The bulk of the program consisted of three out of four of the song cycles that together form The Seasons, a cantata in which Bell sets poems of New England poet Elizabeth Kirschner.   Kirschner’s poetry is dense, laden with almost overwhelming sensuality, much of which involves evocative musical images.  Though they seem like natural choices for a composer to want to set to music, the poems let loose such cascades of text that Bell’s music sometimes got lost among all the words.   For the most part, though, he was able to craft sounds that suited the text, surrounding the vivid poetic swirls with a rich textural palate reminiscent of the English Pastoral tradition.  His choice of instruments and the way he wrote for them reflected skilled experience.  He was able to turn each one into perfect sonic reflections of the seasons they represented:  orange-and-red hued harp for Autumn; windy, icy piano for Winter; jaunty, bird-ish harpsichord for Spring.

The emotional contours of the songs tended to be broad, that of distant, rolling hills.  There were, however, a few truly moving moments, such as the end of “Exiled Deities” in which the tenor floats hauntingly high over the “church we call the world,” or the joyous “glory of clouds” that the baritone rings out in “In a Garden of Dreamers.”  The singers themselves were clearly dedicated to the material, and if Thomas Gregg’s easy, natural tenor voice sometimes lost its pitch center, or Bethany Tammaro Condon’s expressive mezzo-soprano occasionally suffered from muddled diction, it did not detract from the obvious pleasure these artists took in delivering the music.

The concert also featured two short instrumental works that reflected Bell’s apparent love of 18th-century music.  Both the Serenade No. 2 for recorder, cello, and harpsichord, and the Partita No. 1 for solo harpsichord demonstrated a charming take on Neo-Baroqueism.   It was as if the players had discovered unknown scores from 300 years ago, did not quite know how to read them, but gave it a go anyway, filling in the gaps with their own, 21st-century musical personality and wit.  These works were wholly enjoyable gems that made for welcome diversions from the loftier nature of the songs.

On a personal note, as a composer nearly two decades his junior, I was glad to hear Bell’s music for the first time in the context of celebrating an inspirational career.  I wish him even greater success in the next 60 years.

Tom Schnauber is a Boston-based composer and is currently serving as chair of the Performance Arts Department at Emmanuel College. He holds a Ph.D. in composition and Theory from the University of Michigan.

Foreground: Julie Boulianne as Beatrice and Sean Panikkar as Benedict in dress rehearsal (Clive Grainge photo)

On October 21^st, at the Cutler Majestic Theater, Opera Boston gave its first performance of Hector Berlioz’s last work, Béatrice et Bénédict, an opera comedy adapted from Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing.  It was performed with the music sung in French and the dialogue spoken in English, an effective approach that, strange though it may sound to some modern listeners, is fully in keeping with the traditions of comic opera. The production was directed by David Kneuss with Robert Perdziola serving as the scenic and costume designer.

By the time Béatrice et Bénédict was premiered in 1863, the French had formalized the opera comique into an odd species of music-theater.  Ensconced between the high spectacle-drama of grand opera and the toe-tapping satire of opéra bouffe, it often resulted in works that were too light-hearted to be serious, yet too polite to really be comic (i.e., works that can best be described as charming).  This work certainly falls into that category:  The story is simple, the music unassuming, and neither the characters nor the dialogue is particularly complex.

The advantage to such a work is that it gives the performers a broad, beige canvas to color with their own specific skills.  Opera Boston is nothing if not a troupe of highly skilled artists, though in this case they applied their abilities to varying degrees of success.   In the title roles were tenor Sean Panikkar and mezzo-soprano Julie Boulianne.  Panikkar’s bright, easy voice had little trouble with Bénédict’s sung material, while his speech and general mannerisms were characteristic of modern, teenage, television comedies—entertaining, though somewhat  disconnected from the pseudo-Shakespearian English of the translated dialogue.   Boulianne’s rich, clear voice and confident stage presence were perfectly suited to the witty and sarcastic Béatrice of Act I, but did not deliver so convincingly as the lovelorn, tongue-tied Béatrice of Act II. In all fairness to Boulianne, though, while it is easy to believe that a young male could have his switch flipped from snarky youth to hormonally charged lover in an instant, it is not so much the case with a young woman; so a plausible transformation is harder to pull off.

Heather Buck as Hero with Kelly O’Connor as Ursule (Clive Grainger photo)

The other couple in the story are Hero, the cousin of Béatrice, and Claudio, her betrothed.  Baritone David McFerrin did the best he could as Claudio, a character that, even in this dramatically simple context, is rather a non-entity, at least as far as the singing goes.  In fact, Hero spends so much more stage time with her maid Ursule, that one might suspect her husband-to-be is just a beard.  In this particular production, though, that was an advantage.  Hero was played by soprano Heather Buck, whose voice is too mature for that of a young maiden; and she couldn’t quite act the part either.  However, when paired with the delicious, sonic caramel of contralto Kelly O’Connor as Ursule, the result was magnificent.  Their duet at the end of Act I—a gorgeously dreamy, slightly gloomy, and wondrously wistful nocturne—was the highlight of the evening.

In the supporting cast, Robert Honeysucker’s warm, powerful bass, combined with his comfortable stage-presence, lent an air of grandfatherly affection to the role of Don Pedro; Phil Tompson’s Leonato—a purely spoken part—was an appropriately refined family man; and baritone Andrew Funk threw himself

Stage design and costuming by Robert Perdziola (Clive Grainger photo)

into the role of the pompously incompetent music master Somarone with flair and gusto.  The most impressive support, however, came from the chorus, a group of men and women who sang beautifully—or not, when called for—while engaging in delightful little comic gestures that, over the course of the opera, gave each character in the ensemble a recognizable and enjoyable personality.

The cast and orchestra were led by Opera Boston’s Music Director Gil Rose.  As always, his technique was superb, resulting in clean instrumental performances and solid overall cohesion.  A work like this, however, needs a bit more daring for it fully to come to life: more color in the overture, more mist in the Nocturne, and more sparkle and energy in the runs and off-beat pulses of the aria accompaniments.  Rose’s approach, while sound, resulted in many missed opportunities that could have given the opera a wider variety of hues.

The staging was simple in the best sense of the word, with some refreshingly low-tech effects, such as a twilight lakefront backdrop and multi-colored paper lanterns lowered from the fly loft creating a lovely atmosphere.  The Majestic’s stage is small, so when everyone was on it, no one could move much.  However, it would have been nice to have the characters use the space more when they were the only ones up there.

Overall, the performance was a modest success.  One came away neither disappointed nor excited, but rather with the easy satisfaction of someone who has enjoyed an herbal tea with honey and is now ready either for a more substantial drink or a peaceful night’s sleep.

Tom Schnauber is a Boston-based composer and is currently serving as chair of the Performance Arts Department at Emmanuel College. He holds a Ph.D. in composition and Theory from the University of Michigan

The program opened with a violin sonata featuring Susanna Ogata as soloist. Ogata, who could easily be the stylistic love-child of Andrew Manze and Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg, played the piece with sensitivity and a fire that belied the relatively timid sound of her instrument. Her musicality was echoed by harpsichordist and Newton Baroque director Andrus Madsen and cellist Sarah Freiberg, who nearly shredded her instrument with excitement during the work’s riveting final Allegro. Throughout the program, Madsen (or, in one work, guest artist David Schulenberg) worked with either Freiberg or, for the two cantatas of milder nature, the slightly mellower gamba player Angus Lansing. Their continuo provided bounce and bite where needed, without degenerating into the percussive clangor that many other period instrument ensembles seem to favor. Moreover, it not only supplied a solid foundation, but was also an equally expressive musical partner to the soloists.

Soprano Shannon Canavin’s full-bodied yet floaty voice brought gentle expression to Deines neuen Bundes Gnade.  Her tendency to gloss over some of the more forceful German consonants, combined with the fact that her line was often doubled at the unison by flautist Mary Oleskiewicz, created an almost glowing sonority that, while not always appropriate for the text, was attractive nonetheless. In contrast, mezzo-soprano Mary Gerbi let the words guide her tone colors in Schau nach Sodom nicht zurücke. Her earthy tone and crisp diction, along with Ogata’s dynamic violin, brought a spark and an energetic directness to the piece. In Die stärkende Wirkung des Geistes, Shiba Nemat-Nasser did an impressive job of containing her powerful mezzo-soprano voice while still singing with richness and clarity. This particular cantata features one of Telemann’s more inspired expressive devices: at certain key points in the text, the continuo drops out, resulting in a powerfully sparse texture of vocalist and instrumentalist alone. Unfortunately, this proved to be a bit troublesome for Nemat-Nasser and violinist Scott Metcalfe, whose slightly choppy phrasing compounded the slight skittishness with which the performers negotiated these sections.

The only vocalist who sang more than one work was tenor Jason McStoots. Though he had more difficulty than the others with the German pronunciation, it did not stop him from delivering engaging and sensitively nuanced performances. In Trifft menschlich und voll Fehler, he teamed up with recorder player Sarah Cantor, who danced the music as much as played it with such joy and sprightly ease that one wished she had been given more to do than just the one piece. Though McStoots’s ringing, head-voicey tone overpowered Cantor in the first aria of this cantata, he softened his sound so tenderly for the second aria (Gleich dem Balsam sind die Lehren) that, along with Cantor’s achingly delicate playing, the performance made for the warmest, loveliest moment of the entire evening. And if Metcalfe’s violin playing was problematic in the previous cantata, his bright tone and bold musicality were perfect for the final cantata on the program, Packe dich, gelähmter Drache. He, along with McStoots’s narrative prowess and the frenetic energy of Madsen and Freiberg’s hellfire continuo, ended the evening with as mighty a dragonish roar as such a small group of fine musicians can.

Four programs remain in the Telemann Harmonischer Gottesdienst, series for this year. “Control F” search “Gottesdienst” in BMInt’s “Upcoming Events” for details.

