About the plot: well, I actually tried drawing myself a chart of the love triangles (were they parallelograms?), which all intersect with Alidoro, the male lead, a wandering painter. The Prologue begins with the pensive (and poverty-stricken) Filosofia (anthropomorphized Philosophy), goaded by the god of Love, Amore, an imperious child who rules the world. La Filosofia was given suitable gravitas by Alyssa Koogler, and Amore, playful innocence by Elise Groves. Amore, who gets the plot rolling (and entangling) is often an onlooker in the opera, but has no more singing.

The title character, Orontea, is the queen of a mythical Egypt, played with regal bearing and power by Jin Kim (Friday night). When we first meet her, she sings with conviction of rejecting love in order to hold on to her freedom and power over her realm. Creonte, a court advisor, offers his wisdom, that her subjects will expect her to marry and produce an heir, but Oreontea is adamant. For about 60 seconds, because then Alidoro enters the scene.

There were many instances when the nine instrumentalists – grouped in the program as “Orontea’s string band” (two violins, cello, and viola da gamba) and “basso continuo” (three harpsichords, a small organ, cello, viola da gamba, and two large lutes), provided an exhilarating range of instrumental color and musical energy. For instance the Sinfonia that began the event (borrowed from composer Marcello Uccelini, but serving aptly as an instrumental overture) featured the two violinists standing on opposite sides of the ensemble so they could toss their melodies back and forth.

Another striking effect was Orontea’s soliloquy, when she realizes that feelings of love are awakening in her. The accompaniment of viola da gamba alone underscores the stark poignancy of the moment. James Williamson was sensitive and virtuosic playing chords, bass line and some countermelody.

In the expressive sung speech of recitative each singer was underscored by his/her own instrumental ensemble, the groups going back and forth in the flexible exchanges and intense debates at which the fluid style of the era was so adept.

A comic showcase was provided by Gelone, the drunken servant. Justin Hicks brought the role both comic timing and a majestic and flexible bass voice. This was one of the singers whom I look forward to hearing again. Tibrino, a male servant (played with vigor by soprano Caitlin Hadeler), is often a counterpart to Gelone, at times clashing with him, in his brash, youthful aggressiveness, but at other times joining in the drunken fun: “To War! To War!” sings Tibrino with his sword raised, and Gelone answers “To Wine! To Wine!”

Another slapstick role is the (ostensive) mother of Alidoro, Aristea. This drag part was played with a gushy flirtatiousness by Ben Katz (Friday night). A strapping, hairy-chested, uh, linebacker (I may be out of my depth with that term), Katz batted his eyelashes, flounced his curls, fingered his lace, sung in a breathy alto and “enjoyed being a (middle-aged) girl.” Well, who wouldn’t?

Back to the love triangles. Silandra (a lady in waiting to Orontea) also falls for Alidoro, although Silandra must then spurn Corindo, a courtier. Silandra (played by Camila Parias, was dramatically sure, but with a cloying voice. Clare McNamara played Corindo with a lushly evocative mezzo (another voice I want to hear again), and over-the-top comic anguish for his/her lovelorn state. The “Cross-Gender Guide” provided by the program was a handy break-down for the who’s who of the line-up.

Giacinta (a woman concealing herself as a man) also falls for Alidoro; soprano Caitlin McCarville was powerful and expressive in this role. It’s all far beyond seeming a bit much when Aristea then falls for Giacinta, and resorts to bribery to get what she wants, she sings “Gold is love’s escort; a golden key opens all doors.” A sentiment that crosses boundaries of time, we might recall it as “Diamonds are a girl’s best friend.”

Here in 1656 we see plenty of operatic conventions that are still going strong two centuries later in Gilbert and Sullivan (for instance, pirates as parents; abducted child raised thinking he is someone else; and ridiculing the middle-aged woman, … “There is no uglier monster than an amorous old women” – says Alidoro, in horror, of the woman who has raised him as a mother).

As Alidoro, Brian Gonzalez has some vocal power at mezzo-forte (or more) dynamic level, but was muddy or faltering at other times. It was hard to sense the charisma that makes him so magnetic to three women of the opera. The comic characters ultimately engage in the serious plot, revealing that Alidoro really is of noble birth and thus that he can be a suitable spouse for Orontea, without her needing to lower herself to loving a commoner.

The supertitles were projected on a wall next to the stage, and this had an advantage over the use of computer screens that are often used for this purpose: longer passages of text — several paragraphs — could be put up at a time (as opposed to just a line or two), making it easier for the audience to follow. Without supertitles (would lateraltitles be the literal term in this case?) you would miss the import of the quick banter, the interplay and intense engagement of the characters (I don’t know how we learned to love opera back in Olden Times …).

Over three hours in length, this opera holds ones attention with the fluidity of the musical language and the way the layers upon layers of plot complications do seem to be hurtling towards a joyful ending where everything somehow manages to fall into place.

As conductor and music director (at a harpsichord) Dana Maiben gave the musicians leadership when they needed it and stayed out of the way when they didn’t. Many complex artistic decisions have been made behind the scenes in a work like this; for instance adding the initial Sinfonia was a brilliant stroke, as modern audiences expect some instrumental prelude before the singers enter; only later did I notice that this was not part of the original work. Donna Roll was credited with the mise-en-scene which seemed entirely apt and enhancing the artistic content. One thing I missed was a lengthier program giving notes on all the musicians’ backgrounds (surely there’s an App for that so we can just download them right onto our phone gizmos??).

Liane Curtis (Ph.D., Musicology) is Resident Scholar at the Women’s Studies Research Center, Brandeis University. Her website is here.

Francesco Cavalli’s La Callisto, with libretto by Giovanni Faustini, was presented by Harvard Early Music Society on December 8th in Harvard’s Farkas Hall on Holyoke Street. Ryaan Ahmed, Music Director, was an adept conductor from the theorbo, and Giselle Ty was the stage director.

Interwoven around this plot are many dramatic conventions. A prologue with anthropomorphized aspects of existence: Nature and Eternity, who welcome the audience, and Destiny, who reveals the ending, that Calisto will be elevated to the heavens, just because she (Destiny) wants it. Diana and Endimione are a secondary love interest, a trio of Satyrs provide comic relief, dance scenes end the first two acts, and a chorus concludes the opera. Despite some mis-steps in the performance, the opera engaged and held attention and is sure to only get better in the next performances.

It was the golden age of recitative: text heightened through the completely nuanced and flexible musical language, the human voice and a sparse basso continuo. Because of its lack of rhythmic regularity, the style is extraordinarily suited to convey both words and emotions. The arias, with fixed rhythmic frameworks, express sayings or observations; but it is in the recitative that the whirl of emotions come through. Certainly there are some duets, but the recitative contains the emotional core of the work, and everyone gets a chance to express themselves through it.

In the demanding title role, Erika Vogel was attractive and sympathetic, and her voice was beautiful, if not always precise in the florid passagework. Giove and his sidekick, Mercurio, are like a couple of frat buddies with their chummy scheme, that Giove disguises himself as Diana to seduce Calisto. Jacob Cooper was excellent as the Giove of weakness and longing — beset by desire, and then, wearing Diana’s dress and singing in a cracked falsetto, as funny as Jack Lemmon in Some Like It Hot. (Cooper was less convincing as the regal, imposing god; a difficult role after all the comic antics.) I wondered (abstractly) if it might be possible to cast the Diana singer to portray Giove in Diana’s body, so that the audience would see the Giove/Diana that the characters see. That too would have a lot of comic (not to mention erotic) potential, for a singer who could layer artifices of swagger and femininity.

That the ruler of the universe feels no compunction about lying to get what he wants (Mercurio even has an aria praising the value of lying) and has no forethought about the consequences of his actions, just makes him look like so many modern male politicians. Giove remains head of the Gods despite his deceit, and is revered in the last act; Calisto, rather than expressing anger at being tricked, feels only affection for him; well, it’s all a male fantasy, isn’t it?

As Diana, Rachel Gitner had some lovely tones, but no lower register and didn’t seem at home in the Italian language. Leslie Tay conveyed the hapless God Pane (Pan) with comic pathos, but the part was too high for his range. Alexandra Dietrich was compelling both as Natura, in the prologue, and as Linfea, follower of Diana who is questioning her own vow of celibacy. Pane’s satyr sidekicks (Jared Levin as Silvano, and Roselin Osser as Satirino) brought excellent comic energy to their parts as well as vocal adeptness and skilled slapstick physicality: the playful satyr Satirino spies on Diana and Endimione, and tries to persuade Linfea that a boy/goat is what she is looking for in a man. I hope to hear Osser sometime in a more lyrical role.

Endimione — the shepherd/astronomer (shepherd/astronomer?) in love with Diana — was played with sensitivity by Gerrod Pagenkopf, but I wondered if this role could be turned into a comic one. His lamenting and pining for Diana could be pushed to something edgy and madcap, and might be played with a wider range of vocal color. Claire Raphaelson, as Giunone, drew her convincingly as a complex character — frustrated in her unhappy marriage, and realizing that her vengeance on Calisto was an inadequate response. Raphaelson demonstrated expressivity, nuance, and also vocal power, for instance in her aria addressed to all unhappy wives.

