Throughout his career, Ciconia absorbed local styles where he found them and influenced his contemporaries and successors in turn. The first two songs on the program — I cani sono fuora (The dogs are out) and Caçando un giorno (While hunting one day) — demonstrated his absorption of 14th-century Italian madrigal traditions: the use of hunting imagery in the texts, alternation of syllabic declamation with elaborate melisma, and brief snatches of imitation between the voices. These carefully crafted duets for treble and tenor require a fine attention to tuning and articulation, ably provided by Gerrod Pagenkopf, countertenor, and Owen McIntosh, tenor in the first instance, and Shannon Canavin, soprano, and McIntosh in the second. The three-voice ceremonial madrigal Una panthera was performed on three recorders by Héloïse Degrugillier, Justin Gody, and Tom Zajac. Although they played beautifully, it was still disappointing not to hear this interesting text, which features emphatically scored heraldic references to the city of Lucca and its protector, Giangaleazzo Visconti.

Giangaleazzo was known for his Francophile tastes (and he had a French wife). In striking contrast to the Italianate style of his madrigals, Ciconia composed the virelai Sus une fontayne (Above a fountain) in the rhythmically elaborate French style known as ars subtilior. Furthermore, this song skillfully incorporates the opening measures —- both text and music — of three songs by Philipoctus de Caserta, one of the foremost exponents of the ars subtilior style, who was also active at the Visconti court. Countertenor Near sang the texted part, while Tom Zajac, harp, and Karen Burciaga, vielle, carried the contratenor and tenor parts. Medieval and early Renaissance manuscripts never indicate who is to perform untexted parts, so modern interpreters have to decide whether to use instruments or voices. While some have insisted on all-vocal performance, the often disjunct lines of contratenor parts can sound convincing on a plucked string instrument, with the harmonically essential tenor played on a bowed instrument such as the vielle.  In the early 15th-century rondeau Ce jour de l’an (This New Year’s Day) by Baude Cordier, the choice of three recorders and vielle to accompany Near was less successful, the alto recorder doubling the voice and obscuring the articulation of the text.

Two Italian ballate dating from near the end of Ciconia’s career, along with a fragmentary — and skillfully reconstructed — ballata by the otherwise unknown composer Zaninus de Peraga de Padua completed the first half of the program. Certainly one of the highlights of the evening was McIntosh’s performance of Ciconia’s extraordinary O rosa bella (O lovely rose), which can take its place amongst the loveliest Italian songs of any period. His tenor in the haute-contre range brought out the expressive sweetness of the melodic line, intensified by repetitions, both literal and sequential, and smoothly swinging rhythms.

The second half of the program consisted primarily of motets, ceremonial pieces composed for persons and events connected with Ciconia’s career in Padua. By the early 15th century, a distinctly North Italian style of motet had developed, featuring two upper parts of equal range singing the same, or sometimes different, texts, with a tenor part that was more often freely composed than based on Gregorian chant (as in contemporaneous French motets). The melodious upper parts often began with a long passage in one part echoed by the second part, and the two parts often exchanged shorter motives that highlighted important text words. Countertenors Near and Gerrod Pagenkopf were perfectly matched as duet partners in O felix templum jubila ( Rejoice, O blessed church). The text apostrophizes the dedicatee, Stephano Carrara, and closes with a prayer that names the composer himself, followed by an elaborately imitative “Amen.” A much less public tribute was paid to Francesco Carrara upon his death in 1406, the family having been banished from Padua as the city came under Venetian rule. Con lagreme bagnandome nel viso (My face was bathed in tears) is couched in terms of a lament for a departed lover. The two parts were sung without accompaniment by Canavin and McIntosh. Three recorders sounded the motet O Padua sidus preclarum from the organ loft. An unlikely ensemble for early 15th-century Italy, they nonetheless provided a welcome change of focus. The last two motets on the program, both composed in honor of Ciconia’s patron Francesco Zabarella, were compositionally more ambitious, each with two upper voices singing two different texts, and each with two accompanying lower parts. Canavin and Pagenkopf were the singers in Doctorum principem/Melodia suavissima cantemus (The foremost of teachers/Let us sing in the sweetest melody), with Karen Burciaga’s vielle and Tom Zajac’s penetrating douçaine (an early double-reeded instrument) on the lower parts. Zabarella shared honors with his patron saint, Francis of Assisi, in Ut te per omnes celitus/Ingens alumnus Padue (So that we may follow you with the greatest veneration/Great son of Padua). Doubled by two recorders, Near and Pagenkopf sang the upper parts, with vielle and douçaine on the lower parts.