 Tom Schnauber is a Boston-based composer and is currently serving as chair of the Performance Arts Department at Emmanuel College. He holds a Ph.D. in composition and Theory from the University of Michigan

The lecture-recital is a tricky format, mainly because it often ends up more lecture than recital. The music becomes the sonic equivalent of illustrations in an academic paper rather than the structural and emotional focus of the event. When your lecturer is as knowledgeable and passionate about the topic as Klingenstein, it is almost inevitable that a large part of the performance ends up being someone talking about the music; and talk she did. She offered a term paper’s worth of historical, biographical, analytical (sometimes over-analytical), and interpretive information on the texts and music, as well as the artists who originally wrote and performed them. At the end of the program, she even sang a couple of the songs (along with the pianist), a sign that she truly engaged every level that these works inhabit. Yet, all that talk was at times overbearing, upstaging the simple, powerfully direct impact of the songs themselves.

These pieces, however, had survived a ghetto and a Nazi death camp, so an over-enthusiastic academic presented little hindrance.  They were brought to life by pianist Eugenia Gerstein and mezzo-soprano Sophie Michaux, both fine musicians who performed the songs with grace and skill. Michaux’s voice is a luscious shade of burgundy, velvety and ever so slightly smoky. Her Yiddish diction was clear, almost speech-like, as if she were telling stories rather than singing songs, an effective technique for the Goethe Institute’s intimate concert venue. However, her interpretations were rarely more than narrative, and she missed opportunities to delve into the deep emotional layers that many of the songs offered. Similarly, Gerstein’s accompanying style seemed more supportive than collaborative, and her somewhat monochromatic tone dulled much of what was evocative in the piano parts, especially in the more harmonically and texturally rich arrangements by Henech Kon.

Nonetheless, the beauty and strength of the songs shone through. They are stylistic offspring of Jewish folk and European cabaret, with hues of klezmer and hints of operetta, all radiating the subtly overt poignancy of a people whose cultural experience has forced them over the centuries to smile through tears. Among them were wrenching stories borne of the Holocaust (Es iz geven a zumer-tog, Shtiler, shtiler); rousingly defiant and hopeful anthems (Es shlogt di sho, Mir lebn eybik), and a couple of true gems (Friling, Es dremlen feygl oyf di tsvaygn) that could easily hold their ground in the art song repertoire. As with so many who perished or barely survived that terrible time, the composers and lyricists of these songs—people like Shmerke Kaczerginski, Avrum Brudno, and Kasriel Broydo—are artists whose names nearly disappeared with them. Thankfully, there are scholars and performers today, like Klingenstein, Gerstein, and Michaux, who keep these rarely performed pieces alive. They are works that must be revisited and remembered if for no other reason than their creators represent what the best of human spirit can accomplish against the worst of human barbarism.

Tom Schnauber is a Boston-based composer and is currently serving as chair of the Performance Arts Department at Emmanuel College. He holds a Ph.D. in composition and Theory from the University of Michigan.

For over three decades, the Tallis Scholars has explored the vast world of Renaissance and Medieval vocal music, reinterpreting the works of well known composers and shining light on that of lesser or unknown composers.  The ensemble’s signature approach is simply—and nearly perfectly— to sing the words and the notes, honing a crystalline sound, but allowing the design of the works themselves to be the main device of musical expression. There is a lot to be said for that approach; the works they perform contain compelling melodies, and usually involve highly complex, varied polyphony and contrapuntal sophistication.

These musical characteristics reach stellar heights in the works of Victoria.  While some of his contemporaries wrote pieces that could sound staid and cold—the sonic equivalent of luminous yet motionless stained-glass painting—he used the various compositional techniques of the time to create subtly sublime emotionality and discreetly passionate acts of word-painting.  These expressive devices are built in to the music so integrally that the Tallis Scholars’ method of just giving them beautiful voice is often all that is needed to bring them out.  Victoria’s stunning five-voice Dum complerentur is filled with soaring lines and powerful blasts of homophony that paint the mood of the text with broad strokes, and the ensemble did a brilliant job of staying out of the way of the music, allowing it to sing for itself.  Similarly, the sorrowfully austere textures and keening long tones that inhabit Victoria’s Lamentations for Holy Friday, the first three of which were performed on this program, needed no extra push to communicate the sadness in the words.

There were many times, however, where the music cried out for a stronger interpretive voice. In his Missa O magnum mysterium, Victoria sets the words “et in terra pax hominibus bonae voluntatis” using quick, bright gestures. This is a compositional choice that communicates a distinctly personal take on these words; rather than setting them slowly and prayer-like, as so many other composers did, Victoria is cheerfully shouting to the listener how wonderful such peace in Earth would actually be. It is a moment that can allow musicians to channel raw happiness, but only if they let themselves truly emote, something the Scholars do not typically do.  In general, the joy in words and phrases like “hosanna” and “et resurrexit” or in the “alleluia” at the end of the motet O magnum mysterium could have been communicated much more effectively through crisper diction and more energetic expression.

The most effective and, in a way, most telling part of the evening was the performance of Victoria’s Salve Regina at the end of the first half of the program.  For this antiphonal work the ensemble divided itself into a four-part SSAB quartet and a six-part SATB ensemble.  The one-on-a-part quartet delivered the most character and intensity of the whole evening, largely because the interpretive personality of each singer was allowed to shine. In contrast, the six-part choir, with the soprano and occasionally the tenor doubled, produced a more homogenous, less immediate sound that is more in keeping with the Scholars’ overall aesthetic.  The contrast itself was not only illuminating but also very satisfying in that it brought both musical variety and structural clarity to the work.

In true Tallis Scholars tradition, the program ended with two works by a far lesser-known contemporary of Victoria, Sebastián de Vivanco, another Spanish composer.  Although his Sicut lilium and his Magnificat Octavi Toni do not have nearly the expressive variety of Victoria’s music, they do contain enticing rhythms and craggier vocal lines that express the composer’s musical ideas in an engagingly direct way. As expected, the Tallis Scholars did a beautiful job of communicating those ideas with focus and skill of the highest order.

Tom Schnauber is a Boston-based composer and is currently serving as chair of the Performance Arts Department at Emmanuel College. He holds a Ph.D. in composition and Theory from the University of Michigan.

Perhaps not so oddly, however. The Spaniard in question is Tomas Luis Victoria, the latest of the composers on the program. It was his motet O lux et decus (“O light and splendor”) that opened the concert and set the tone for the whole evening. The Cantorum performed this work at a fairly quick pace, emphasizing its energy and brightness. It also established the less-than-typical musical character and interpretative approach of the group itself: rather than attempting to bring careful clarity to each melodic line, as so many similar ensembles do, they instead illuminated Victoria’s complex polyphonic texture as a single, shining sonic entity, capturing the spirit rather than the construction of the piece.

This handling of polyphony served the singers well in those rich, fully-voiced sections that are found in nearly all the pieces they offered. It resulted in an appropriately poignant and expressive performance of the other work by Victoria on the program, his aching Vere languores nostros (“Truly he has born our grief”), though here the pacing was a bit too brisk to truly capture the long, keening vocal lines that give the work its real power. It also brought to the fore the ethereal beauty of Josquin des Pres’ occasional and luminous homo-rhythmic textures. It is an expressive device favored by this composer, one that the Cantorum delivered with rare richness in his Inviolata that opened the second half of the program (preceded by a surprisingly touching rendition of the chant by the same name that serves as the cantus firmus).

The only points in the program that seemed to give the group some trouble were those in which the musical textures were thinner. The earlier Franco-Flemish composers, the music of previous generations still in their ears, wrote works inhabited by more exposed vocal lines and hollow, third-less cadences. The stolidity of these sounds proved to be a bit of challenge to the group, so that the dark, Burgundian sonorities of Loyset Compare’s Ave Maria came off as somewhat dull, especially since it was sandwiched between the two more colorful works by Victoria.

Overall however, the Lowland composers were done more than justice. Despite the curious choice of splitting up the parts of Dufay’s mass, placing the “Kyrie” and “Gloria” at the end of the first half and the “Sanctus” and “Agnus dei” at the end of the second, the Cantorum performed the work with satisfying musicality. Their interpretation of the “Gloria” was particularly enlightening: with clear, crisp diction and a bouncy tempo, they found a joy in the music that many overlook. The multi-text motet Ut te per omnes/Ingens alumnus Padue (“Enlighten our unclean spirits/The famous offspring of Padua”) by Johanes Ciconia, the earliest composer on the program, was given a fleet tempo and startlingly pointed articulation that brought out a surprising rhythmic texture; for lack of a better word, it was the grooviest Ciconia one is likely to hear. Similarly, their approach to Orlando de Lasso’s four-section Missus est Angelus Gabriel demonstrated a keen interpretive insight. The text of the work is essentially a narrative describing in detail the events of the Annunciation. Directness of musical narration seems antithetical to and almost incompatible with the involved and often obfuscating polyphony of the time. But Orlando was a masterful enough composer to build the immediacy of storytelling into the complexity of the work; and, much to the delight of the small but very appreciative audience in the church that evening, the Schola Cantorum is a good enough group to have found it.

Tom Schnauber is a Boston-based composer and is currently serving as chair of the Performance Arts Department at Emmanuel College. He holds a Ph.D. in composition and Theory from the University of Michigan.

Cardillac is a troublesome work. It was written in Germany in the 1920s, and the libretto by Ferdinand Lion, based on a novel by E.T.A. Hoffmann, reflects to an extreme degree the angst-ridden explosion of cultural freedom and dark exploration that permeated that time and place. The story is about a goldsmith, Cardillac, who creates such grizzly beautiful works (perhaps aided by the Devil) that he cannot part with them. Whenever someone buys a piece, Cardillac murders the buyer to get it back. Throughout the opera, he lies, obsesses, kills, mentally abuses his daughter, allows the brutal torture of his dealer—and is hailed as a beloved hero in the end (after an angry mob beats him to death) because he finally admits to his crimes. It is a story told in short, uncomfortable episodes that always seem to lead to even worse and more confusing places than one expects, with an ending that is part Weimar hedonism, part small-town evangelicalism, and that really doesn’t make any sense at all.