Even with its flaws I loved the freshness and intimacy of the production, for instance, seeing the musicians just below the stage, sometimes involved in the drama (as when they added bleating sounds to the satyrs’ antics). The musical ensemble of eight — two harpsichords, two theorbos, vihuela, cello, and two violins — was sometimes thin (not helped by the extremely dry acoustic), and I often wished for more warmth from the bowed strings (I know they are baroque violins, but it seems unwise that vibrato is strictly verboten). The ensemble sometimes produced some real fire, as in the clattering cascade at the entrance of the Furies, who enact Gionone’s revenge on Calisto.

Farkas Hall has been renamed (from New College Hall) so recently that there aren’t any signs yet with the new name. It offers excellent sight lines and an intimate atmosphere (holding 270), and the steep descent of the seating allowed the Gods of the prologue to descend, not via machinery from the heavens, but down the aisle from the back of the audience. One problem was a ventilating system; I actually briefly wondered if it might be a sound effect — rushing wind or crashing waves? Luckily it stopped sometime in act two.

Additional performances are on Dec. 10 at 8 pm and Dec. 11 at 3 pm.

Liane Curtis (Ph.D., Musicology) is Resident Scholar at the Women’s Studies Research Center, Brandeis University. Her website is here.

Kendra Colton (soprano) and Megan Henderson (piano) opened with an exhilarating set of Brahms Lieder. First was Von waldbekränzer Höhe, (From forest-crowned heights); while rousing and energetic, Colton’s tone was a bit edgy and even brassy. My favorite of the set, Es träumte mir (I dreamed), revealed a side of Brahms I didn’t know before, spare and abstract in its expression of heartbreak and grief. Henderson and Colton were absolutely spine-chilling in their powerful yet restrained evocation of this gem.

Also moving was In stiller nacht (In the quiet night) where the voice floated over the shimmering accompaniment. The mood of hushed poignancy was conveyed perfectly by this artistic pair. While the next song, Die Mainacht, also was effective, I couldn’t help but reflect how Fanny Hensel’s setting of this text is superior.

The program included two area premieres. Peter Child’s Finite Infinity set three poems in contrasting but connected sections. Colson and Henderson were joined by Artistic Director Peggy Pearson on the oboe. The first, from Walt Whitman’s Song of Myself, was vigorous, bold and declamatory. Next, Emily Dickinson’s There is solitude of space used delicate cascading arpeggios in the piano, building in intensity to the word “soul.”

This segued to a poem by the British poet John Clare, All Nature has a Feeling which was a perfect Baroque ritornello form, with motives exchanged between the voice and oboe, the piano keeping the rhythmic drive; the passage of time and the seasons was conveyed with compelling energy, and indeed a sense of unstoppable transcendence. The whole was satisfying and balanced; the performance was flawless.

In the pre-concert discussion, featured composer Melinda Wagner commented (in her unassuming way) on how composers worry about the title of a piece; you want something distinctive, but hoping that people will try and read things into it. Scritch, the title of her piece, was bound to provoke questions. As she explained, it was a word from a children’s book that her father used to read to her. It was the noise the cat made when advancing on the protagonist mouse of one story. And “scritch” became part of the family vocabulary for any alarming or perplexing sound: “What is all that scritching going on!?”

The work was not about a cat and mouse but rather abstract musical ideas, motives, themes and textures – as she described it, a scratchy burlap precedes a smooth satiny texture, and ultimately threads from the two textures are interwoven. The ensemble of oboe plus string quartet served as the basis for much of the interplay – the oboe juxtaposed from the strings in a tumbling interplay, then the instruments coming together (almost with a surprised gasp) in a rhythmic unison. After catching their breath (metaphorically), the musicians continued with a languid melody surrounded by fragments of ideas. This gradually thickened, and the oboe added interjections around the strings. The work had a taut lyricism, and on first hearing it was completely engaging, and certainly a piece I want to hear again – and again. The themes and their development and relationship to each other would be more apparent with repeated listening. Melissa Wagner is a composer of whom I would like to hear more. For instance, has her Pulitzer-Prize winning Concerto for Flute, Strings, and Percussion been played in the Boston area? I know it from a recording, but it would be great to hear it live — or one of her other concertos. Scritch was played with great sensitivity and electricity by the ensemble, including some seasoned area veterans: Pearson, oboe; Gabriela Diaz and Shaw Pong Liu, violins; Wenting Kang, viola; Rafael Popper-Keizer, cello.

Luigi Boccherini is also not programmed enough. I was surprised to learn he wrote over 100 symphonies, but I don’t recall ever hearing one. Whenever I encounter his chamber works, I find them captivating and completely original. The Quintet in C major, op. 28, no. 4, was a showcase for the featured Young Artist, Tony Rymer, on ‘cello. Pearson had arranged this Quintet so that she played the first violin part on oboe, which I found very effective. Rymer, playing the part that Boccherini wrote for himself, was frequently above the oboe as they played the melody in thirds (and the cello also adding some accompaniment with arpeggios on the lower strings). Boccherini was a pioneer in discovering and establishing the capacity of the cello, and Rymer was impressive in his ease and pure panache in this role.

Following the energetic first movement, the Minuetto was elegant and rococo, in an ornamented, graceful style; the Trio section featured the cello in a melancholy mood, followed by the Grave, warmly expressive. While Gabriela Diaz is a remarkable performer, second fiddle is really not the best job for her, as the intensity of her lines and her magnetic presence sometimes overpowered the main melody. The final Rondeau had a bouncy motive with lots of resonant open strings and more opportunities for Rymer to enchant us with his luscious upper range. He is clearly on his way to a stellar career. I was glad that Pearson had warned us about the false ending, so no audience member had to be caught by that trap!

The program ended with a short encore, one of Winsor Music’s “Songs for the Spirit,” commissions to be sung by the congregation of a faith community (as explained by composer Peter Child, and also on the website here,  but performed at this concert by Colton with string quartet and oboe. The Peace Poem After an Ugaritic Inscription was a moving invocation, austere and modal in flavor, and providing a spiritual moment for the conclusion of a wonderful evening of music.

Liane Curtis (Ph.D., Musicology) is Resident Scholar at the Women’s Studies Research Center, Brandeis University. Her website is here.

Derek Bermel’s Thracian Sketches was a compelling performance of material drawn from Bulgarian folk songs, rendered on the solo clarinet. It began with an intimate murmur invoking a sepia-toned nostalgia, and built with momentum driven by the intricate dance rhythms; it was performed with complete virtuosic control by Diane Heffner. But I wondered, to what extent was this a transcription of folk material modified for concert hall performance? Bermel acknowledges his sources in the program, but it seems that he is restating, recasting, rebuilding, but seemingly doing very little that is original.

So that is one problem with the “Dissolving Boundaries” theme: the fusion of genres, the “complete integration at an intrinsic level” (as the program explained) is not always successful, or perhaps the boundaries still remain as boundaries – folk music that is still folk music, rather than transformed into something newly composed music for the concert stage.

Similarly with Dance for solo violin by Theo Loevendie, played with vigor by Gabriela Diaz; the foot-stomping and bell-jingling that the soloist was required to do just seemed a distraction from the demanding, intricate violin playing (which provided enough energy on its own).

If I say the piece for toy piano (East Broadway, by Julia Wolfe) was rather silly, I feel like I’m taking some proffered bait. Surely there needed to be some mention of the pre-recorded audio track that was also part of the piece. Donald Berman performed with fervor.

But the rest of my discussion is of three pieces that I found completely moving and memorable (although each in different ways). Barbara Kolb’s Homage to Keith Jarrett and Gary Burton was the oldest piece on the program, from 1976. It is a successful example of an inspiration by another work, an album by the two Jazz greats that included a piece titled “Grow your own.” While cognoscenti know the reference, surely some in the audience need an explanation that “your own” was marijuana. The piece was more thoughtful than dreamy, Kolb’s reflection on Burton and Jarrett’s improvisation, with room for the two performers to add their own improvisatory layer. Hershman-Tcherepnin’s flute tone was a bit breathy in the lower registers, but she and Robert Schultz (vibraphone) had an expressive ensemble, with nuanced and fluid phrasing. The effect was otherworldly, at times abstract, at others, coursing with momentum.

Gabriela Ortiz Torres’ description of her piece Trifolium was not illuminating. I’m sure one could do a study on how the music is related to the 2002 painting which was her inspiration (and which itself was inspired by a 1618 painting). But nevertheless, I found the piece entirely engaging; Diaz (violin), David Russell (‘cello), and Berman (piano) caught fire, as the three exchanged evocative, spontaneous gestures, gradually building a structure with a motoric rhythm and lyrical interjections, which ultimately expanded to a furious, roiling unison.

David Sanford’s Dogma74 was a revelatory piece, for flute, clarinet, viola (Anne Black), cello, and piano, with Julian Pellicano conducting. Both the title and the names of the movements could have used a bit more explanation, but (again), never mind. It would be nice to know more about the incidents the titles refer to – the scholar in me loves this background – but, really the piece is completely self-sufficient without any overlap of specific ideas or memories. It was entirely electrifying and compelling. In the pre-concert discussion, co-director Yu-Hui Chang had mentioned the piece’s origins in Big Band Jazz, but those elements were subtle. As Sanford mentioned, there was the convention of the sax section having a unison solo, and that was referenced, in the first movement, in the winds and strings coming together in a jagged, angular melody. There were also moments of walking bass that emerged from the piano. But this was within a context of a gradual building of energy, with the five instruments intertwining abstractly, with fragmented bits of motives interlocking and a mournful cello line emerging and leading to the group coalescence. It was highly charged and riveting.