Mounting a program devoted to pre-Renaissance repertoire is always a daunting task. Ciconia’s music, engaging as it is, remains unfamiliar to most listeners, and the directors of Exsultemus, Shannon Canavin and Martin Near, are to be commended for assembling a group of topnotch musicians to perform this important music. If one can be allowed one wish for the future, it might be for more incisive text articulation, which tended to get lost in the search for tonal purity.

Virginia Newes, who now lives in Cambridge, was Associate Professor of Music History and Musicology at the Eastman School of Music.

The program began, appropriately enough, with Invocation by Charles Fussell (b. 1938), a choral setting of a compelling poem by May Sarton. Its first three stanzas address an unknown entity, summoning it “out of the dark earth … under the strong wave … into the pure air.” The final stanza reveals that the addressee is love, perhaps implying that love is the fourth element, fire. Originally written for chorus and one pianist, Fussell’s work was here performed in David Hoose’s arrangement for two pianos, featuring the excellent playing of Kopp and Lister. The attractive piece, with its arresting fanfare opening and tranquil, atmospheric conclusion, received a well-modulated, textually sensitive performance from Hoose and the chorus.

One of the bases for the program’s title was Some Thoughts on Keats and Coleridge by Earl Kim (1920-1998) which sets, mosaic-like, fragments of five poems by the two poets. This unorthodox procedure seems justified by the way these fragments all examine nature and the transience of life as well as their easy, natural progression from one to the next. Instead of specific word illustration, Kim lets the text selections inspire a mood, and again Hoose and the chorus were expert guides. The first poem, Coleridge’s Frost at Midnight, was given an exquisite, lush setting with echoes of Elgar’s and Holst’s partsongs. The second, Keats’s Ode to Psyche, felt like a continuation of Coleridge’s idea, and the music reflected this. If I once or twice wished for a bit more contrast of mood and texture during this work, I had to concede that the composer and performers were faithful to the imagery and tenor of the text selections, and given such deathless poetry (excerpts from Keats’s Ode to a Nightingale, Shed No Tear — O Shed No Tear, and To Autumn made up the remainder), who could cavil? My one quibble was that the understated enunciation of the chorus necessitated frequent glances at the printed texts which, over time, becomes irksome when these are in one’s mother tongue and set in Kim’s natural, straightforward manner.

Harold Shapero (b. 1920) was a senior at Harvard when he composed his Four-Hand Sonata for Piano in 1941 to play with his friend and classmate Leonard Bernstein. Shapero’s appealing, contemporary idiom with clustered sonorities and whiffs of jazz seems to have influenced the musical direction taken by his friend later on. The first movement was heard alone here and the remaining two after intermission. The polished teamwork of Kopp and Lister and the astonishing assurance of the 20-year-old composer combined for a stimulating musical experience, fully exploiting the piano’s sustaining and percussive qualities.

