. Two Divas in the Role of the Countess Renée Fleming In Capriccio, his final opera, Richard Strauss took up a question that has echoed throughout the history of the art form: What comes first, words or music? You don't get one without the other, so why quarrel? But people do, passionately. The plot of Capriccio is scarcely more than a pretext for such debate, with a poet and a composer vying for the favor of a lovely countess, the patron who inspires them both. One writes a sonnet, the other sets it to music, and both are left wondering to whom she will give the prize, which is to say herself. In the final scene, an extended monologue, she wonders too, reaching no conclusion. "Is there an ending that isn't banal?" she asks herself, going in to a late, lonely supper. This solo, incorporating the sonnet, ranks with the loveliest scenes Strauss ever wrote for soprano, a voice range he favored above all others. This month Renée Fleming, a diva whose rosy timbre, caressing phrasing, and keen responses to the meaning of the words she sings have audiences and critics in raptures, performs the excerpt with the Chicago Symphony (January 15, 16, 17, 20; 312-294-3000). It should be something special. Her partner is the conductor Christoph Eschenbach, with whom she has also traversed the sumptuous landscapes of Strauss's Four Last Songs (recorded by BMG Classics). The Capriccio Countess is apt to become a signature role for Fleming, as it has long been for Kiri Te Kanawa, another artist of uncommon graciousness, though more placid and less mercurial. Kanawa's well-practiced portrayal is the raison d'être of a new production of the opera at the Met this month, the first in the company's history (January 9-31; 212-362-6000). Austin Baer is a writer based in New York. Go to ... Copyright © 1997 by The Atlantic Monthly Company. All rights reserved.