The second movement, “Turner’s Market,” cast a spell like sparse shafts of light, single overlapping tones in a hymn-like solemnity. Out of this emerged a meditative viola solo, followed by a playful, even bouncy passage that then intertwined with the sustained beams of light. The third movement, “20th Street Cafeteria,” was all forward drive and energy, the quick exchanges and interjections then interrupted by a the soulful wail the jazz viola — I was struck by what a perfect jazz instrument the viola can be! — punctuated by the crisp pizzicati of the cello and propulsion of the piano. There was another merging of the instruments, amazing after their freewheeling counterpoint, in a taut, climactic unison, concluding with a dissolving into fragments of melody.

A quibble: I don’t understand is why photography is tolerated during such a concert, surely the snapping and clicking (at least there was no flash) of people with cameras — there were two — is just as distracting as an errant cell phone might be, and at least a cell phone is an accident and is usually quickly silenced by a contrite audience member, while the clicking of the shutterbugs seemed like it might go on indefinitely. If photo shoots are desired, they should be scheduled before or after the performance, or it is also easy enough to have a stationary (i.e. not distracting) video camera from which stills can be extracted. My two cents!

I came away from this concert really excited by hearing Kolb’s, Ortiz’s and Sanford’s music and determined to hear more of their work. One thing I wanted to know was a little more about the history of the ensemble – it is so wonderful that they have been going for 37 seasons – who were the founders and previous directors? What various formats and philosophies have they experimented with? And why the name “Dinosaur Annex?” Well, I looked on their website and it didn’t find answers to those questions, but I did find quite an amazing repository here –“a partial list of works performed by Dinosaur Annex since 1987. Over 470 performances are listed, of which 87 were world premieres, 15 were U.S. premieres, and 130 were Boston premieres.” The range and variety of music they have presented is impressive. While a three-concert season is a modest undertaking, it is important that they have built and maintain a loyal fan base, and that they continue to explore and bring to light composers who are off the beaten path. I feel so grateful for Dinosaur Annex and its co-directors, Sue- Ellen Hershman-Tcherepnin and Yu-Hui Chang for continuing this important work.

Liane Curtis (Ph.D., Musicology) is Resident Scholar at the Women’s Studies Research Center, Brandeis University. Her website is here.

Krista River then joined Eskin for six settings of Dickinson poems by Aaron Copland (1950). River has an understated intensity and clarity of expression as a singer; together the pair easily and gracefully brought these songs to life. The set was varied and balanced. In Nature, the Gentlest Mother, the delicate vocal part was surrounded by polish filigree in the piano; the artists sensitively illuminated the imagery of the poem. There Came a Wild Bugle was suitably bold. The World feels Dusty When we Stop to Die had a limpid melody with a restrained rocking accompaniment. Heart We Will Forget Him was also restrained, spare, and understated in its quiet deliberateness. Going to Heaven, with its cascading motive bounding upstairs, was full of dynamic energy, until its somber ending (but that too was given a playful final flourish).

One might question the function of provided printed text to the audience when the poetry being sung is in English. One might say it shouldn’t be needed – that we should be able to understand the words as sung. But my experience is that, even when sung with both precision and expression, and set so the voice is enhanced rather than overpowered (as were all the case here), I still tend to miss a word or phrase because I listen to the whole, and not just the words. Reading along helps me to keep focus on the words, and also is helpful in giving the big picture of the poem. If we agree on that point, then it is important to make sure that the version of the text being sung is the same as that which is given in print to the audience, and this was not the case. Providing English texts is helpful to the audience, but it is more helpful when the sung version and the version in the program agree.

A visit to the Dickinson house museum in Amherst emphasizes that most of the poet’s works survive in multiple versions, and that deciding on authoritative reading is no small task. Copland set (and River sang) versions of the poems that differed (on occasion) from those distributed to the audience. Hearing that difference brings a moment of confusion, and thus these texts ought to agree, and that complexities in the existence of multiple versions are matters to be addressed in the program notes. These notes (or a spoken comment) also should provide some guidance to the meaning and vocabulary of the poems, which are sometimes quite opaque. (“Hybla balms”? “neigh like Boanerges”? Lil’ help here, please!) The provided note was (in the case of Copland) generic, giving a broad introduction to the composer, rather than specific information. Clearly the notes were written before the details of the program were decided on, which lessened their usefulness.

I’ve gone on at length about this issue, which really was a very minor detail, because it’s a point that often comes up in performances of vocal works. It is a small factor in making a meaningful experience, and it is worth taking the time to make sure that this integrity is attained.

Eskin then performed two delightful solo piano works, Jazzy and Cat and Mouse, by the young Copland (1920). She announced that the next song, by Marion Bauer (1882-1955), might be a premiere, since it is from the library of the McDowell Colony. Bauer is one of the composers whom Eskin has championed in performances and recordings, and this song, Star-Trysts (poem by Thomas Walsh), was indeed a notable discovery. The musical language is not innovative but, rather, timeless. I found myself holding my breath so as not to disturb the perfect peace of the evening scene.

Three more piano works by Bauer followed, the most memorable, Indian Pipes. Eskin had brought an example the plant by that name from her garden, so we could see its delicate white fronds. The piece, however, was one of strong chiseled angularity. I’m not quite sure how a connection to the plant is made, but this was the most modern and adventurous of the Bauer pieces, its bold shifting chord blocks like granite formations, and its angular melodic fragments exchanging and echoing.

Composer Gordon Getty (b. 1934), completely unknown to me, was a welcome discovery; his settings were straightforward and graceful enhancements to the set of five Dickinson poems. In The first day’s night has come, the piano illustrated the onset of compulsive laughter, and expresses the wistful question “Could it be madness – this?” There came a wild bugle was an interesting contrast with the Copland version, since it was a recitative style parlando, underscored with piano outbursts. The final line, “and yet abide the world” is hushed, resigned. The set ended with Beauty crowns me till I die, an evocative lullaby of pure, brief simplicity.

Beach’s Variations on Balkan Themes, Op. 60 (1904) is one of the composers most monumental and weighty works for piano. However this was not the case in the version that Eskin presented on Sunday, concluding the program. Perhaps a different approach was hinted at in her brisk approach to the theme, marked “Adagio malincolico.” Variation II, “Maestoso” was played with brilliance and bravura in its Lisztian flourishes. The piece (which has four themes) then moved into more atmospheric climates, some variations sparkly and shimmering, others more melancholy in the emphasis of harmonic minor. Variation VII picks up with its vigorous Hungarian Rhapsody. Yes, it was gearing up (I thought) – but then Eskin brought the piece to a close with a flourish!  Eskin made this quite convincing and I’m sure I wasn’t the only one in the audience to feel surprise and disappointment at only hearing half the piece. An announcement explaining that she would only present a section of the work would have been helpful. From one point of view it does make sense to leave out the funeral march section (too lugubrious for a beautiful Sunday afternoon), and to end with a rollicking (rather than somber) conclusion. Eskin has been a pioneering performer of Beach for many years, and she has recorded this work twice. We can certainly benefit from her ideas for reinterpreting and recasting the work, but I think we just deserved a “heads up.”

Apart from a few details, it was a gorgeous and spirit-lifting afternoon, and I was glad to take in part of Monadnock Festival, which always brings a wealth of interesting programming and quality musicianship.

Liane Curtis (Ph.D., Musicology) is Resident Scholar at the Women’s Studies Research Center, Brandeis University. Her website is here.

The concert (repeating on July 27 in Andover and July 28 at Emmanuel Church, Boston) is offering women composers (the specialty of the ensemble) from Italy in the seventeenth and very early eighteenth centuries, in a range of styles, emotions, and levels of intensity. There was also a range of level of familiarity. While all of this music was unknown twenty-five years ago, now Barbara Strozzi and Chiara Maria Cozzalani, while perhaps not household names, are frequently performed, studied and recorded, and La Donna Musicale has played an influential part in bringing about this change. On the other hand, new discoveries and frontiers continue to be explored: a world premiere of a sprightly duet aria by Camilla de Rossi (fl. 1707-1710) was included, and Gutiérrez promises more music by the Rossi in the future (and more information as well; almost nothing is known about her).

The music, both sacred and secular, featured an emphasis on the sensual.  The cloistered life of the nuns, as Gutiérrez suggested in her lively comments, meant that their feelings — of love, sensuality and ecstasy — were channeled into religious devotion via musical expression. Cozzalani’s O quam bonum is over the top in this expression of rapture, almost pornographic in its fetishization of Christ’s wounds and the Virgin Mary’s breasts and milk, conveyed musically through panting exchanges and relentless, driving ostinati. Tošic and Wilson conveyed the white hot heat with vocal intensity, and the ensemble was adept and flexible in the pushes and pulls of tempi.

In Vulnerasti cor meum, by Alba Tressina, Tošic was sultry and evocative.  Occasionally in the duets she had a weak entrance, understandable given that sometimes she had the tessitura of a soprano and others a contralto.   Gutiérrez took the second vocal line with great sensitivity in Tressina’s In nomine Jesu, responding in the exchanges and harmonizing with fluidity.

St. Peter’s Church was a spacious and comfortable venue, resonant and with good sight lines. The traffic outside wasn’t as much of problem as I had feared, just occasionally during quiet moments.  For instance, the final, silenced cadence of Strozzi’s  “I baci” – “bacia e taci!” — “kiss me and fall silent” (or more colloquially, “kiss me and shut up!”), was overpowered by passing traffic.