Scenes from a Movie: The 26th Dream is the final segment of a trilogy by Earl Kim, setting texts from Rainer Maria Rilke’s Aus dem Traumbuch (From the Dreambook) in English translation. Unlike the two previous, more intimate scorings in the trilogy (the seventh and 11^th dreams), The 26^th Dream uses something more expansive: baritone, chorus, and two pianos. A member of the Cantata Singers’ bass section, Mark-Andrew Cleveland, was an excellent musician and actor, both as narrator and character. At the two pianos Lister and Kopp provided harmonic support and mood reinforcement for what was essentially dramatic recitation with music added. In a scena with great amounts of text, Kim’s syllabic, simple word-setting was a blessing, though even here the sometimes laissez-faire approach to diction had me referring to the printed text more than I wished. As with a scene performed out of context, the specific references to many events and people required the imagination of audience members to fill in the gaps. The prevailing atmosphere of muted angst was well conveyed especially by the chorus, though there were times when I wished their elegantly blended tone might yield momentarily, for the sake of the drama, to something with a bit more bite.

Following intermission we first heard The Annunciation, by one of the concert’s pianists, Rodney Lister (b. 1951). A typical approach to this event — the Angel Gabriel arriving to inform the Virgin Mary that she has been chosen to bear the Son of God — is to illustrate first Mary’s astonishment and then her joy. However, Lister chose the path less taken, a largely quiet response as though Mary has been stunned into silence. The composer set a passage from W. H. Auden’s For the Time Bein” to gently astringent harmonies frequently based on 7^th chords. The garden is the central motif, both the literal place where Mary encounters Gabriel and a symbol of her virginal body and mind. The passage ends: “The garden unchanged, the silence unbroken: None may wake there but One who shall be woken. Wake.” The triple repetition, pianissimo, of the last word — as if coaxing a loved one out of slumber with supreme gentleness — was quite moving.

We next heard the remaining two movements of Harold Shapero’s Four-Hand Sonata for Piano. (I should mention here that an earlier rendition of this piece by Kopp and Lister is accessible on youtube.) The second movement was an effective mélange of fanfare flourishes, a calm world-weary theme, and some quasi-flippant figures. In the final movement, even among the shifting meters, one could pick out snatches of rhumba rhythm (3+3+2). This section was somewhat less serious-minded than the preceding ones, and like the “Brasileira” finale of Darius Milhaud’s Scaramouche, its mounting brilliance and excitement swept the listener along. It was heartwarming at the end to see the nonagenarian composer rise to receive the audience’s rapturous applause.

The program concluded with its best-known work, Aaron Copland’s most significant choral piece, In the Beginning, for mezzo soprano and chorus a cappella. Janna Baty was superb, both leading and collaborating with the chorus in telling the creation story from Genesis. In a work with rather numerous moments of bitonality and complex chords, Baty’s pitch — and that of her fellow singers — was as unshakable as God’s purpose. Though much of the early part of the piece is moderate of tempo and dynamic, the performers’ inner intensity never flagged, and there was an impressive climax at the point when mankind is created, highlighted by bare octaves and jagged skips. At “Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven … and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and years …” the syncopations danced vigorously and merrily with exemplary ensemble. The concluding climax — “and [God] breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul” — was at once ecstatic and triumphant.

Geoffrey Wieting holds Bachelor’s degrees in organ and Latin from Oberlin College and a Master’s degree in collaborative piano from New England Conservatory. He is a freelance organist, collaborative pianist and vocal coach and currently sings in the choir of Trinity Church.

The Ashburnham, MA-based Frederick Collection was confronted with the impossibility of moving to the concert venue its 1907 Blüthner that is nearly identical to Debussy’s own 1904 model that he purchased in 1905 in Eastbourne, England, and had shipped to his last residence in Paris, an 18-room rented house with garden near the Bois de Boulogne. The Blüthner is virtually the only piano that he ever owned; it is still extant and in playing condition in a museum in the Limousin (Limoges area), where it landed through the son of his step-daughter Hélène (“Dolly,” dedicatee of Gabriel Fauré’s Suite of that name) de Tinan.  In his house, Debussy had several pianos, all loaners from their makers, including Pleyels and a Bechstein; all were uprights, but none were Érards, although he knew their sonorities well because they were the official instrument of the Conservatoire de Paris where he studied from 1872 to 1884.  The Blüthner was small, not a concert grand like this Érard Extra-grand modèle de concert, details and images of which you can find in an earlier review with links to a performance on it; the difference in size makes its resonances similar to the Blüthner even though it lacks the Blüthner’s patented Aliquot system of sympathetically sounding strings and has parallel rather than the cross- or over-strung bass strings that stretch rightward over the middle register ones, as have all Steinways, Bechsteins, and Blüthners.  All these also have cast-iron frames, while the Érard’s is wooden with metal tension bars above the strings, which changes the sonority.