Yet the story isn’t the problem. Despite how one may feel about the structure and the moral (or lack thereof) of the tale, it is a richly kaleidoscopic trip through anxieties, loves, hatreds, betrayals, depressions, and desires, a multi-layered feast of the fraught that requires equally varied flavors from the music. The problem is that the thirty-year old Hindemith was unable to deliver that variety; he simply could not write music that supports all that emotional content. His craft is, of course, stunning, revealing an inordinate talent for shape, counterpoint, and rhythmic momentum. These skills served well in the opening scene when a crowd of art-gallery patrons, upon discovering the body of a murder victim, becomes franticly panicked. But they fall short of expressing the varieties and extremes of emotions contained in the entire story, such as the father-daughter duet, which never reaches the level of tenderness it calls for. Instead, the relentlessly complex linear textures and non-committal harmonic language for which Hindemith was so famous (and grew to manage with more sophistication as he got older), combined with a lackluster sort of “B-flat” orchestration, creates an aura of sonic grayness that compresses all that expression into a rather limited and unsatisfying emotional space.

That being said, however, Opera Boston’s production of the work was quite remarkable. For the most part, its strength lay in the casting. Each role was given to a singer whose vocal characteristics were unusually well suited to the person they were portraying. Tenor Frank Kelley brought a brilliantly brazen, spidery voice to the part of The Cavalier, making him fittingly unctuous and brittle. Janna Baty’s mezzo-soprano voice was as sensuous, sad, and voluptuous as is The Lady she portrayed. Sol Kim Bentley as Cardillac’s daughter sang with a bright, almost shrill soprano that seemed at times to scream out all the repression inside that character. And both the strong, rich bass of David Kravitz’ Gold Merchant and the full, powerful tenor of Steven Sanders’ Officer brought far more depth and energy to their characters than the writing suggests. The one exception to this fitting vocal cast was Sanford Sylvan in the title role. His voice, lovely though it is, is too smooth and colorless for a character as tortured as Cardillac, though he did make true attempts at bringing some grit to it; and the part itself is too big for his instrument, so that toward the end of the performance, one had the sense that he had bitten off a bit more than he could chew. On the other hand, conductor Gil Rose was very much in his element, doing what he does best: keeping up the momentum, offering flawless guidance to the singers and instrumentalists and bringing clarity to almost unbearable musical intricacy.

As for the visual elements, Director Nic Muni presided over a production that was sparsely Neo-Expressionistic and appropriately grotesque. It all took place in Cardillac’s gallery (with a couple of scenes in what was probably a street out in front), a large, cold space of warped angles and unnatural light. The costumes were creepy caricatures of their own styles, and the singer-actors in them often moved with exaggerated gestures. Hats (and belts) off especially to Kelley and Baty for giving their all in one of the most deliciously disturbing sadomasochistic pantomimes one is likely ever to see on an operatic stage. The most striking aspect of the production, however, was the use of lighting to cast all manner of shadows on the severely sloped walls of the gallery. It gave the effect of a second play from a flat, dark, distorted universe paralleling the three-dimensional one; a silent, visual Greek Chorus commenting on and participating in the whole twisted tale. It was, in many ways, the most chilling aspect of the entire performance, darkly radiating a sort of emotional summary of all that bizarreness.

Tom Schnauber is a Boston-based composer and is currently serving as chair of the Performance Arts Department at Emmanuel College. He holds a Ph.D. in composition and Theory from the University of Michigan.

The works that the group chose illustrate the fascinating transition from the multifaceted complexity of the late Baroque to the refined symmetry of the early Classical, a phenomenon that was particularly noticeable in the music of German composers of the time. This music also seems particularly well-suited to the performing style of the Musicians of the Old Post Road: their musicianship is delicate, almost refined, but not so fragile as to break from the currents of vibrancy that they brought to nearly every piece. Nowhere was this more apparent and appropriate than in the first piece on the program, the Quartet in C-major for traverso (Baroque flute), viola, cello, and continuo by Johann Gottlieb Janitsch. This work, a stylistic missing link of sorts between Baroque and Rococo, encloses richly layered textures within an evenly balanced structure, a compositional aesthetic to which the ensemble brought florid energy with galant restraint. Other pieces on the program tended more toward the Baroque side of the spectrum, allowing the performers to engage in expressively ornamented playing. The splendid Sonata in D Major by Johann Friedrich Fasch demonstrated just how sensitively the core of the ensemble—cellist Daniel Ryan, flautist Suzanne Stumpf, violinist/violist Sarah Darling, and harpsichordist Michael Bahmann—can play together.

One of the main attractions of the concert was that it featured two works whose scoring includes the chalumeau, the single-reed forerunner of the clarinet. The Quartet in F Major for soprano-chalumeau, violin, bassoon, and continuo by Johann Adolf Hasse, a Baroque composer who, like Janitsch, often stepped over into the next period, is a brilliant demonstration of how this unusual-sounding instrument can interact and blend with more common ones, in this case the violin and the bassoon. This is especially well displayed in the faster movements through Hasse’s nimble phrasal ball-tossing, which Darling, chalumeauist Owen Watkins, and bassoonist Marilyn Boenau handled with delightful dexterity. On the other hand, Christoph Graupner’s Trio Sonata in C Major for bass-chalumeau, bassoon, and continuo illustrates the pitfalls of choosing instruments primarily for their color. Though the low registers and the single-versus-double reed textures make for remarkable sonorities, Graupner had difficulty getting past these woodwinds’ inherent gracelessness. In fact, they would have sounded downright clumsy were it not for the skill of Watkins and Boenau, who did their best to make music out of less-than-satisfying material.

In contrast, the Concerto in G Major for traverso, bassoon, cello, and continuo by Johann David Heinichen is a model of deft and exciting antiphonal writing for two instruments with very different sounds. Unlike Graupner, Heinichen knew well how to balance the bassoon’s various registers in roles as both soloist—engaging in delightful call-and-response with the flute—and continuo, a duality that Boenau negotiated with adept musicality.

Fortunately, Graupner’s compositional skills were more than redeemed by the ensemble’s lovely performance of his Trio Sonata in d minor for traverso, viola, and continuo, the most contrapuntally sophisticated work on the program. The affective power of this solidly Baroque aesthetic was particularly brought to bear by the beautiful playing of Darling and Stumpf in the work’s largo, a true high point of the program.

The concert ended with an arrangement of J.S. Bach’s aria “Mein gläubiges Herze, frohlocke” from the Cantata Also hat Gott die Welt geliebt (BWV 68). Though somewhat out of place on the program—Bach is hardly a hidden treasure—it did allow the audience to hear all these performers to play together, providing a satisfying end to an evening of exploration.

Tom Schnauber is a Boston-based composer and is currently serving as chair of the Performance Arts Department at Emmanuel College. He holds a Ph.D. in composition and Theory from the University of Michigan.

Michelle DeYoung as Jocasta and Russell Thomas as Oedipus in Stravinsky's Oedipus Rex (Michael Lutch photo)

The Boston Symphony Orchestra, led by James Levine, presented concert performances of two short yet powerful operas by 20th-century giants: Igor Stravinsky’s Oedipus Rex (libretto by Jean Cocteau and Jean Daniélou) and Béla Bartók’s Duke Bluebeard’s Castle (libretto by Béla Belázs) on Thursday evening, Jan. 6.

In many ways, these two works are rather alike: they were both written around the same time — the Stravinsky in 1927, the Bartók in 1911; both are retellings of much older stories; both address topics of dark, psychological depth; and both were conceived with minimal staging that makes them ideal for concert presentation. Even the structures of the two are similar in that each story is told using small, fairly symmetrical dramatic events that are linked together to create a whole. However, these similarities are, for the most part, peripheral. When it comes to musical and dramatic expression, to the communication of characters’ thoughts and feelings, the two works could hardly be more different. In the largest-scale sense, the BSO’s performance was a great success in that it brought these differences to the fore, allowing each work to display its character to the fullest.

Though Stravinsky is an uncontested master of technique — harmonic, rhythmic, instrumental, when it comes to emotional expression, his music is, by his own admission, somewhat dispassionate. This characteristic is particularly evident in his vocal writing. The story of Oedipus Rex is fraught with visceral tension; but Stravinsky’s writing, though compelling and often exciting, treats this tension with an almost frigid aloofness. It is therefore up to the singers to infuse the characters with emotive dimensions. Tenor Russell Thomas, in the role of Oedipus, did just that. With his bright yet beefy voice, he used the part’s strenuously high tessitura to take his character into flights of boldness, anger, fear, and despair. His Rex was a king not only straining against the cold inevitability of fate, but also against the stark impartiality of the music he was singing, and though Oedipus loses his battle, Thomas triumphed in his. So, too, did mezzo-soprano Michelle DeYoung, who was able to give Jocasta an unexpected level of depth. This role is perhaps the most difficult in the opera; from a narrative standpoint, she is a powerful and pivotal presence, but the singer only gets one aria and a duet to establish that presence musically. DeYoung’s take on Jocasta was subtly sultry and a bit off kilter; an unusual dramatic choice, but one that she carried out beautifully and that gave the character much more dimension than does the music. The other roles are given even less time to establish their import, presenting a challenge to those singing these parts — one that was difficult to overcome in this performance. Baritone Albert Dohmen as both Creon and the Messenger seemed to be swallowed up by the orchestra most of the time. Similarly, Raymond Aceto’s Tiresias was powerfully declamatory, but he had difficulty getting the lower pitches to speak. And the role of the Sheppard is simply too small to allow Mathew Plank’s mournful tenor voice to bring the depth to the music that it could have. The Narrator was convincingly read by actor Frank Langella. His voice was strong and his approach lent a stalwart distance to the part that was appropriately Greek-Chorus-like.

It might be interesting to mention that, in 1982, a scheduled BSO performance of Oedipus Rex with intended narrator Vanessa Redgrave was cancelled because of the actress’s pro-Palestinian views. Redgrave brought suit against the BSO’s administration for violation of her rights under the Massachusetts Civil Liberties Act; but in 1987, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court ruled in favor of the BSO. It was a sad contradiction that such a cosmopolitan work — a Russian composer’s setting of a Greek tragedy with a French libretto translated into Latin — should fall victim to such provincial politics. Thankfully, this performance was spared the pettiness. (Note: While this reviewer does not know Mr. Langella’s politics, he does know that, when it comes to music-making, they are irrelevant.)