A solo motet by one Rosa Giacina Badella (O serene pupille) was given as a violin solo by Laura Gulley (with Angelini and Gutiérrez as the responsive, flexible  continuo, as they were throughout the program). Giving the florid virtuosity of some of the middle sections, it worked perfectly as an instrumental work, and Gulley approached slower declamation with real vocal sensitivity. Gulley’s tone has a rich warmth, and she has the grace of a dancer — I love to watch her play as well as hear her.  As she matures her sense of ease and elegance has ripened and deepened.

Violinist Adele Ohki had the lead in Rossi’s Sinfonia con eco (and Gulley was the echo). Ohki’s sound was bright, even edgy, but she was adept and full of sensitive nuance in the charged interplay with Gulley.

A powerful aria from Rossi’s Oratorio Santa Beatrice d’Este concluded the program; it is Handelian in its scope, with a vigorous A section, and a more pensive, solemn B section (with interjections from the A material by the violins), and an impressively ornamented return. Wilson was a sure-footed soprano, agile, crystalline, perfect in diction and emphasis, and with the bearing of an imperious Queen.  Here was music of such grandeur that it ought to be heard in Symphony Hall!

Liane Curtis (Ph.D., Musicology) is Resident Scholar at the Women’s Studies Research Center, Brandeis University. Her website is here.

Laury Gutierrez, the ensemble’s adept director and viola da gambist, chose significant highlights to bring to audiences in Boston and Arlington, in the first modern performance of Sophonisba: Heroic Queen (1748). (I heard it at the First Parish Unitarian Universalist in Arlington on March 26.) With a cast of four singers and seven instrumentalists, the Ensemble made a convincing case for Agnesi’s music.

It is only in the last few decades that singers have emerged with voices suited to the virtuosic demands of the style and with knowledge of the ornamentation that the da capo arias call for. While the conventional voice ranges need agility and flexibility, male sopranos and countertenors have emerged to play the roles that historically were written for castrati. Two remarkable singers took the leading roles, Renée Rapier (contralto) in the title role of the tragic queen, and Robert Crowe (male soprano) as her principle love interest Massinissa, torn between his military duty and his passion for Sophonisba. In the age of the heroic male soprano, to have his female love interest be a contralto offered a perfect vocal contrast. Rapier’s evocative, velvet voice was the luscious counterpart to the dazzling sparkle of Crowe’s coloratura.

Her first aria, “Dubbia ancor del mio destino” (I still doubt my destiny), conveyed tremendous fear and agitation, with the instrumental accompaniment pulsing forward; the B section was languid as the Queen considered her sorrowful future. Later, when the Queen believes she will be accepted by the Romans (whose captive she is), she sings an aria of triumphant optimism, imagining that someday the city of Rome will tremble at the sound of her name. A charismatic actor, Rapier exuded confidence in this powerful aria. The violins underscored this with passages of energetic string crossings.

But it was Massimissa who has the vocal fireworks. His aria of doubt and confusion “Rapido turbin vede” (On seeing the swift whirlwind) was conceived in an unusual style of dramatic short sections illustrating the conceit of a farmer whose heart freezes in terror at seeing a violent wind heading his way, but who then relaxes when it dissipates. The music portrayed these images with such vividness and remarkable flexibility as the ensemble moved through the succession of moods – crashing forward, slamming to a halt, cautiously creeping through agonizing twists of dissonance, and then easing into a gentle lilting melody. With the da capo structure, it became a tour de force for Crowe; he ornamented with repeated-note trills and all manners of roulades and flourishes, pushing and tugging at the tempo. The ensemble amazingly stayed with him — they were all on one roller coaster.

There are noted contemporary countertenors: David Daniels, David Walker, and other male sopranos, such as Randall Wong. But Crowe impresses with the delicacy and presence of his voice and his effortless technique. His piano and pianissimo carry remarkably (even in an acoustic where many of the consonants were muffled). The result is a remarkable combination of both fluidity and expressive range. And if he was showing off just a bit here, well, the pure bravura was exquisite. And Maria Teresa was showing off in writing this aria, too. Bravi to them both!

Gutierrez chose to begin the work with the “Licenza” (permission) aria, a tribute to the work’s patron, Empress Maria Theresa of the Holy Roman Empire. While appended as an epilogue, it made sense to begin with it, since following this initial formal gesture, Gutierrez explained the work’s context and some details of the plot. Tenor Palbo Bustos sang the Licenza elegantly, with his own brilliant set of flourishes in the da capo.

Bustos was also a compelling and persuasive Scipione, the General who tries to convince his friend Massimissa to be ruled by virtue and a desire for glory and not his passion for the Queen. Mezzo-soprano Mary Gerbi portrayed Sophonisba’s friend and confidant in several crucial ensemble scenes and sensitively navigated the twists and turns of the recitative. She brought an intense empathy to the final scene, where the Queen, in order to avoid being an object of humiliation in the Roman victory parade, has poisoned herself.

The instrumental ensemble played with their usual panache. The overture is one of great brilliance, but the concluding Andante and Minuet, while lovely, was a bit ambiguous; it didn’t sum up the tragic power of the final ensemble. But nevertheless, the opera as a whole is a work of convincing power.

Gutierrez affably explained some of the eighteenth-century conventions and urged the audience to come up afterwards, ask questions, and look at the instruments more closely. The ensemble has a devoted following, and I was pleasantly impressed at the diversity of the audience (in terms of race, age, and families with attentive children).

The First Parish UU Church is adequate acoustically; perhaps the site lines might be improved by building some sort of (temporary) platform or stage for the performers. Jordan Hall it ain’t. Yet when this revival of Maria Teresa Agnesi is someday written up in the history books, this unassuming, comfortable venue will have played a momentous role.

Although the Queen Sophonisba dies tragically, La Donna Musicale has achieved a great victory in bringing her — in this opera — back to life.

Liane Curtis (Ph.D., Musicology) is Resident Scholar at the Women’s Studies Research Center, Brandeis University. Her website is here.

250 years after its first performance, Sophonisba will receive its modern première next weekend on March 25 at Gordon Chapel in Old South Church, Copley Square, at 7 pm (and on March 26 at First Parish Unitarian Universalist Church in Arlington, also at 7 pm). The concert performance by the distinguished Boston-based ensemble La Donna Musicale will offer highlights and key dramatic moments of the powerful opera seria.

The story is based on Roman history during the Punic wars: Queen Sophonisba (of Carthage) has been compelled to marry for political reasons, but then when her true love Massinissa is victorious in battle, she is then able to be joined with him. But vengeance and power struggles ensue. It features striking virtuoso arias, with the cast of four singers. Renée Rapier, contralto, the heroic Queen, won the most recent Metropolitan Opera Regional Competition. Robert Crowe, male soprano, plays the Queen’s true love, Massinissa, torn between the demands of war and politics and his own feelings. Crowe was the first male soprano to be a National Winner of the Metropolitan Opera Competition, and the New York Times has praised his “staggering gifts” as a singer.

The four singers are accompanied by an ensemble of strings, winds and continuo, but the focus is on the remarkable coloratura singing, powerful both in its technical and expressive demands on the singers. In listening to clips from last fall’s opera, Ulisse, Renée Rapier impressed with her luscious contralto, rich with both sensuality and layers of profound emotion.  And in other recordings of Robert Crowe, I could feel the palpable electricity he generated in the pyrotechnics of the virtuosic style.  Rounding out the cast are Pablo Bustos, tenor, and Mary Gerbi, mezzo-soprano.

Laury Gutiérrez, founder and director of La Donna Musicale, that for nearly twenty years has discovered, recovered and performed early music by women composers, explained recently that its repertoire has changed. “In the 1990s and early 2000s, we had our focus on the seventeenth century. We performed nun composers [like Cozzolani], we recorded Barbara Strozzi, and Antonia Bembo, then Julie Pinel – 18th century but still early.”

“When I received the fellowship at the Radcliffe Institute in 2008-2009, it was a turning point. We got more recognition, earned after touring in Europe, performing in South America, touring in the U.S., and after our three CDs, and we turned to bigger works –opera, the highest exponent of what a composer can do. … We dived into the first one, Agnesi’s Ulisse in Campania, working with Julianne Baird — she is such an expert, and we realize that her music is really excellent.”

Gutiérrez pointed out that Robert Kendrick, professor of Music at University of Chicago, thinks Sophonisba is Agnesi’s best work. “So I go for it!” she said. “We want to understand her style, we want to know more than one piece, to know her use of the language. There is a new biography of her, and it came with a CD, but not of her vocal music, which is a pity, because the vocal music is much more adventurous and outstanding. So we take it upon ourselves to solve this problem.”

Gutiérrez continued, “Julianne Baird, the soprano who was featured in Ulisse, said, in a recent radio interview, that her work with us is the most interesting work she is doing, because we are unearthing this good music. She’s not in this concert, since the soprano is the male soprano, the warrior role, but Julianne will be with us again in the future. And we have these important scholars who we collaborate with, Robert Kendrick and Rebecca Messbarger.

Messbarger wrote of a century of women: women in eighteenth-century Italian public discourse, which, Guttierez said, “Opens my eyes, it is so well written. We usually don’t think of Italy as important for the Enlightenment, but that’s one of her first issues, and also that there were all these women, doing so many things. That gives me a context, to look into the Italian composers, and Agnesi, who wrote seven theatrical works of music – it was an era when opera was really the pinnacle of music composition.”