Why is all of the above important to know and understand?  Because Claude Debussy (1862-1918) and Maurice Ravel (1875-1937) were the first composers ever to attempt not only to suggest but actually to capture colors and effects of light on surfaces and coax them out of the strings of a percussive instrument, and they were quite particular about the sounds the instrument produced.  And among the works on the afternoon’s program were some of Debussy’s first efforts in this vein.  His first major published piano work (1902) was the suite Pour le piano, constructed like the suites of the French Baroque clavecinistes, a succession of movements based on dance rhythms – think J.S. Bach’s French Suites if you are unfamiliar with the French Baroque composers. With Debussy’s Suite bergamasque, the opening work, he took a ‘baby step’ forward: its third movement, a sarabande rhythm, originally titled “Promenade sentimentale” when the suite was first written in 1888-’91, was re-named when he reworked the set for publication in 1905 to “Clair de lune,” familiar to all as the evocation of moonlight playing on the landscape.  Its fourth movement, “Passepied,” was originally titled: “Pavane” – think Maurice Ravel’s famous Pavane pour une infante défunte (1899, pub. 1902) for the rhythm.  The mixture of Baroque dance rhythms and image painting is evident in the program’s second work, Images Book I (also 1905), as well: its first movement, “Reflets dans l’eau” depicts the play of light on water, like Ravel’s Jeux d’eau (1901), while its second: “Hommage à Rameau” is another sarabande, and its concluding third is titled simply “Mouvement.”  There was much to-do in the first years of the 20^th century as to which of the two was first and who copied whom – they knew each other but did not by any means ‘hang out’ together.  It is established fact that Ravel was ahead by a few years and that neither was truly copying the other, but rather there was a cross-fertilization of concepts and techniques, and their paths diverged in opposite directions as their careers advanced.

Chang’s playing style is the epitome of what all witnesses described as that of Chopin, Saint-Saëns, Fauré, Debussy, and Ravel: she obtained all the sound with her wrists, hands and fingers, her upper arms mostly held vertical and close to her sides.  Like those pianist-composers, she believes that “it is all about the music,” not about the musician, and that all the razzle-dazzle should be in the sounds produced by the instrument, not in the showy movements of the musician’s limbs.  She played from memory with an intense concentration on the precise production of the exact sound that the composer sought, with an equally precise and judicious pedaling to obtain the nuances and the sustaining rings, and the Érard’s strikingly sonorous resonance allowed all its colors to sparkle and glow and made the music come brilliantly alive.  This is true artistic virtuosity; no emotive ebullience required.  Chang has recorded a CD of Debussy’s music that includes these works; you can find my review of it and learn how to purchase it here.