James Levine with Michelle De Young as Judith and Albert Dohmen as Bluebeard in Bartok's Duke Bluebeard's Castle (Michael J. Lutch photo)

In terms of expression and depth of feeling, Bartók’s music is the polar opposite of Stravinsky’s. Duke Bluebeard’s Castle is masterpiece of emotional richness. While his orchestration is not as ambitious as Stravinsky’s, it does serve a more integrated dramatic role: sensuous, lush, and sometimes haunting strings convey sadness, loneliness, and deep internal conflict; bright, dazzling winds color the bloodily bejeweled surroundings of the castle and its inhabitant’s soul; and huge, solid brasses give tangible weight to the cold pomposity of it all. Levine seemed particularly in his element here as he exploited all the boldness and subtleties of this music, giving it a multilayered character that is often missing in other performances. Though Albert Dohmen’s Creon might not have been entirely successful, he more than made up for it with his portrayal of Bluebeard. With his edgy, full-bodied voice, Dohmen was able to conjure a man who is cold and emotionless on the outside, who wants so desperately to be loved, yet cannot show his desperation for fear of losing control to guilt. Those psychological layers are built into the music, but it takes a true artist to convey them as successfully as Dohmen did. The real star in this performance, however, was Michelle DeYoung. Judith’s part is technically much more varied and complex than Bluebeard’s, reflecting the emotional waves and troughs of this character. DeYoung’s Judith was innocent, pleading, slightly coy, ever more insistent, and finally terrified. It was in large part due to her that the listener could forget this performance was not staged and instead imagine a darkly bright, coldly burning setting for this magnificent work.

Tom Schnauber is a Boston-based composer and is currently serving as chair of the Performance Arts Department at Emmanuel College. He holds a Ph.D. in composition and Theory from the University of Michigan.

Bach’s music is often treated as the foundation of much music theory. His chorales are models for beginners in the study of harmony, his counterpoint the end-all for the advanced, and his work in general the epitome of technique for nearly all composers who came after him. What often gets missed in all that awe, however, is the amazing ability he had to create expressive drama. In the vocal works at least, those brilliant and beloved technical skills are simply the tools of a master storyteller; and the Christmas Oratorio is quite the story.

What made the Back Bay Chorale’s performance so engaging was their interpretation of the work as a story told in music. Jarrett assembled a cast of singers and instrumentalists who were able to get past the considerable technical challenges and play to the audience as if they were talking to it. Like Bach himself, they were all so comfortable with their craft that, instead of those challenges being the focus of the performance (as they so often are), they became the vehicle for dramatic musical expression. In the role of the Evangelist, tenor Aaron Sheehan set the tone by delivering the Biblical prose in clear, conversational German, with a bright, almost angelic voice that consistently held the audience’s attention. Baritone David Newman sang all his arias with the joy and confidence of someone who just can’t wait to say what’s on his mind. Mezzo-soprano Krista River seemed to delight in the often unforgiving alto part, which she turned into an intimate narrative. In contrast, soprano Kendra Colton exclaimed her arias as if she were preaching rousing sermons. And the Chorale itself, in mixed formation, sang the choral parts with a clarity and directness that belied its large size.

Though the focus of the Oratorio is on the voices, Bach, as always, wrote instrumental parts that not only support the singers but often seem to converse with them. This was particularly apparent in the Part II arias “Frohe Hirten” and “Schlafe, mein Liebster,” in which flautist Jessica Lizak matched the vocalists with such light and free precision that the arias took on a nearly jazz-like casualness. Similarly, violinist Heidi Braun-Hill’s romantic playing in “Schliesse, mein Herze” (Part III) was as personal a take on the violin part as Rivers’s was on the voice part, creating the effect of two people engaged in impassioned musings. Other stand-out instrumental performances came from hornist Whitacre Hill, whose fluid, lyrical playing added rich color to the two choruses in which that instrument is featured; bassist Scot Fitzsimmons, who lent a surprising ease and flexibility to the continuo; and, in those arias and choruses which featured some of Bach’s famously difficult clarion parts, trumpeter Terry Everson, who played with a virtuosity and musicality that was simply stunning.

All this marvelous musicianship was brought together by Scott Allen Jarrett with a sensitive understanding of what makes this piece tick. His tempi were brisk and bouncy, and yet avoided the superficiality that often results from current trends for speed. That briskness did occasionally work against the music: the Sinfonia that opens Part II should have been allowed to breathe more, so the listener could indulge in its rich, reedy textures; and nearly all the chorales lacked the staid, contemplative character that makes them such poignant interludes. On the other hand, under Jarrett’s direction, effects that could have easily crossed the line into gimmick instead made for convincing theatricality: having instrumental soloists stand, using a reduced choir in two of the bass arias, and especially enhancing the antiphonal sonority in “Flösst, mein Heiland” (Part IV) by placing the echoing oboe and soprano in the balcony. Overall, Jarrett was able to give the whole piece momentum and cohesion, and he knew exactly when to conduct and when to stay out of the performers’ way. It is a tribute to him and the musicians he led that the entire performance of this masterpiece felt like a huge, shining tale told by the Yuletide fire.

Tom Schnauber is a Boston-based composer and is currently serving as Chair of the Performing Arts Department at Emmanuel College. He holds a Ph.D. in composition and Theory from the University of Michigan.  He is also co-founder and co-Director of the arts organization WordSong.

The program opened with an Adagio in C major, Paul Angerer’s recent and tasteful fleshing out of a fragment from W. A. Mozart’s last years. Scored for English horn and string trio, it is a lovely, lilting little gem of the rounded binary type that Mozart honed to near perfection. The players admirably attempted to capture the lightness and delicacy of the piece, but could not quite lift it out of the acoustic bog. Regardless, it was satisfying to hear a “new” work, especially one so masterfully simple, by this old friend of the concert hall.

Second on the program was Carl Nielsen’s Wind Quintet, Op. 43 from 1922. The story behind this work is that Nielsen, inspired by a performance given by Copenhagen Wind Quintet, decided to write a piece that would reflect the psychological characteristics of each of the five instruments and their players. As heady as this premise sounds, the result is a good-natured, pastoral exploration of neo-Classical symmetry that has taken a well-deserved place among the best pieces for this combination of instruments. The first movement, “Allegro ben moderato,” gives the impression of five conservatory-trained shepherds in a well-structured conversation full of winks, nudges, and in-jokes. In the Minuet that follows, the shepherds break into a crafty, somewhat quirky dance in which each of them engage in a bit of fancy footwork to the delight of the others. The final movement has them revealing most deeply their true Arcadian personalities while still working together to negotiate short but odd variations on a chorale theme. Throughout the performance, the Radius players did a wonderful job communicating the individual ticks and mannerisms written into each part — especially clarinetist Eran Egozy, whose sensitive and energetic playing made me wish he had been featured on more than just this work. Those sections that called for balanced teamwork, however, caused the group some trouble, especially the harmonically slippery “Praeludium” of the third movement, which never really locked in to clear intonation. The shepherds needed perhaps a bit more time in the fields together.

Following the intermission was Toru Takemitsu’s 1992 trio for flute, viola, and harp “And then I knew ‘twas wind.” Like the Nielsen, this work, inspired by an Emily Dickinson poem, is infused with pastoralism, only here the countryside is reduced to a mesmerizing, though somewhat too-long meditation on breezes. It is essentially a collection of delicate, transparent, upward-sweeping gestures that swirl around each other and often blow away entirely. The players brought out the airy, blustery sonorities with true expressive skill — harpist Ina Zdorovetchi was particularly adept at negotiating the challenging harp part, making it sound almost as easy as a sigh — though they could have taken even more time between breaths, allowing each gust of wind to be fully taken in by the listeners.

The final work on the program seemed out of place among the four, carrying none of the agrarian overtones of the previous three pieces. On the other hand, it was the one piece that was well suited to the oppressive, almost smoky sonic atmosphere of Killian Hall. Paul Schoenfield’s 1987 Café Music for piano trio is a raucous romp in three movements through a convincingly blended salon concoction of jazz, folk, and classical flavors. The Radius players dazzled here, especially in their ability to find the Romantic richness embedded in the swing and stride. Pianist Cory Smythe, the rhythmic and interpretive glue of the performance, was particularly adept at knowing when to dance and when to sing, both of which he did beautifully. The last movement, with its delightfully jarring changes of tempo and meter, brought the evening to an energized, foot-tapping finale.

Tom Schnauber is a Boston-based composer and is currently serving as Chair of the Performing Arts Department at Emmanuel College. He holds a Ph.D. in composition and Theory from the University of Michigan.  He is also co-founder and co-Director of the arts organization WordSong.

It’s hard to know what to make of Trouble in Tahiti. Completed in 1952, it was Bernstein’s first attempt at fulfilling his vision of a uniquely American music drama that melds various distinct musical and theatrical genres. Like his better-known works of music-theater, especially Candide, it does indeed cross over many stylistic lines between popular and classical, musical theater and opera, comedy and tragedy. As a result, the work can be emotionally confusing. But in a way, that is oddly compelling. When the doo-wop-trio-turned-Greek-chorus sings of the “joys” of suburban life in that almost-too-rich Swing style that Bernstein was so good at, we don’t know if we’re hearing bitter irony or a “that’s just the way it is” romp. It’s a troubled feeling of not knowing what to feel that, once gotten used to, can be very powerful and, at the same time, entertaining.