Liane Curtis (Ph.D., Musicology) is Resident Scholar at the Women’s Studies Research Center, Brandeis University. Her website is here

Susanna-Malkki conducting with cellist Alban Gerhardt (Stu-Rosner photo)

The Finnish conductor Susanna Mälkki returned to the BSO on February 10 for her third engagement and led the ensemble with great assurance through a program that featured a cello concerto by the Korean-born composer Unsuk Chin, Sibelius’ majestic Fifth Symphony, a lovely little Dvorák piece for cello, and one of Haydn’s lesser-known symphonies.

Cello soloist Alban Gerhardt was remarkable, and in the pre-concert talk he and Chin chatted affably about the origins of the piece, which grew out of their close friendship. While Chin did not consult with Gerhardt while writing it, she did compose it with his playing in mind. He noted that it was not entirely idiomatic: the musical ideas had been conceived without considering the comfort of the cellist (he teased her about this), and the performance was certainly an Olympic challenge. Nevertheless, one hopes that the work will be taken up by other soloists, as it brought us into an evocative and at times haunting sonic landscape.

The first movement, Aniri (the other three movements are titled only by metronome indications), refers to a style of recitative found in Korean music drama. Emerging from a unison on the two harps, the cello began circling around the one note, growing to wider and more dramatic statements. The anchor pitch held its gravity, while the cello discoursed, backed by orchestral outbursts and shimmering layers of sonorous depths. Using a huge panoply of percussion, the movement ended with a resonating thunderclap.

The second movement had a rapid driving pulse, and the cello exchanged exuberant running and leaping figures with the orchestra. The third movement again featured a sustained anchor note, held in murmurs by the orchestra. The cello was a different persona here, with a poignant melody, part lament, part meditation. The accompaniment, lower strings in harmonics, suggested the sounds of (perhaps) a distant church organ heard across a misty expanse. As the keening built over this mournful backdrop, the intensity built to a spine-chilling climax, accented with four of the nine triangles. Chin’s use of orchestra color is exquisite and mind-expanding; the sounds were at times otherworldly and seemed to surround the audience from all sides.

The cello began with frantic improvised gestures in the Finale, and the orchestra punctuated with a driving series of chords that had a hypnotic effect. Out of this energy, it was startling when the cello broke in with (gasp!) another melody, this one so lyrical it was almost like something from a nineteenth-century song. The orchestra threatened it with a murky sea of glissando, and with that miasma in motion coming to an impasse, it was the end, the tension between solo and orchestra suspended in silence as we held our breath for minutes (hours, years, such was the timeless experience) while the final sounds resonated far beyond silence.

Mälkki expertly navigated this complex score and brought it to life with complete assurance, the audience responded with a deserved ovation. This is a work I look forward to hearing and engaging with in the future (and will attend again, Friday night!)

After intermission, Gerhardt was brought back for a purely lyrical moment in Dvorák’s Silent Woods, arranged for cello and orchestra. It was refreshing to hear the rich timbre of the cello in this simply lovely little piece, after the complexity and intensity of the Chin concerto.

Sibelius’ Fifth symphony was the final work on the program. Sibelius’ love of nature resonates throughout, with its opening suggesting birdcalls, coalescing into longer ideas and themes. The second movement evokes at times Scandinavian folk music, with Mälkki easing and flexing the tempos, and drawing a nuanced sound from the ensemble. With its dramatic horn call motive and soaring string countermelodies, the Finale was electrifying and brought the program to an exhilarating close.

Now, about the Haydn that began the evening, Symphony (no. 59, “Fire”). The origins of the nickname are unknown, but may refer to the spiky leaps of the opening motive in the violins. The delicate Menuetto exposed some lapses of ensemble (the only ones of the evening): in the Trio the first and second violins did not quite mesh precisely in the meandering melody that unfolded in parallel thirds.

To mention the elephant in the room, I am exaggerating (but only slightly) to say that having a female composer and female conductor on the same program is like having a lunar eclipse and a solar eclipse on the same stage. After all, Shi-Yeon Sung was assistant conductor for two years and fared well on the BSO stage, and Mälkki has been here before too. It is female composers who remain the real rarity at the BSO, although Maestro Levine has scheduled a work by Sofia Gubaidulina for next season.

The BSO occasionally programs contemporary women composers, but they are heard less frequently here than in other orchestras of a similar calibre. And what we never hear  — not in Boston and very rarely elsewhere — are works by historic women. In this concert, much was made (in the program notes and pre-concert lecture) about the fact the BSO had not played this particular Haydn Symphony before. How much more intriguing it would have been to hear a truly “new” historic work, such as the Sinfonia by Anna Amalia, Duchess of Saxe-Weimar (1739-1807), which was discovered in an archive only in 2000, and premiered in New York City in 2008 (as detailed here )

Liane Curtis (Ph.D., Musicology) is Resident Scholar at the Women’s Studies Research Center, Brandeis University. Her website is here.

Pianist Cory Smythe began with improvisation inspired by jazz greats Errol Garner and Art Tatum, echoing their propulsion, drive and virtuosity, but with kaleidoscopically fragmented rhythmic and melodic elements and some varied twists of inside-the-piano strums and plunks. Then followed a more lyrical, warm evocation, a ballad interwoven with flourishes and riffs. Both music and playing were polished and moving.

A set of three jazz pieces are early works by Donald Martino, better known as an academically based “classical” composer. Cannonball, is a jivin’ drivin’ fugue with Smythe and Aaron Trant on vibes. Cathy, a lyrical ballad, featured Ryan Yure, clarinet, accompanied by Scot Fitzsimmons on bass and Smythe again on piano. Threeway was also richly contrapuntal in texture, with the instruments intense in their lyrical exchanges. The playing throughout was sure and adept.

Percussionist Trant, who is also Firebird’s assistant director, offered his two engaging compositions in a jazz idiom, Rubix and Song 4. Rubix‘s melancholy theme was played expressively on the violin by Rohan Gregory, with piano, bass, and Trant offering nuanced brushwork on percussion. The spiraling descent of the final phrase was haunting. In Song 4, Gregory offered a vigorous unfolding of a rhythmically complex theme.

Libby Larsen’s Four on the Floor, a “driving” tribute to boogie-woogie, with a sensual honky-tonk passage in the middle, was energetically and breathlessly performed by violinist Gabriela Diaz, cellist Norbert Lewandowski, bassist Fitzsimmons, and Smythe.

Composer John Morrison’s decision to arrange three Allman Brothers pieces was inspired. The arrangement of these pieces might seem a daunting project, from obtaining permissions from the publisher to transcribing ornate solos and layers of accompaniment. And would one really want to hear Gregg Almann’s impassioned vocal rage of Whipping Post translated into, say, a viola solo? Yes, it turns out that one would. In Memory of Elizabeth Reed and Whipping Post were arranged for string quartet – but “standing” string quartet, violinists Gregory and Diaz and violist Kate Vincent, with bass Fitzsimmons instead of cello — and percussionist Trant. The inner movement, “Little Martha” – originally an instrumental for two guitars — was for pizzicato strings alone. In Whipping Post the dusky, throaty, gravelly cries of the viola, performed by Vincent (also Firebird’s director), expressed more than the anguish of a love affair gone wrong. The viola, as Everyperson, made that anguish truly existential – it became a universal cry of rage, rather than one man’s broken heart and remorse. Already an iconic work for baby-boomers who grew up steeped in blues and rock, this arrangement, in its vital performance, made a transcendent statement.

After intermission, Vincent and bass clarinetist Yure began with Sarah Kirkland Snider’s Thread and Fray, a tautly constructed and poignant work, interweaving short motives with a sensitive intimacy. Throughout the evening, the composers who were there introduced their work. Snider was not, so I was left wanting to know more about her and her piece. (If I got a phone that gave me access to the internet, I guess could just “Google” my program notes myself.)

Los Angeles-based composer Donald Crockett explained that his two pieces were part of a set of four Night Scenes for piano trio that might go along with a film noire, evoking that kind of mood. In “Blue Guitar” the violin and cello exchanged expressive lines and timbres, the cello often high in its range, the violin sometimes muted, and the piano played the role of the guitar. “Midnight Train” employed tiny repetitive movements, suggestive of restlessness and travel. I was left wanting to hear the other movements of this tantalizing set.

Jennifer Higdon is well known for her orchestral works – last year her violin concerto won a Pulitzer Prize – but she is also a prolific composer of chamber music. Her Zaka, the final piece on the program, illustrated her adept handling of a group of six instruments. It was wise to have Jeffrey Means conduct this ensemble, since they were called upon to make a wide range of experimental sounds from their instruments as well as playing in the conventional manner; it was as if everyone was doubling on their normal instrument as well as a percussive version thereof. Pianist Sarah Bob cleverly held a pick in her mouth so she could quickly grab it for strumming and scraping inside the instrument. The meaning of the title was not explained (was it an African term?), but back on the internet, I learned that Zaka is Hidgon’s term that she defines: “To do the following almost simultaneously and with great speed: zap, sock, race, turn, drop, sprint.” This is indeed what the six musicians did, with driving fragmented gestures, pulsing forward relentlessly, then an exhausted, gasping slow to some chordal insights, and a final return to the percussive energy, building to a frenzied and explosive close.