The instrument’s enormous power was also eminently suited to Berioli’s voice.  She sang from memory (while Chang used scores), and opened with Gabriel Fauré’s setting of Paul Verlaine’s “Clair de lune” (1887), which served as the title of the program as a whole, to set the mood and tone.  Although Debussy also set this text twice, in about 1882 for his then-mistress Marie-Blanche Vasnier and again in 1892 in Fêtes galantes, Book I/3, neither of his were programmed. Berioli then offered Debussy’s Nuit d’étoiles (1880), Beau soir (1880), Mandoline ( 1882), Le Jet d’eau (1887-’89), Romance (1884), and De fleurs (1892-’93), the latter to a text by the composer.  The selection of titles was based on links with the images evoked by the solo piano works on the first half of the program. (The order of the texts in the printed program and the accompanying texts-and-translations handout did not correspond to the performing order, creating some ‘rustling of the breezes’ in the papers due to the audience’s confusion.)  Berioli’s voice has an extraordinary range and she is especially gifted in vocal, gestural, and facial expression, varying everything expertly to match the texts whose meaning she clearly understood thoroughly, and which consequently matched perfectly the composer’s rendering in the accompaniment, superbly executed by Chang.  Berioli’s diction was good if not of native-speaker quality.

The audience’s immediate standing ovation was rewarded by a performance of Pauline Viardot’s La fête (1848), a setting of a text by Louis Pomey to music from three of Chopin’s Mazurkas, with that of Op. 6/4 as the base.  Viardot (1851-1910) knew Chopin (1810-1849), who not only approved of her creations but accompanied her more than once when she sang them.  The work depicts a village peasant dance and is appropriately ebullient, a quite different mood for a finale that allowed Berioli to display her expressive talents even more fully and to demonstrate that Chang is as masterful with Chopin as with Debussy.

Marvin J. Ward, a retired translator and teacher of French (Ph.D., UNC Chapel Hill), has been writing for Classical Voice of North Carolina, a professional journal, for a decade and was founding Executive Editor of Classical Voice of New England through December, 2009. He is now a Five Colleges Associate based at Smith College.

George Enescu, widely known for his two Romanian Rhapsodies, composed Impressions d’enfance in 1940, a bleak year for Romania. A set of 10 miniature pieces for violin and piano, it evokes the composer’s earliest memories and forms a virtuoso showpiece for the violin, asking it to imitate, among other things, a bubbling brook and a caged bird. Violinist Joanna Kurkowicz played the opening violin solo,  Ménétrier,  with a nicely dramatic sense of longing, giving it the grandeur of a Bach prelude.  Through the subsequent pieces, which depict a child’s whimsical views of home,  Kurkowicz played in the true spirit of Enescu, by putting virtuosity in service to the interpretation and combining with the sensitive and tender piano of Vivian Chang-Freiheit. It made us hear and see the world through the eyes of a child — and rediscover hidden resources of trust.

Judith Weir had the wonderful idea of exploring the unique and surprisingly rich tradition of Scottish folk music. Sketches from a Bagpiper’s Album for clarinet and piano is a set of three miniature pieces that, in her words, “form a short instrumental opera,” the story of a Jacobite bagpiper who was  captured and executed by the British in 1746.  The first piece, “Salute,” featured angular and forceful clarinet from Gary Gorczyca, with a reinforcing, rather than accompanying, piano played by Chang-Freiheit. “Nocturne” produced a paradoxical effect, with its short, disjointed march, twitchy and nervous. The longer “Lament,” with Gorczyca’s smooth, clean playing and the rippling piano accompaniment, brought the piece to a subtly self-torn, ambivalent rather than melancholy close.

Robert Schumann wrote the song cycle Frauenliebe und -leben in 1840, his so-called Liederjahr, or “year of songs.” It is made up of eight songs based on poems by Adelbert von Chamisso that narrate the inner life of a woman. Soprano Keusch brought a deeply moving, intuitive intelligence to the woman’s story, evoking first her love-struck hopelessness, her surprised delight at being chosen, then the mature happiness of child-bearing and motherhood. The cycle ends with the sudden, overwhelming grief at the loss of the beloved husband. Pianist Schepkin provided more than accompaniment and commentary:  he brought an inexorable feeling of fate and acceptance.