In this production, that expressive ambiguity was highlighted by baritone Stephen Salters in the role of Sam. With his strong, velvety voice, he presented this character as a complex mix of levity, sadness, frustration, exhaustion, and hope, all with a subtle equivocacy that left the audience wondering whether to like him or not. It was a deep interpretation that, in many ways, represented the emotional core of the whole work. Salters was also a good foil for mezzo-soprano Sandra Piques Eddy, whose rich voice was a bit too monochromatic for the varied emotive hues of Dinah. Eddy did, however, shine with burlesque-ish delight in the “What a Movie” aria, the comic-yet-biting centerpiece of the play. In addition to the two main singers, the solo trio of Megan Roth, Brian Robinson, and David Lara was well balanced, both musically and dramatically. The cast and orchestra as a whole did a very good job of capturing the various musical moods in the work, though they all seemed to have a little trouble with the swing syncopations, as if everyone were snapping on the beats rather than between them.

If Bernstein’s work is a model of multi-layered drama, Lee Hoiby’s Bon Appétit! is its antithesis. It is a credit to Hoiby’s keen sense of theatricality that he did exactly what should be done given the material: create a solid, well-written work of sheer entertainment. For the “libretto” the composer essentially transcribed and combined a couple of Julia Childs’s cooking show episodes. He was well aware of the main character’s naturally melodious speaking voice, and rather than working against it as a more “serious” modern composer might have done, he built on it, turning her inflections into song. Then, as if baking a cake himself, he layered simple-yet-tasty melodies and harmonies, kneaded in clever musical references, and frosted it all with colorful orchestrations. BMO’s particular recipe added Judy Kaye to the mix; she clearly owns the role, now that Jean Stapleton is no longer with us. Kaye’s delivery was so natural and unencumbered by any self-conscious acting that, had she been taller, one could have believed it was Julia herself on the stage.

Much like the works themselves, the stagings for both were fine displays of effective simplicity. The paintings — giant, framed, and atmospherically lit — that dropped in and out of the stage in Tahiti were charmingly suggestive of the various locations of each scene. They also evoked a sort of boxed-in feeling and a hint of fragmentation appropriate to the psychology of the piece. The single set for Bon Appétit! was a detailed and convincingly realistic replica of Childs’s studio kitchen, complete with functioning mixer and real food. All in all, both productions were tasteful and tasty, very much in keeping with BMO’s mission of “making opera as accessible as possible.”

Additional performances are on July 30 and August

Tom Schnauber is a Boston-based composer and is currently serving as chair of the Performance Arts Department at Emmanuel College. He holds a Ph.D. in composition and Theory from the University of Michigan.

]]> http://classical-scene.com/2010/07/29/boston-midsummer/feed/ 0 http://classical-scene.com/2010/06/26/biava/ http://classical-scene.com/2010/06/26/biava/#comments Sun, 27 Jun 2010 03:32:15 +0000 Tom Schnauber http://classical-scene.com/?p=4138 String Quartet No. 7, Op. 87 but served the other two works to great effect. Song of the Silkie by Elena Ruehr creates a half-moonlit-shanty effect that the Quartet vividly brought to life. Baritone Stephen Salters delivered the lines with an achingly evocative mournfulness. The lightheartedness and downright fun of the String Quartet in D by Arnold Schoenberg, written when he was a student, radiated throughout the Biava Quartet’s performance.          [Click title for full review.]]]> After 12 years of national and international performing, including eight seasons at the Rockport Chamber Music Festival, the Biava String Quartet gave its last performance on June 25 in Rockport’s impressive new Shalin Liu Performance Center. Aside from the youth of the players themselves—with an average age of barely 30, they theoretically still have many years of playing ahead of them, what made this lively farewell concert particularly notable was the refreshingly unusual program they chose for their final appearance.

First on the program was Darius Milhaud’s String Quartet No. 7, Op. 87. With its modal melodies, lush and bright polytonal harmonies, and neo-Classical structure, it sits squarely in the sound-realm of early 2oth-century French composition. Like most music from that tradition, this work requires subtly hued sonorities to give it depth. Though the Quartet played the work with jauntiness and a fine ear for intonation, its somewhat undifferentiated sense of ensemble balance was too rich and weighty. The players never quite achieved the gauze-like textural transparency and breezy bounce that bring this charming music to life, instead settling for a sonic sameness that kept the piece from really getting off the ground.

However, that very sense of level playing served the other two works on the program to great effect. Following the Milhaud was Song of the Silkie for baritone and string quartet, an RCMF-commissioned work from 2000 by Elena Ruehr (text by Laura Harrington). According to the composer — who gave a brief, comfortably engaging talk (and a little song, too) about the work beforehand, the commission had been to write a piece about the sea. Harrington’s text, a story based on Irish folktales of a seaman who fell in love with a seal that took the form of a human woman (a “silkie”), provided the narrative for a work of effective nautical sonorities. Darkly shimmering, watery textures alternate with jig- and reel-like rhythms turned inside out to create a half-moonlit-shanty effect that the Quartet vividly brought to life. These textures support the daring vocal part that serves as the expressive core of the piece. The singer is scored in his natural range for the part of the seaman and in falsetto for the part of the silkie, an impressive theatrical device. Within those registers, the vocal lines are broad and expansive. Baritone Stephen Salters took hold of those lines and delivered them with an achingly evocative mournfulness, beautifully balancing the emotional distance in the music with the intense immediacy of the text.

The final work on the program was a string quartet by Arnold Schoenberg, written in 1897 when he was a student. If Brahms and Beethoven had had an affair in the Schwarzwald, this piece would have been their love-child. Although most would never suspect it was by the man who would later invent the jagged language of Twelve-Tone composition, it nonetheless reveals hallmarks of this composer’s entire output: the Beethovenian tendency to expand and build on basic melodic gestures, the Brahmsian rhythmic Gemüt, and an unwavering mastery of overall craft. What is perhaps less characteristic is the lightheartedness, the downright fun of the piece. And it was precisely this element that radiated throughout the Biava Quartet’s performance of all four movements. Their natural sense of rich, Romantic ensemble playing, combined with their skill and youthful vigor, resulted in a rousing rendition of this little-known piece that ended up being the perfect closer for a concert and a career.

As the Biava Quartet’s life comes to an end, the life of the space in which they performed is just beginning. The Shalin Liu Performance Center opened on June 10 and has already featured 10 concerts. The look of the space is magnificent: beachy-chic, with subtly elegant stone- and woodwork, a massive behind-the-stage window with a glorious view of Sandy Bay, and an overall design that lets all 300-plus listeners feel intimately connected to the performers on the stage. Most important, however, are the stunning acoustics, a near-perfect balance of resonance and clarity. One can look forward to watching this space quickly take its place among the world’s finest performing venues.

Tom Schnauber is a Boston-based composer and is currently serving as chair of the Performance Arts Department at Emmanuel College. He holds a Ph.D. in composition and Theory from the University of Michigan.

A great part of this success was thanks to the cast, who were required to sing their numbers in French but speak their dialogue in English, an effective (and historically precedented) theatrical device. Stephanie Blythe cut a whimsically imposing figure as the Grande-Duchesse. Her rich, Marilyn Horne-like voice filled the hall with a stunning presence that took some getting used to in this light-opera context. But she was rarely overbearing (unless called for), and her range of expression was remarkable. And although she did not engage in the physical burlesquery that most of the other cast members did, her comedic timing in both song and speech was impeccable.  Scott Ramsay presented a charmingly boyish Fritz, with a smooth, facile voice colored by a salon-esque sound perfect for French operetta. James Maddalena was an enjoyably grouchy General Boum; and Torrance Blaisdell and Lee Gregory threw themselves into the roles of Baron Puck and Prince Paul, respectively, singing and acting with over-the-top flamboyance that walked but never crossed the line between comic and inane.  Wendy Bryn Harmer was energetic as Wanda, though she had some trouble expressing the youthful innocence of the character. Her strong, agile voice was a bit too dramatic for the part, and she seemed awkward in her attempts at being girlish. (The dowdy costumes she was made to wear were no help either.)  Regardless, everyone on stage was clearly having a grand old time, and it was infectious; a good thing considering the three-hour length of the work.

Robert Perdziola’s set-design was endearingly simple and probably close, at least in spirit, to what the original production might have looked like.  It consisted primarily of large backdrops in various styles of 19th-century painting and a few judiciously selected props. The period costumes he chose — Wanda’s premature aging effect notwithstanding — allowed the performers to blend into the scenery as if they themselves were part of the picture; a clever use of space, since the stage was so small (for such a large cast) that the players could often do little more than stand and pose anyway. Still, there was some lively choreography, especially in trio numbers with Boum, Puck, and Paul, as well as a delightfully goofy sort of “anti-Can-Can” in the third act performed with gleeful abandon by the male chorus members.

The performance was led by music director Gil Rose, who exercised confident control throughout all the acts. Although he was unable to capture the burgundy-hued brightness and Parisian sparkle that really make Offenbach’s music come alive, his tempi were brisk enough to keep the momentum flowing and the audience from drifting. The orchestra was beautifully balanced, and blended well with the singers.  In fact, all the elements of this attractive production came together for a fetching bit of Franco-Bostonian entertainment.

Tom Schnauber is a Boston-based composer and is currently serving as chair of the Performance Arts Department at Emmanuel College. He holds a Ph.D. in composition and Theory from the University of Michigan.

]]> http://classical-scene.com/2010/05/05/la-grande-duchesse-fetching-franco-bostonian-entertainment/feed/ 3 http://classical-scene.com/2010/04/25/dancing-most-convincing-element-of-phoolan-devi%e2%80%99s-journey-to-boston/ http://classical-scene.com/2010/04/25/dancing-most-convincing-element-of-phoolan-devi%e2%80%99s-journey-to-boston/#comments Sun, 25 Apr 2010 12:27:55 +0000 Tom Schnauber http://classical-scene.com/?p=3541 On April 24th at Boston University’s Tsai Music Center, Musica Viva premiered Phoolan Devi: The Bandit Queen, as a “multi-media chamber opera” with both Western and Eastern musical and visual influences by composer/librettist Shirish Korde. The story is of Phoolan Devi, a lower-caste woman from Uttar Pradesh turned bandit leader turned Indian politician. The cast of about a half dozen singers and 20-plus dancers, along with a small ensemble of six Western and two Indian instrumentalists, was conducted with authority by Viva’s music director Richard Pittman.