Several things attracted me to this concert: Firebird’s energizing and creative programming, the promise of some composers in attendance, the cheerful ambience of Ryles. The concert hall can be a not-fun place, cold both in atmosphere as well as temperature, but a club promised fun – and delivered; but it also offered an excellent but not perfect artistic setting. There are many advantages to a club setting, among them the ease of meeting and talking to other audience members, the musicians and composers. There are some downsides to a club as well. The instruments were amplified, and at times the higher range was a bit shrill, and the middle ranges muffled. The bar and waitstaff may try and be unobtrusive (for instance blender use was limited to between pieces), but that can only go so far. For instance, as Zaka drove to its intense finish, the waitstaff were hurriedly making sure that every table got its check. And then the Latin set started, intruding from the dance floor upstairs. But on the whole, it was a satisfying experience. Firebird Ensemble is now on my radar for future events.

Liane Curtis (Ph.D., Musicology) is Resident Scholar at the Women’s Studies Research Center, Brandeis University. Her website is here.

The place to be on Saturday, May 8, was very definitely the Concord Women’s Chorus 50th anniversary concert, “American Women of Note.”  Every creaky pew (including those in the balcony) in the majestic First Parish was packed with devoted fans. Director Jane Ring Frank has been with the group for the past 16 years. After starting in 1960 as the Concord Madrigals, the group has grown both in size (now more that 60 members) and scope, with this concert demonstrating considerable artistic ambition in taking on a wide range of challenging styles. To celebrate their anniversary, they made the wonderful commemorative step of commissioning an important new work, Concord Fragments, by Libby Larsen, setting texts compiled and written by poet Melissa Apperson.

The ensemble is very tightly knit under Ring Frank’s dynamic leadership, with a kind of electricity keeping them connected at all times. She is best known for her work with the Boston Secession, a highly-acclaimed professional choral ensemble currently on a recession-induced sabbatical. This Concord Chorus is very different, definitely not professional, but full of admirable musicality. Through their long relationship and a lot of hard work, Ring Frank is able to draw every possible nuance of expressiveness from the ensemble, so that they collectively work as one sensitive voice — not a grand voice, certainly a voice at times with its grit and flaws, but always a very thoughtful and insightful voice. The interior of First Parish (as beautiful as it is), lacks the resonance that would enhance the sound of the chorus (and did I mention creaking pews?). But you can’t have everything.

Jane Ring Frank is a colleague at Brandeis (in the Women’s Studies Research Center), so, as I did a few weeks ago in these pages, I can admit to a lack of objectivity. Also, there were two songs by Beth Denisch, a friend with whom I attended the concert.

Ring Frank had devised a perfectly balanced program, beginning each of the two halves with settings of poems by Emily Dickinson. Celebrating the chorus’s role in the community, much of the repertoire drew on local or regional composers or poets and all the music was composed by women.

It was really quite a coup to get Libby Larsen, among the most performed living composers, to write the celebratory commission. She was full of enthusiasm in the pre-concert talk; clearly her commitment was the same as if she were writing for one of the preeminent orchestras of the world. A gracious and sympathetic speaker, Larsen paid tribute to the role of the listener in the creative process – as a composer she thinks of the listener’s perspective. Larsen talked about shaping phrases and ideas to create a “glowing page” for the words. The attention to detail and overarching scope of the larger picture are continually in balance.

Concord resident and chorus member Melissa Apperson provided the set of three poems, “Concord Fragments.” The first two of these were adapted from texts by 19th-century Concord women, (Lidian Emerson, wife of Ralph Waldo; and the unknown Martha Prescott). Apperson herself wrote the third poem, “Walden,” which quotes a phrase from Thoreau’s text.

“In Some Dry Earth,” Emerson describes a root from the garden that symbolizes the potential of spring. Sparsely accompanied by clarinet, oboe and piano, Larsen started out with a small focused sound that grew to lushness. Martha Prescott’s text “This Day I am Eighteen” was set with a shimmering sense of joy, excitement, and sensuality. Melissa Apperson’s “Walden” drew on abstract Transcendentalist themes of the nature of the soul, but illustrating them with vivid images (Like the loon, dive deep, take wing) which Larsen set with chiseled and vivid motives (the word “Dawn” rung like a chime). The piano underscored the first sections with a breathless rhythmic ostinato. The overall effect was a celebration of our shared human experience. This commission is a significant addition to the repertoire for women’s chorus and is a wonderful legacy of the Chorus’s 50th anniversary.

Beach’s three settings of Shakespearean texts were steeped in the 19th-century a capella tradition, rich four-part harmony. These lovely pieces are full of playful gestures. Rebecca Clarke composed her short “Ave Maria” (ca. 1937) with the hope that a Catholic friend might be able to get it performed in London. No such luck, and the work remained unknown in her estate until 1998. Tonal and chordal in vocabulary, its modernist twists of harmony make it a powerful gem.

The first of the set, Hope is the thing: an Emily Dickinson Suite (by Emma Lou Diemer), “Hope is the thing with feathers,” was lively, even jazzy, energized by a driving piano accompaniment. “A Bird came down the walk” began with the ensemble speaking the lines together, and then moving into melody over a playful piano vamp. “If you were coming in the fall” is a sweet ballad. “Some things that fly there be” featured the single word exchanges vividly thrown around the choir — full of fun and handled very adroitly.

The Dickinson “Three Seas,” that began the second half of the program was by Alice Parker, a prolific choral composer who now lives in western Massachusetts. These settings all evoked beautiful imagery of the sea in different ways, rocking and oscillating, but also in, “As if the Sea should part” employing a two-part canon.

Beth Denisch’s pieces, “Facial” (by Allison Joseph) and “Oh strange and lucid moment” (Maryanne Hannan) were from a song cycle originally for solo voice and mixed ensemble, “One Blazing Glance.” The entire cycle chronicles moments throughout the span of a woman’s life, but these two songs (that Denisch has arranged for women’s chorus) celebrate maturity. “Facial” is a fond tribute to aging skin, at first praised liltingly as a symbol of experience, and then given proud tribute as a sign of wisdom. The tempo was more relaxed and less sprightly than I had heard in performances of the original version, but it was completely engaging. Scott Nicholas, as the piano accompanist, here as elsewhere was sensitive and adroit in underscoring the changing moods, at first playful, then regal and majestic. “Oh strange and lucid moment” (titled by the poet “On learning my daughter is pregnant”) electrified an experience shared by many in the ensemble (as well as audience). Beginning with an intense declamation, the piece powerfully underscores the direct emotion of the text. This piece was clearly moving to both performers and listeners.

Hilary Tann in “Contemplations” interweaves verses from 17th-century poet Anne Bradstreet with vigorous lines from Psalm 98 and creates a bold and rousing a capella work that drove to an energetic conclusion: the contemplation was not at all passive.

Ysaye Barnewell (well-known singer, composer and activist of Sweet Honey in the Rock) was the composer of the last three numbers, which were inspiring and soothing encores drawing on a folk-inspired idiom. They provided a relaxing programmed encore.

Liane Curtis (Ph.D., Musicology) is Resident Scholar at the Women’s Studies Research Center, Brandeis University. Her website is here.

The Great Steinert Hall Awaits a Restoration (BMInt Staf Photo)

All six of the composers (John Craig Cooper, Ruth Lomon, Marti Epstein, Dianne Goolkasian Rahbee, John McDonald and Donal Fox) are from the Boston area, and all were able to attend. Kelley first met composer Rahbee when Kelley was a student at New England Conservatory, so in planning this concert she asked Rahbee for suggestions of other contemporary composers. She suggested Lomon, McDonald, and Fox. Cooper, however, was a composer that Kelley found on her own, encountering a piece of his in a bin of sheet music. He has spent time studying in India and working to fuse the languages of Indian and western Classical music; however, his music on this program was vigorous Americana, performed by Kelley with an appealing, crisp directness. Three New England Scapes began with “City Streets,” a bustling clash of tonalities. “On Awakening in the Country” was misty, atmospheric and blurred, moving slowly into a languid ballad. “Sidewalk Dance” was energetic and full of firm-footed stomps and earthiness evoked by the open fifths, and themes broken into chunks that were lobbed, dodged and caught.

Composer Ruth Lomon has become a good friend of mine over the last dozen years, so I certainly can’t claim any objectivity in assessing her music (not that I ever feel like I can claim objectivity…). I find that her music offers a rich depth of substance and insight, bearing repeated rehearings.  Esquisses (Sketches) is a set of three pieces from the late 1980s and early 1990s (thus it was the earliest music on this program). The first, “Les Cloches” evoked a powerful low rumble of church bells; Kelley pulled a huge resonance out of the piano. It ended with an intense and intricate rhythmic battery, inspired by change ringing, which Kelley handled with great dexterity. “La Fête” was written after Lomon attended the Turtle Dance at Taos Pueblo in New Mexico. After a calm beginning, it moves into the taut and sinuous motion of the dance. “Memoires de …” was a poetic musing, at times drawing on the energy of the previous movements.

The three pieces by Marti Epstein were connected by imagery of water. American Etude no. 12: “Polyrhythms” employs a relentless perpetual motion, but beneath the wash of pedal effects, it emerges as a gradual ascent from murky depths. “Marie’s Waltz” refers to the opera Wozzeck, which it draws from thematically. An effective work, it begins with disconnected, delicate phrases, floating and overlapping; the intensity builds as a tremolo distorts the ideas; it recedes in a ghostly fade-out that Kelley controlled with skill, bringing the keyboard to a stifled whisper.

