Dotted Notes
by Leonard Lehrman, Fall/Winter 2005 Vol. 13, No. 3&4, p. 16

Jay Gottlieb, gifted pianist and composer, with whom I had the honoro of sharing a composition prize in Fontainebleau in 1969, offered a piano recital at Mannes on July 23, 2005. Wished he had put some of his own compositions on the program, but I much enjoyed his unexcelled interpretations of works by composers he has known personally-Giacinto Scelsi (Four Illustrations on the Metamorphosis of Vishnu), Franco Donatoni (excerpts from Francoise-Variationen), Olivier Messiaen (two excerpts from larger works), Henri Dutilleux (a prelude), Luciano Berio ( a suite), George Crumb (an excerpt from Makrokosmos, which Gottlieb dubbed "the Well-Tempered Clavier of our time") and (fellow Harvard grad student) John Adams (Phrygian Gates). Ives appropriately opened and (with an encore) closed the program, well-titled "Contemporary Masterpieces," a highlight of the International Keyboard Institute & Festival.