In this production by Lynn Kramer, who also served as co-librettist and co-choreographer, dancing emerged as the most convincing and evocative dramatic device. The dancers who portrayed Phoolan at various stages in her life were able to do so to provocative and, at times, devastating effect. Unfortunately, the other media did not quite measure up to the power of the dancing. Korde’s music demonstrated the difficulties inherent in attempting to merge the classical traditions of India and the West.

There were, however, some remarkable musical moments: a thrilling percussion duet (accompanying an equally thrilling dance) for tabla and various Western drums was played with great energy by Aditya Kalyanpur and Robert Schulz; and the opening and closing scenes made striking use of the oddly beautiful mismatch of timbres from vocalists Elizabeth Keusch and Deepti Navaratna. There were also some lovely moments in general, such as the haunting Yamuna River scene; and though the mixture of live and pre-recorded music often created a sonic imbalance, the overall effect could at times be mesmerizing.             [Click title for full review.]

The Spectrum Singers, a remarkable ensemble of “amateur singers” founded and led by John Ehrlich, has been giving high-quality performances of a wide variety of choral music for nearly 30 years. On March 6, in the First Church Congregational, Cambridge, the ensemble continued its tradition, presenting music by three composers, each from a different country and time period.

The concert opened with four Latin motets by the 19^th-century Austrian composer Anton Bruckner: “Locus iste,” “Os justi,” “Ave Maria,” and “Virga Jesse”. They are works that reveal his depth without suffering from his often overbearing sense of timing, resulting in some of the most concise expansiveness ever created in the Western canon. Each work is a self-contained universe encompassing a huge ambitus across the choir, broad phrases, waves of sequences, and swelling dynamics. The Spectrum Singers were at their finest with these pieces, capturing all the richness of compositional craft that the music has to offer. More importantly, though, their delivery radiated the wide and seemingly contradictory emotional range contained in these works—passionate reverence, plaintive joy, aching peace—with stunning power and sensitivity. Their performance seemed to stretch space and slow time, so that at the end of every piece, though only minutes had passed, one had experienced a lifetime of expressions.

The Bruckner motets would have been worth the price of admission all by themselves. Nonetheless, the program continued with a work by the 20th-century British composer Benjamin Britten, an unsurpassed master of choral music. His Rejoice in the Lamb, a multi-sectioned work for choir, soloists, and organ, is a setting of some quirky yet deeply pious poetry by his 18th-century countryman, Christopher Smart. While Bruckner’s music wants to embody the entirety of Heaven in a bottle, Britten’s impact usually comes from choosing a single image in the text as an expressive springboard for the entire section, a habit that lent itself well to setting Smart’s wordy verse. For instance, the unexpectedly quiet, almost introverted final chorus takes its musical cue not from the first word “Hallelujah”, but from the word “sweetness” near the end of the poem. Overall, the Singers presented a solid and colorful performance of this fascinating and technically challenging work, despite the occasional stumble over mouthfuls of words in some faster phrases. The four soloists sang with grace and style, though their positioning in the chorus created a distance between them and the audience that was less than effective.

The final work on the program was a setting of the “Gloria” portion of Latin Mass for treble soloists, choir, and large ensemble (provided by the Orchestra of Emmanuel Music) by 17th-century Italian composer Antonio Vivaldi. It is one of his more popular and effective works, featuring some of his most attractive vocal writing. He took a text that is normally presented as a single entity and divided it into separate, self-contained works, the interpretive challenge of which is to fully express the character of each individual piece while still creating cohesion across the whole. The one major fault in this performance was that Ehrlich seemed reticent to indulge in the more deliberate tempi needed in some of the pieces, resulting in a slightly cut-up, hurried feel overall. This deficiency was especially felt in the “Et in terra pax,” a grippingly powerful piece of long phrases and gut-wrenching suspension chains that requires a more slowly pulsating tempo than it was given. In general, however, ensemble and soloists performed with satisfying musicianship. The joyous “Laudamus te” for two sopranos was sung with light, sprightly verve by sopranos Susan Consoli and Kathi Tighe, whose vocal character and sonorities were well-matched. Consoli’s sweet, clear voice also blended beautifully with the solo oboe in the lovely “Domine Deus.” Alto Elaine Bresnick’s steely, slightly husky voice gave the intense “Qui sedes” a strange and dramatic flair. And in all cases, the melodic lines were creatively ornamented in the best Baroque tradition, hardly surprising from an ensemble that is so clearly comfortable in any century.

Tom Schnauber is a Boston-based composer and is currently serving as chair of the Performance Arts Department at Emmanuel College. He holds a Ph.D. in composition and Theory from the University of Michigan.

]]> http://classical-scene.com/2010/03/08/spectrum-singers-comfortable-in-any-century-live-up-to-their-name/feed/ 0 http://classical-scene.com/2010/02/05/evocative-setting-for-ghostly-turn-blo-at-the-castle-inboxx/ http://classical-scene.com/2010/02/05/evocative-setting-for-ghostly-turn-blo-at-the-castle-inboxx/#comments Fri, 05 Feb 2010 17:04:28 +0000 Tom Schnauber http://classical-scene.com/?p=2632 rd, the Boston Lyric Opera inaugurated its Opera Annex series with a remarkable production of Benjamin Britten’s The Turn of the Screw at the Park Plaza Castle in Boston’s South End; one can hardly imagine a more evocative setting. The score is strangely direct and haunting, with textures that tend to be spare, conjuring up the ghostly, lonely images. Conductor Andrew Bisantz led the small group of instrumentalists with skill and an impeccable ear for balance. He seemed content to play a supporting role, letting the singers carry the bulk of the musical drama; a good decision, given the nature of this work. In the interludes that fall between each scene, the musicianship was effective and inspired. For the most part, the stage and sets were appropriately chilling in their simplicity. The large screen on which were projected silent, live-action, vignettes of the characters in mundane off-stage activities, was a constant source of distraction. Fortunately, the onstage performances were engrossing enough to overshadow any distractions. Soprano Emily Pulley, the Governess, brilliantly delivered the depth and breadth of the character’s journey from innocence, through fear, defiance, and desperation, to sad acceptance. Rideout, in the role of the ghost Peter Quint, was equally mesmerizing. Aidan Gent, 13, was the boy; his voice was steady yet aptly boyish, and his stage presence was confident. Kathryn Skemp as Miles’s sister Flora sang with great energy and a bright, clear voice but far too adult-sounding for the role of a young girl. Joyce Castle was vocally solid and dramatically engaging as Mrs. Grose, though she played the part perhaps a bit too dodderingly. And though the rich, powerful voice of Rebecca Nash, who sang the role of the other spirit, Miss Jessel, made it difficult for her to match Rideout’s spooky alluringness, it did evoke an unexpected and moving sorrowfulness.      [Click title for full review.]]]> On February 3^rd, the Boston Lyric Opera inaugurated its Opera Annex series with a remarkable production of Benjamin Britten’s The Turn of the Screw.  Based on the book by Henry James, with a libretto by Myfanwy Piper, it is one of Britten’s most fascinatingly complex scores.  Yet it is also strangely direct and haunting, in large part, because of its sparseness. A chamber opera, it features only six characters (plus a fleetingly used narrator) and 13 instrumentalists. Though Britten had an uncanny ability to make a small ensemble sound huge, it is a skill that he rarely calls upon in this work. Instead, the textures tend to be spare, conjuring the ghostly, lonely images that are so much a part of this Gothic tale.

The performance took place at the Park Plaza Castle in Boston’s South End, and one can hardly imagine a more evocative setting.  The building’s architecture, which lives up to its “castle” designation, arouses a sense of shadowy emptiness. Inside, behind heavy wooden doors, is a cavernous, brick- and iron-wrought space like the ghostly shell of a 19^th-century train station. The BLO set-designers worked dark wonders with this space, erecting large, fortress-like tiers of risers from which the sizeable audience could clearly see and hear the gloomy story that unfolds.

For the most part, the stage and sets were appropriately chilling in their simplicity.  A long runway stretched from stage right to a larger, trapezoidal section stage left. On this section were two chairs and a desk that, aside from a handful of small props, were the only objects there. The instrumental ensemble was placed behind the runway, effectively integrating it into the dramatic atmosphere.  Above it, however, was the one troublesome aspect to the set design: a large screen on which, throughout the opera, were projected silent, live-action, vignettes of the characters engaged in mundane off-stage activities. It was a constant source of distraction—not to mention an unnecessary departure from the libretto—and was just too busy for the dim bareness of the place, itself perhaps the most compelling part of staging.

Fortunately, the onstage performances were engrossing enough to overshadow any distractions. Most notable among the cast were soprano Emily Pulley and tenor Vale Rideout. In the central role of the Governess, Pulley was able to brilliantly deliver the depth and breadth of the character’s journey from innocence, through fear, defiance, and desperation, to sad acceptance.  The emotional course of the entire opera moves with that of the Governess, and Pulley’s mastery of the role gave the work the dimension it demands. Rideout, in the role of the ghost Peter Quint, was equally mesmerizing. Though somewhat stilted in his acting, he made up for it vocally with a seductiveness that was both eerie and forceful, allowing him to make the most of the mono-dimensional yet disturbingly enticing character.

The role of Miles, the young boy in the story, is impossibly difficult to capture fully by an age-appropriate performer. It calls for a bizarre mixture of childhood innocence, inappropriate maturity born of possession, occasional boredom, and outright fear. Given the challenges—which would be daunting even to an adult—13-year old Aidan Gent carried the part admirably. His voice was steady yet aptly boyish, and his stage presence was confident.

Miles’s sister Flora was sung by soprano Kathryn Skemp with great energy and a bright, clear voice that was far too adult sounding for the role of a young girl. As such, she blended very well with the other women on stage, but almost always overpowered Gent when they were singing together. Joyce Castle was vocally solid and dramatically engaging as Mrs. Grose, though she played the part perhaps a bit too dodderingly. And though the rich, powerful voice of Rebecca Nash, who sang the role of the other spirit, Miss Jessel, made it difficult for her to match Rideout’s spooky alluringness, it did evoke an unexpected and moving sorrowfulness.