Entrances and Exits by Cooper was next; it began with a bold baroque fanfare, juxtaposed with a playful, even honky-tonk interlude, and continued with contrasting episodes. Here, Kelley might have exaggerated the comic moments with more boldness.

John McDonald is a remarkably prolific composer. Kelley selected three of his works from Piano Album 2009, op. 446 for this program. His “Restorative,” no. 4 moved from Zen-like sparseness to a richer meditation. “Tripped up and Overthrown,” no. 9 described the “panicked retreat… and eventual demise” of the beetle of the poem that is the inspiration of the piece. I heard it as a creaky music box, being wound erratically, and offering bits of motives, chopped and mixed. The third work, “Therapy,” no. 8, was indeed soothing, its simple oscillating patterns offering Gamelan-like effects.

Dianne Goolkasian Rahbee’s music is a favorite with many pianists, since it is beautifully idiomatic and resonant with familiar historical styles. Her Ballade, op 110 of course invites comparisons with Chopin, and Rachmaninov’s name also comes to mind. With luscious long melodies and themes that are explored and varied, the work offered familiar narrative structure, but with tinges of modern vocabulary. Kelley’s playing was rich, shaping the phrases with a rich sense of coloring and momentum.

The program ended with Donal Fox’s exhilarating Toccata on Bach, a driving, exuberant re-creation: every note is “derived in some way or another” from the last movement of J.S. Bach’s Toccata BWV 914. A work of propulsive energy, at times filled with layered cross rhythms, it was like a familiar stained-glass window reassembled — some pieces intact, some fragmented – but with the same luminosity and breathless momentum. Kelley poured on the speed flawlessly, and cheers were mixed with the applause.

Following a well-deserved ovation, Kelley offered the Rahbee Bagatelle, op. 181 as an encore, giving it a warm and sensitive performance.

Vivian Handis of Steinert’s told us a bit about the long history of the company, the oldest music store in continual operation in the U.S. Steinert’s room (on the fourth floor, not to be confused with the once-illustrious Hall in the basement, which survives but is not in use) was an adequate space, a bit dry acoustically, and with poor sight lines, since it is long and flat. A few windows were open to let in air, but also brought in some outside noise. I appreciated being in the historic building (that I had never been in before), and enjoyed the reception in the second floor showroom.

Liane Curtis (Ph.D., Musicology) is Resident Scholar at the Women’s Studies Research Center, Brandeis University. Her website is here.

Serving as a prelude to the main work of the program, Andrew Rindfleisch’s delicate and expressive “Kaddish,” was commissioned by Chorus Pro Musica. CPM premiered it with nuance and precision (under Betsy Burleigh’s direction), although one wished the choir could have been at the front of the stage (instead of being behind the chairs assembled for the orchestra of the next work). The a capella prayer made measured use of dissonance amidst unisons and pure consonances. While pronunciation was clear, I still would have liked the English text to be printed in the program. Simple, direct and highly effective, this short work would resonate beautifully in another space, and I hope to hear it again.

Ernest Bloch’s Avodath Hakodesh, a 50 minute “great Jewish ‘Oratorio’,” as he once called it, was the central work of the program, a choice that commemorated the 50th anniversary of Bloch’s death. Betsy Burleigh (in her first year as music director of CPM) led the combined choral forces of CPM, Zamir Chorale of Boston, and the New England Philharmonic. Zamir’s director Joshua Jacobsen provided detailed program notes as well as his expertise.

A 1929 commission was Bloch’s impetus to set the Sabbath morning liturgy. But he departed from the Reform service of his commission in setting the text in Hebrew rather than English. Only in the final section is there a passage in English (which startled me, since the English part of the text was not included in the program). Bloch wrote the work over four years, and his concern with creating a large structure that would have both cohesiveness and momentum is evident. As Jacobson observes, the work is grand and universal, to be performed as an uninterrupted whole, and not interrupted events of the liturgy that would take place in a service.

Despite my kvetching about the acoustics, the choirs and orchestra, directed by Burleigh, conveyed a convincing understanding of this powerful work. The opening Mah tovu (which Bloch described as a Pastorale) unfolds with a fugue, which is recalled in the final section as well. A six-note motive also unifies the work. The vocabulary ranges from lush post-romantic grandeur to an evocation of exotic orientalism through a parlando-idiom and a heterophonic texture of entwined melodies. In Part III, exchanges between the cantor and choir even take on an operatic idiom, as the cantor urges “do not forsake the Torah.” Baritone David Kravitz sang the cantor’s role with great warmth and intensity, and his directness in the English passage (which was both declaimed as well as sung) was exhilarating.

Joshua Jacobsen’s comparison of Bloch’s “Sacred Service” to Beethoven’s Missa Solemnis became convincing rather than (as it seemed initially) far-fetched. A large musical work, it reaches beyond its liturgical origin to convey a universal meaning of gratitude, hope, and compassion, a remarkable and fitting conclusion to this music festival.

Liane Curtis (Ph.D., Musicology) is Resident Scholar at the Women’s Studies Research Center, Brandeis University. Her website is here.

The program began with her Book of Prayers, vol. 2, series 8. I wondered if there was some story behind the interesting instrumentation – piano, bassoon, trumpet, and chimes? Had it been written with these trumpet and bassoon players in mind (Michael Grandel and Elah Grandel, respectively), and are those musicians related? The instrumentation worked, with the bassoon and trumpet exchanging elegiac incantations, and the piano interjecting thick cascading waves.

While the next work, Querying the Silence, for solo cello, had evocative moments, it lacked a larger sense of shape and momentum. The initial rising rhapsodic gestures were followed by eerie, wraithlike echoes. The second movement featured descending cascades broken by pizzicato interjections. Cellist Mickey Katz was an inspiring performer, with a full-throated bass range, and agile in leaping to the upper register.

Next were two works in Cohen’s series Watercolors of the Master Who is Accustomed to Paint Oils. Picking apart some issues of this title, calling oneself a “Master” suggests a whiff of hubris. Also, there are some assumed values in contrasting these genres – the Master is familiar with the grand genre of oil painting, but turns to the less weighty field of watercolors. But it was in these delicate and accessible watercolors – small studies, miniatures, even, that Cohen’s music was the most immediately infused with significance and warmth. Vol. 1, series 9 was a set of four movements for clarinet and piano. Moran Katz was the magnetically expressive clarinetist, and Cohen (here as elsewhere) performed on the piano. In the second movement, lush, sparking piano chords shimmered in alternation with quizzical comments from the clarinet. The third had a buoyant, march-like character, and fourth featured intense rhapsodic exchanges that coursed to an energetic finale.

Another set of Watercolors, vol. 2, series 2, followed; for string quintet, the superlative Ariel String Quartet was joined by bass player Tal Gamlieli. I found this set less successful, as the strings produced brittle snapping pizzicatos and harsh scraping sounds, although there was a passage where suddenly the puzzle pieces fit together with neatness and a sense of relief. In the final movement, the texture became more richly contrapuntal, with overlapping layers, and sustained suspended sonorities, and then an ending of startling simplicity.

Sephardic Romancero, series 1, was another instance where some I wondered if there was same explanation for the unusual instrumentation. Flute, oboe, piano and – electric guitar? Surely there was a story there. In the first movement the instruments shared much motivic material, with the same ideas voiced in the different timbres of the contrasting instruments. The second movement (Cohen never titles her movements) was lyrical with oboe and flute interacting over the spare, regular support of the guitar line, and then the piano energizing – or disrupting – with its entrance.  The last movement was lively, even playfully contrapuntal, with the instruments overlapping and exchanging a small group of short and closely-related motives. The use of electric guitar in this work was highly intriguing and definitely worthwhile. There was no mention of whether Cohen drew inspiration from the music of medieval Sephardic romances.

Inner Temple, vol. I, series 5, “Selihot” was for violin and cello. Cohen’s program note was not very helpful: “‘Selihot’ are Yom Kippur prayers. Yom Kippur is the day of atonement for the whole Jewish people.” I don’t think anyone in the audience needed that second sentence, but I was left wondering about the specific content of the “Selihot.” Of the three movements, the third was the most striking, with its passages of interplay moving into chordal sonorities that evoked a hymn-like atmosphere. This work is on Cohen’s new CD “The Road that Chooses Us,” but unfortunately without this third movement.

In general, I find Cohen’s writing for woodwinds more consistently compelling than her writing for strings or even piano, since the wind writing employs a more lyrical and melodic idiom, while the string writing tends explore the brutal and harsh, without a sense of direction (in several cases the audience was uncertain as to whether a piece was over).

Another set of Watercolors, vol. 1, ser. 10, for flute and piano, was next. In three movements, the first offered a melancholy, controlled use of dissonance. In the second an expansive and meandering melody was explored contrapuntally, while the final piece featured brilliant exchanges of virtuosic flourishes. As with the pieces for clarinet and piano, these “Watercolors” were perfect little gems, expertly performed by flautist Amir Millstein, and Cohen on piano.

The last work, “Sefer Ha-Shirim,” (Book of Songs), again featured the Ariel String Quartet, but the work was shapeless, with melodic gestures that sometimes seemed random.

The program as a whole was mostly a strong one, but I was left with some misgivings. The program notes (by Ms. Cohen) tended to be rather obvious descriptions rather than providing useful background information on a work, or explanation of techniques or musical vocabulary (or the role of the dedicatee). If a piece is “mysterious, dark and sophisticated” or “majestic” then the listener will experience that without needing to be told.

Ms. Cohen believes (as she says the program) “when we play music, no matter what we play, we pray.” But in fact I liked her music best when I was not intruding on her prayers. The cantorial idiom – repetition of a repeated pitch in a parlando fashion – was relied on too often, as also were ascending outbursts: craggy, virtuosic but rather unmemorable motives. And Cohen may see herself as a “humble tool” of the “Almighty,” but that viewpoint can also be seen as solipsism rather than devotion.

I also wonder that Cohen, seeing music as a form of religious communication, does not write for the voice. Her works list does include some vocal settings but none were on the program (nor on any of her recent CDs). Neither do any of her vocal works set religious texts that would suggest their use in religious services. Why is the prayer of music not combined with the prayer of words? And in light of this, it is ironic that Cohen, as a pianist, has the affect of adding vocalizations.

The motive of the Israeli Consulate General of New England, “increasing awareness of the cultural connections between Israel and New England through music,” is of course laudable, and the concert was certainly a success. But it is not clear to me why Ms. Cohen is singled out for this honor rather than also including other deserving and compelling composers (who would offer a valuable range of styles) on such a program

Liane Curtis (Ph.D., Musicology) is Resident Scholar at the Women’s Studies Research Center, Brandeis University. Her website is here.

The physical drama of the Pacifica’s interaction was apparent from the first few notes, their collective electricity a palpable reminder of the importance of live performance as opposed to a recording. First violin Simin Ganatra was buoyant in her gestures, and cellist Brandon Vamos responded, even leading with his chiseled jawline and angular shoulders. Although they have been playing together for more than 15 years, the Pacifica’s energy is fresh, youthful and spontaneous.

The six quartets of Opus 18 are usually described as illustrating Beethoven’s mastery of the conventions of Viennese classicism. No. 6 of the set begins with an Allegro con brio, in the Pacifica’s hands a theatre piece of playful banter, coy asides, and humorous interchanges. The second movement, Adagio ma non troppo, continues with Mozartean simplicity and depth of feeling; the contrasting inner section was performed with an eerie delicacy. The Scherzo was jovial jousting and vigorous cross-rhythms, brought to life with great energy and precision. The last movement, La Malinconia: Adagio – Allegretto quasi Allegro, begins with somber statements that hint at a fugue, but then coalesce into stark unisons, building in stress and intensity, until – until — (more stress!) the release with a theme of buoyancy and exuberance, a whirling rondo, played at a tempo that kept me gasping.

Jennifer Higdon’s quartet Voices was commissioned in 1993 by the Philadelphia Chamber Music Society. The first movement “Blitz” begins with a ferocious crunch, continuing with harsh tone clusters given a knife-sharp edge by precise rhythmic intensity. Violent pizzicato snaps are followed by a ticking ostinato figure laced with squealing glissandi. The tone clusters return, and there is a segue directly into the next movement, “Enlacing.” This employs a broad palette of sonorities – resonant harmonics give an effect of floating underwater, but melodic gestures build, becoming increasingly exuberant.

In the last movement, “Grace,” sustained parallel fifths serve as a lugubrious support. Eventually the cello takes up an evocative expressive statement, first pressing in intensity, and then easing – the ending is delicate, even fragile. The Pacifica played with complete commitment to this compelling work with its demanding range of emotions. I want to hear it again so I grasp more of its structure, thankfully there is a recording, so I can listen to “Voices” again soon. (discography at http://www.jenniferhigdon.com/)

Beethoven’s quartet op. 130 reveals hallmarks of his late style, one that envelops and encompasses (or at times fragments and even parodies) the early vocabulary, creating a profound and monumental expression and radical formal experiments. In the first movement, elements of the traditional sonata form can be discerned – development section, recapitulation – but also there a range of unexpected twists and turns. The second movement is a mysterious Presto, which, as its theme is repeated, is varied playfully, wryly, by the first violin. The next movement, Andante, pulls its motive out of the Presto, expanding it. Its vocabulary sounds like something from the opus 18 era, except for the sudden dissolving into minor, and the symphonic drama of the soft-loud ending. Then follows “Alla danza tedezca” – instead of a Minuet, a rather inelegant German dance. While clever in some spots, the major chord ending is absolutely banal. But this heavy-handedness is followed by the sublime warmth and insight of the “Cavatina”. Beethoven, through a melody of simple means but expansive phrasing, achieves a Mahlerian kind of breadth and solemnity. First violinist Ganatra brought searing heat to the passage Beethoven marks as “Beklemmt,” an outburst of grief and sorrow, that is then contained by the recall of the melody.

The famous “Great Fugue” (Grosse Fuge) has been a work of controversy since it was written. Beethoven was convinced to remove from its position as the final movement of the quartet, replacing it with a shorter, lighter and easier movement. Since then, this Fugue (like the cheese) stands alone. But the Pacifica’s performance of the work as part of the quartet, convinced me of the wisdom of Beethoven’s original conception. Following the banality of the “danza tedesca”, and the despondency and introverted sorrow of the Cavatina, the Fugue, with its monumentality, its anger, struggle, and repeated battles of the themes in eternal conflict, seems very necessary – this is where it belongs! It is also, famously, impossibly written: Beethoven’s abstract ideas are far from idiomatic on string instruments. The enormous jagged leaps of the repeating theme are so awkward – but that sense of impossible struggle (and its angst) is something that a string quartet can physically convey with great vividness (and something that is lost in the orchestrations of the work – sure, it’s easy if you divide it up among a whole orchestra!) It is also a movement of striking contrasts — in a hushed passage well into the piece, the Pacifica evoke a muffled John Cage music box, drawing a delicate, tinkling rendering of the themes. The ideas then return (yet again) in renewed sparring, majestic, but then questioning. The ending is grand, but with its ambiguity.

The athleticism of the Fugue (and its vigorous enactment by Pacifica) made me think that concert dress for musicians ought to be made by the same designers who make clothes for Olympic athletes. Surely what this quartet does is every bit as demanding, physically, as the work of a highjumper or gymnast. Does concert black serve to remind us of the weightiness of the intellectual pursuit of this music? Is such a reminder needed.

And, hey, why no encore? The carpeted floor of Pickman Hall prevented us from stamping out our desire for one; the Cavatina would have been perfect. But drenched, (well, damp) in their athlete’s sweat, the Pacifica Quartet deserved to call it a night.

Liane Curtis (Ph.D., Musicology) is Resident Scholar at the Women’s Studies Research Center, Brandeis University. Her website is here.

Anthology took the daring path of commissioning eight new works for the concert on the theme of “Songs of Protest and Social Unrest.” The composers’ varied approaches – all laden with significance – resulted in a concert that went far beyond the fluff that is often associated with the a cappella medium. A rousing pair of South African anti-Apartheid songs started the program. The verses of Akanamandla (“He has no power”) had a central strophe performed with delicacy followed by an exuberant, percussive verse.

Composer Ivana Lisak chose to set a powerful text by Carl Sandburg, entitled Killers. Lisak, a Serbian, knows war first-hand. She noted, “even thought the poem was written as a response to World War I … the ultimate result of any war is … death.” Lisak’s understated music let the poem speak, with Sandburg’s repetition of the word “killing” – the job of the soldiers, becoming a haunting rhythmic ostinato solidifying the center of this evocative and moving stanza.

Michael J. Veloso’s set included List, a recitation of the names of the Hollywood Ten, a group of men who were persecuted for their refusal to testify before the House Un-American Activities Committee. The homo-rhythmic minimalism of this stark piece evoked a medieval meditative quality. Processing drew on an operations manual from a detention camp in Guantanamo Bay. The elaborate structure of this piece again suggested medieval creativity, this time in a complex and layered motet. The heightening of the words through the musical setting is comparable to the treatment of the liturgy in religious forms: “detainees remained shackled while clothing is cut off and disposed of” became a haunting cantus firmus.  There is the suggestion that this dehumanizing process of war and conflict might be looked back on as one of the notable cultural products of the US in the early 21^st century.

Erin Huelskamp’s A Protest proved the most memorable and startlingly revelatory work of the evening. Her choice was a Victorian-era poem by Arthur Hugh Clough. The anxiety expressed by a woman who rises to speak her opinion before a hostile assembly unfolds haltingly and in overlapping waves of forward motion, then hesitation. Speech-like declamations spar with sung comments, electrifying the psychological battle. This is the piece I most want to hear again, to parse and savor the interplay of interjections, questions and responses.

Eva Kendrick’s moving setting of Joan Lavender Guthrie’s To D.R. in Holloway brought the work of this little-known poet to light and reminded us of the struggle for women’s suffrage. It also gave soprano Anney Gillotte a spirited and gospel-inflected cadenza; all the singing here, as elsewhere was exhilarating.

Of the arrangements, “Charlie on the MTA” was certainly educational (reminding us of the origin of the name, “Charlie Card”), but one missed the spirit that twanging guitars and a string bass could give it. In “Hay Una Mujer Desparecido,” soprano Vicky Reichert’s soaring cries were poignant.

So, I cheer “Anthology” for their adventurous programming, for the success of the musicians and the composers in “expressing opinions without imposing them” (to draw from Veloso’s words), for working with new music and young composers, and for taking on important and controversial topics. I look forward to their next program.

Liane Curtis (Ph.D., Musicology) is Resident Scholar at the Women’s Studies Research Center, Brandeis University. Her website is http://www.brandeis.edu/centers/wsrc/scholars/profiles/Curtis.html