Conductor Andrew Bisantz led the small group of instrumentalists with skill and an impeccable ear for balance. He seemed content to play a supporting role, letting the singers carry the bulk of the musical drama; a good decision, given the nature of this work. In those instances when the players were the focal point, especially the interludes that fall between each scene, the musicianship was effective and inspired.

Under its new management, the BLO “hopes to take opera in Boston to a new level.”  With this production, it is well on its way.

See related article here.

Tom Schnauber is a Boston-based composer and is currently serving as chair of the Performance Arts Department at Emmanuel College. He holds a Ph.D. in composition and Theory from the University of Michigan. He is also co-founder and co-director of the arts organization WordSong.

The first half of the concert presented two classics sandwiching a brand new work. It opened with Igor Stravinsky’s Symphonies of Wind Instruments (1920), one of the great standards of the wind orchestra repertoire. It is a mini masterpiece, characterized by dynamic textural contrasts, gritty harmonies, and a clarity of structure that hints at the neoclassicism the composer would later embrace. Rose’s interpretation seemed to favor some of these features to the detriment of others, however. The rhythmic accuracy was impressive; and the ensemble’s intonation was impeccable, giving powerful resonance to the darkly rich chords in the work. Yet the performance as a whole seemed somewhat constrained, especially in terms of articulation and the varying instrumental colors, a main component of the piece’s design. The bright hues lacked sparkle, the earthy long-tones missed depth, and the watercolor legato scales were wanting in fluidity, so that the overall effect was a sonic sameness that kept the piece from really coming alive.

On the other hand, such stark contrasts are generally not characteristic of Percy Grainger’s music. Instead, his many and brilliant works for wind ensemble concentrate on broad strokes of lavish instrumental colors and flavorfully inflected melodies.  The Power of Rome and the Christian Heart (1953), though not as well-known as his other band works, is pure Grainger, from the hymn-like portative organ solo that seems to be leaking from an old, salt-worn church, to the oceanic instrumentation that gives the piece the feel of a steroid-infused sea shanty. This feel, along with the fitful dynamic swells, the nuanced phrasing, and the overall, hyper-lush wind-band sound were all beautifully captured by Rose and the ensemble.

The work that fell between the Stravinsky and the Grainger was Harold Meltzer’s Privacy (2008). Scored for piano (played by Ursula Oppens, for whom the work was written) and a medium-sized ensemble, it was annoyingly unimpressive. The scoring was awkward, and the clumsy syncopations served to confuse soloist and ensemble so that Oppens and Rose often seemed unintentionally out of step throughout (though perhaps this is what the composer means when he calls the piece an “anti concerto”).

If the first part of the concert had its unsuccessful moments, the second half more than made up for them with two fascinating pieces, each of which were worth the price of admission. Wayne Peterson’s And the Winds Shall Blow (1994) is an engaging and, at points, thrilling concerto grosso of sorts for saxophone quartet and wind ensemble. Its complex, atonal language is expressed through dense, prickly textures, full of rapid runs and dynamic outbursts. The saxophonists of the PRISM Quartet had a remarkably lyrical take on the fragmented, almost pointillistic phrases through which they interacted with the ensemble, itself skillfully balanced by Rose. The structure of the piece seemed to be a wild stream of consciousness, culminating in a long, beautifully played quartet-cadenza that captured all the various moods and gestures that had come before.

The final piece on the program was Joseph Schwantner’s Recoil (2004). A work of brazenly sophisticated barbarism, it bursts forth like Conan raised to demigod status, treading the Earth with a host of fallen angels (eerie passages sung by members of the band) and prehistoric kings (the BMOP percussionists in full force). The work was delivered by Rose and the ensemble with enthusiastic, almost wild exuberance. The program as a whole may have been inconsistent, but the ending was sensational.

Tom Schnauber is a Boston-based composer and is currently serving as chair of the Performance Arts Department at Emmanuel College. He holds a Ph.D. in composition and Theory from the University of Michigan.

]]> http://classical-scene.com/2010/01/24/bmop-does-band/feed/ 4 http://classical-scene.com/2009/12/22/something-wonderful-trek-thru-snow-for-boston-camerata-and-sharq/ http://classical-scene.com/2009/12/22/something-wonderful-trek-thru-snow-for-boston-camerata-and-sharq/#comments Tue, 22 Dec 2009 23:42:40 +0000 Tom Schnauber http://classical-scene.com/?p=2275 By the 13^th century, much of the Iberian Peninsula had cultivated a colorful sonic blend of early Arabic and Medieval European sensibilities that is by and large ignored by the standard Western canon. On December 20^th at the First Lutheran Church in Boston, The Boston Camerata, with three musicians from Sharq Arabic Music Ensemble, delivered “A Mediterranean Christmas.”

One offering, eight cantigas of the Virgin Mary attributed to the Castilian King Alfonso X “el Sabio,” allowed both Sharq and Camerata to combine effectively the sounds of distinctly Arabic instruments, like the oud, nay, and zurna, with their distinctly European cousins, like the lauta, recorder, and shawm.

For all the musicological feasting, what really made the concert a delight was that it was delivered with such skilled and joyful musicianship. The vocal sonorities the Camerata’s three singers, Anne Azéma, Salomé Sandoval, and Anne Harley, were perfectly matched, especially effective in Joel Cohen’s artful realizations of early polyphonic songs from Limoges. The real standout performer, however, was Sharq’s Mehmet Sanlikol. He proved himself a master of improvisation on the oud and the zurna; but his true gift is his singing. His achingly emotive performances of the Sephardic “Respondemos” and the Turkish “Sen bir Guzel Meleksin” were simply stunning.

The audience's trek through the snow, much like that of the Magi’s across the desert in that old story, led to something wonderful. [Click title for full review.]

Handel was a renowned composer of vocal music, able to dash off finely crafted, attractive melodies at the drop of a powdered wig.  It was a gift that served him well as the premiere composer of Italian opera in early-18^th-century England.  Even so, the point of most of the arias from that period was not to demonstrate compositional skill, but rather to serve as a vehicle for the vocalist to show off dazzling technique and improvisatory imagination.  In the two arias by Handel that were featured on the program, Scholl was able to recreate that aesthetic with a clear, flexible tone, convincing musicality, and a clever sense of ornamentation, especially noticeable in the da capo of “Se parla nel mio cor” from the opera Giustino.  Spinosi and the H&H Society Orchestra supported Scholl’s interpretations with energetic yet properly Neapolitan grace.

Vivaldi, on the other hand, was no great tunesmith.  His music lives through motivic gestures energized by compelling rhythmic momentum and a highly coloristic sense of instrumentation.  From the first downbeat of the evening, which started off the composer’s three-part overture to La fida ninfa, it was clear that Spinosi and the orchestra were going to be making the most of those characteristics, especially the colors.  The storminess of the opening section was captured with an almost palpable electric buzz from the low strings, and the entire work was driven with controlled yet dramatically emotive dynamic extremes.  Even more impressive was their performance of the B-minor Sinfonia “Al santo Sepolcro”, in which the group captured the mysterious murkiness in the long, dissonant tones that open the work, as well as the eerie beauty that emerges from those catacombed sonorities.  In this piece, even the ensemble’s miserly approach to vibrato in the high strings—a characteristic that was somewhat annoying in livelier works—proved to be particularly effective.

Scholl, too, had to contend with the fact that Vivaldi’s music is not about beautiful tunes; and in this case, the glassy sonority of his voice sometimes got in the way.  Interpretively, he was remarkable: his recitatives were direct and conversational, and his arias were excitingly emotive, both approaches being particularly effective in the emotionally fraught Cessate, omai cessate.  The problem was that the more he tried to vary his vocal color for dramatic effect, the less his voice actually projected, resulting in him often being buried in the textures.  This was particularly noticeable in places where Spinosi’s energetic conducting drove the ensemble to the fore in order to highlight Vivaldi’s instrumental word-painting.  In all fairness to both singer and conductor, however, Symphony Hall is much too large a space for this kind of music; although Baroque opera houses were, by many accounts, also huge and acoustically challenging, that particular aspect of period-faithfulness seems an undesirable one to revisit.

The truly stunning moments of the evening were those in which Vivaldi’s orchestral hues called for Spinosi to pull the ensemble back, allowing Scholl to project without force.  It also seems that this particular vocalist’s tone and temperament are uniquely suited to dark, aching melancholy.  In the central aria of Filiae maestae Jerusalem, the composer paints the hushed winds and frozen fields with a near-silence that is cold and hollow, a texture over which Scholl was able to sing out with mesmerizingly desolate expression.  In fact, the work that was arguably the weakest on the program in terms of compositional sophistication ended up being the most effective in terms of musical performance: Vivaldi’s Stabat Mater, a drawn out, repetitive lament, was treated by both singer and conductor with such rich, expressive somberness, that it resulted in one of those rare and wonderful occasions where the performance raised the level of the music beyond its own intrinsic quality.  Though the work ended the program on a topically sad note, the artistry of the musicians on stage was at its best, leaving the listener in that oddly positive mood that often comes from having heard unhappiness expressed so beautifully.

Tom Schnauber is a Boston-based composer and is currently serving as chair of the Performance Arts Department at Emmanuel College. He holds a Ph.D. in composition and Theory from the University of Michigan.

The Florestan Recital Project, a Boston-based organization of singers and pianists dedicated to “exploring and presenting the full spectrum of song repertoire,” has taken it upon itself to present the entire collection of Barber’s songs for voice and piano — some 75 altogether, including a number of unpublished works. The second program in this three-concert series, which took place on September 26^th in Tufts University’s Distler Performance Hall, demonstrated just how effective and enlightening a well-organized and skillfully performed exploration of a single composer’s output can be.

The songs on this program were presented more or less in chronological order, starting with works from Barber’s pre-teen years and ending with the cycle Despite and Still, completed when he was 58 years old. The stylistic progression from an inordinately talented youngster to a mature master was fascinating to hear. His Nursery Songs, written between the ages of 10 and 13, demonstrate keen and serious mimicry of the late-Romantic textural and tonal thickness that was still in vogue at the time (though “I Do Not Like Thee, Dr. Fell” made one wonder if he wasn’t already mature enough to express self-irony). In his mid-teens, Barber seemed to have become braver, using sparser textures with more variety and color, as heard in his Three Songs (1925-1926). This set contained some lovely word-painting, as in the end of “Hey Nonny No!”, and even a clever nod to J.S. Bach in “An Earnest Visit to His Unkind Mistress” (a reference that all young composers seem obliged to indulge in at some point). In his twenties, the composer truly began to mature, breaking away from chromatic tonality and creating accompanimental textures that are coherent in their economy, yet flexible in their expressive impact. The effectiveness of such an approach is particularly evident in “The Secrets of the Old” and “In the Dark Pinewood,” a shimmering gem that even rivals songs of his masterful contemporary, Benjamin Britten, in its brilliant frugality. By the time he was in his late 50s, Barber had himself mastered a musical language that allowed the deeply personal and poignant sentiments in Despite and Still to emerge with stunning sonic imagery.

The Florestan performers brought their exceptional talents to all these dramatically varied songs. Pianists John McDonald and Alison d’Amato each supported the vocalists with a fine ear and a full-bodied, cushiony touch that never overpowered the voices; though there were many times when they seemed to hold back too much, missing opportunities for the piano to sing out and articulate the accompanimental word-painting that Barber built into many of the songs. However, the singers themselves were more than able to bring a wealth of expression to the performances. Mezzo-soprano Janna Baty covered the expressive gamut from humorous to grave with a voice that, despite its full, operatic quality (often a handicap for singers of art songs), demonstrated a remarkable variety of colors and moods. The richness of her instrument was particularly well-suited to darker-tinged songs, such as “The Queen’s Face on the Summery Coin” and “Love’s Caution”. Similarly, Aaron Engebreth’s powerful baritone voice never got in the way of his intensely engaging ability to tell a story through his singing. The copper-hued velvet of his sound was particularly effective in “Watchers” and in his moving interpretation of the varied emotions contained in the Despite and Still cycle.

The astute program order and the high-quality performances ensured that the “style fatigue” that can often result from a concert of music by a single composer never set in. Instead, the evening was compelling and very satisfying.

Tom Schnauber is a Boston-based composer and is currently serving as chair of the Performance Arts Department at Emmanuel College. He holds a Ph.D. in composition and Theory from the University of Michigan.

]]> http://classical-scene.com/2009/09/27/compelling-performance-of-barber-songs-by-florestan-project/feed/ 0 http://classical-scene.com/2009/08/24/gypsy-night-with-the-bcms/ http://classical-scene.com/2009/08/24/gypsy-night-with-the-bcms/#comments Tue, 25 Aug 2009 02:34:37 +0000 Tom Schnauber http://classical-scene.com/?p=1429 On August 22^nd in Longy’s Pickman Hall, the Boston Chamber Music Society presented a program—the third in the Hamel Summer Series—featuring music that, to varying degrees, highlighted the Western fascination with the exotic music of European Roma (Gypsies).

Violinist Steven Copes, cellist Ronald Thomas, and pianist Mihae Lee performed F.J. Haydn’s Piano Trio in G major, subtitled “Gypsy,” to which Lee brought an animated albeit somewhat heavy touch, Copes a musical yet somewhat-too-Romantic approach, and Thomas a color and sensitivity that was perfect for the work. Brahms's Piano Trio in B major, Op. 8, the last work on the program, is a prime example of this composer’s rich and intuitive absorption of Roma sounds and gestures; and the three players certainly made the most of it.

It might be a stretch to associate the music of Claude Debussy with that of the Roma. There is, however, one feature of his Cello Sonata that at least parallels Roma expression, namely the frequent, almost conversational changes in mood and gesture, especially in the second movement. Sandwiched between the two “Gypsy” pieces, it was the highlight of the evening for no other reason than Ronald Thomas’s brilliantly nuanced playing. [Click title for full review]

Pianist Mihae Lee opened the program with F. J. Haydn’s Piano Sonata in C Major (Hob. XVI:50).  The composer’s penultimate work in this genre, it reflects all the wit and easy skill of seasoned mastery colored with a mischievous sense of humor; the humor of a kindly aged genius who takes you by the arm and, with a knowing wink that suggests he will safely guide you to the door, leads you right into the wall.  The music is clever, sparkling, and peppered with quirky counterpoint and textural contrasts.   Lee managed to bring out many of these characteristics through playing that was bright, energetic, and technically facile.  Yet the jouncing contrasts in the development section of the Allegro, as well as the delicious changes in the Adagio suffered from a somewhat monochromatic touch.  And the whole performance was too straight-laced, like that of an actor who can’t quite get out of her shell enough to deliver the capriciousness of the lines—especially in the Allegro molto, which should have just been plain funnier.

Lee more than made up for the short-comings of her Haydn, though, when she was joined by violinist Jennifer Frautschi and hornist Eric Ruske for John Harbison’s extraordinary Twilight Music.  The combination of violin, horn, and piano is a devilishly difficult one to manage, since each instrument has such differing sonic qualities.  Yet Harbison, with his usual mastery of instrumental hues, crafted a four-section work that was acoustically cohesive, and that ran an expressive gamut from achingly impassioned to forcefully driven to nostalgically direct.  In this case, Lee did an admirable job of providing the necessary flavors and colors from the piano.  Frautschi and Ruske also delivered their often very challenging parts with great skill and technical sensitivity.   The only flaws in the ensemble work stemmed from the fact that Frautschi is a far more lyrical and emotive player than either Lee or Ruske.   While this resulted in an expressive imbalance in the intense first section, it actually worked to the piece’s advantage in the final section in which, according to the composer, an “image of separation grows directly out of the nature of the instruments”; and, in this case, the players, too.

Perhaps as homage to the composer who pioneered the horn trio, or perhaps as a pre-intermission palate-cleanser for those audience members who might have found Harbison’s tonal language a bit piquant, Frautschi and Lee offered up Johannes Brahms’s Scherzo in C minor from the F.A.E Violin Sonata.  While it was a rousing performance overall, Frautschi’s lyricism worked against her this time in that it tempered too much the wildly contrasting, Gypsy-bitten abandon this piece needs to really take off.

For the final work on the program, Lee and Frautschi were joined by cellist Andrew Mark for L. v. Beethoven’s Piano Trio in G major (Op 1, No. 2).  This is an early work, written when the composer was in his twenties and still in a more or less good mood.  He was also under the influence of Haydn, all of which led to a piece that embodies an inordinate amount of Gemüt.  The trio played the work with energy, enthusiasm, and a fine sense of ensemble.  However, much like the rendering of the Haydn that opened the program, the performance failed to capture the real sparkle, the heightened sense of playfulness, in this case from a young composer who knows he’s brilliant and revels in it.  Hence, the crafty Allegro could have been livelier, the dulcet Largo could have been sweeter, and the jaunty Scherzo could have been bouncier.   It wasn’t until the very last movement that all three players finally let their hair down and took the music where it really could and needed to go; and, judging by the enthusiastic applause, the audience was more than happy to follow.

Tom Schnauber is a Boston-based composer and is currently serving as chair of the Performance Arts Department at Emmanuel College. He holds a Ph.D. in composition and Theory from the University of Michigan.

The Boston Chamber Music Society’s Hamel Concert Series began its run on August 8^th at Longy’s Pickman Hall with a program that was indeed brave in this respect. The result was an enjoyable concert of the familiar that afforded modest thrills, some delightful surprises, and only a few un-managed dangers.

The program opened with pianist Pedja Muzijevic performing F. J. Haydn’s Piano Sonata in G major (1766). Like most early Haydn, it is a work of youthful wit and clever technique, with spring in its step. Some of that spring was dampened, however, by Muzijevic’s technical approach. It seemed to reflect a concession to the Steinway grand he was playing, resulting in a somewhat anachronistic Romantic touch to the music. At times, though, he used that touch to his advantage, creating some subtle and lovely sonic nuances, especially in the Trio of the second movement. But what was most impressive — indeed thrilling — about Muzijevic’s performance was what he did that was stylistically appropriate: he ornamented. Larger sections, such as the exposition of the first movement or the Minuet of the second movement, were, upon their structurally mandated returns, decorated by the pianist with delightful turns and trills, clever rhythmic variances, and even a couple of improvised transitions. It is a skill that so few pianists seem to have these days, which makes it all the more delightful and satisfying to hear, especially when done well.

Following the Haydn, Muzijevic was joined by violinist Arnaud Sussmann for the Violin Sonata in A major, Op. 100 by Johannes Brahms (1886). One of the dangers in Brahms’s music is the stratified phrasing that inhabits much of his large-scale works. Small, nearly fragmented phrases often appear in the foreground, and unless the performers bind them together using the larger, sweeping background phrases that hold them in place, they can come off as being somewhat nonsensical. This is certainly the case in the outer movements of this sonata; and, while Sussmann and Muzijevic engaged the micro-phrasing with great skill, the macro-phrasing never really got off the ground, giving the entire performance a bit of a disjointed feel.  On the other hand, the fact that they did focus their interpretive energies on the small phrases allowed them to toss these musical gestures back and forth with an ease that gave especially the first movement an unexpectedly delightful air of conversational informality, something that Brahms no doubt would have appreciated.

For the final piece on the program, Sussmann and Muzijevic were joined by cellist Julie Albers for a rousing performance of Robert Schumann’s Piano Trio in D-minor, Op. 63 (1847). And what made Brahms’s music stumble in the sonata made Schumann’s music fly in the trio. The fitfully energetic short-term phrasing that the players brought to the fast movements of this work gave it the heightened sense of agitated angst that propels this music forward. And if Albers often had projection issues when she needed to sing out, her ability to blend so sensitively with the piano created some eerily rich sonorities, especially in the third movement. In fact, all three performers brought so much innige Empfindung to this movement that it provided the richest and loveliest moments of the entire program.

Tom Schnauber is a Boston-based composer and is currently serving as chair of the Performance Arts Department at Emmanuel College. He holds a Ph.D. in composition and Theory from the University of Michigan.