Acceptance is also a core theme in Robert Sirota’s A Sinner’s Diary, nine short pieces forming a sort of musical analogue to ritual confession — a wonderfully deep probing of inner space. They started, Sirota says, as journal entries that unexpectedly “evolved into a kind of conversation between my inner demons and the angels of my better nature.” Constructed as three sets of three pieces, A Sinner’s Diary tells of a religious or a psychological journey of self-doubt, inner suffering, and relief. Yesterday’s performance brought out its full coherence. The angst of the Preface, with William Manley’s frenetic tympani, was followed by a painful “Afterthought I,” succeeded in turn by “Thanksgivings.” The threefold experience was then repeated, inaugurated this time by “Nagging Doubts” with its Orestes-like plague of flies, followed by “Afterthought II,” again marvelously painful and succeeded in turn by the possibility of prayer. The final set brought out the dark core of the sinner’s experience:  a vicious witches’ Sabbath, with Deborah Boldin switching from flute to piccolo. A final Afterthought III, in which the soul was called to and appeased by Boldin’s flute, led to a noble and reconciled “Here may be sung a hymn or anthem.” While the rich, deep viola of Scott Woolweaver and Manley’s contrasting percussion were especially noteworthy, what really emerged was the ensemble effect, which affirmed the inner unity of Sirota’s piece.

Shostakovich started his Piano Trio No. 2 in celebration — by December 1943, Nazism had been all but defeated — but completed it in mourning, following the sudden death of his closest friend, Ivan Sollertinsky, in February 1944. It is a brilliantly emotional and expansive piece, ranging from the elegiac first movement to the manic allegro, the funereal largo and culminating in the Chagall-like potpourri of the finale. (Shostakovich heard the second theme of the last movement from the artist Solomon Gerschov, a student of Chagall, and in his memoir, Testimony, said of Jewish music “There is almost always laughter through the tears.”) Cellist Rafael Popper-Keizer played the fiendishly difficult ethereal opening harmonics with effortless aplomb, followed in canon by Kurkowicz on the violin entering under the cello, then Schepkin on piano with dark, somber block chords. The playing was balanced and spirited, and the three were alertly in synch emotionally throughout, summoning isolated survivors of the war everywhere to join in the great human task of rebuilding life. The scherzo-like second movement allegro was celebratory, but it was also demonic and unbridled, all three players holding nothing back. The lento that followed was a somber lamentation in the strings with a dark, brooding piano, as though music had the power to bear what the human heart cannot. It led directly to the final allegretto, opening with a dance theme in staccato piano and pizzicato strings that led to an eruption of full-throated and defiant dance, tailing off to a final extended cadence in E major. This was not a dance of death, but a dance of life, fully conscious of the horrors of the century, of man’s abomination, but determined to survive and thrive — “Zun mit a regn.”

Leon Golub is an astrophysicist at the Center for Astrophysics in Cambridge, and has been a lover of classical music for over 50 years

The D-Minor Piano Trio of 1894 keeps Anton Arensky’s (1861-1906) name alive today. A follower of Tchaikovsky, who hired him at the Moscow Conservatory, Arensky was a good pianist and a technically impeccable composer whose growing reputation was cut short by his early death at age 45; in his last years, he even encouraged the young Igor Stravinsky. The BCMS program notes compare this expressive trio with Mendelssohn’s piano trio in the same key, but I hear more of Schumann and still more of Chopin in it; others might even call it Russian Brahms; but there’s no doubt about its expert construction and lovely melodic writing. Mihae Lee, pianist, joined Crow and Thomas in a deeply felt performance that reminded me of a fine reading of quite a few years back, by the venerable group of Heifetz-Piatigorsky-Rubinstein, a recording which you may still be able to find.

There is still controversy as to whether Schubert’s great Quintet in A Major, op. 114, D 667, known everywhere as the “Trout” Quintet, was composed in 1819 when Schubert was 22, as long assumed from indirect evidence, or in some later year like 1825, as might be surmised from the maturity of the style; the same question arises in connection with the A-Major Sonata for piano, op. 120, D 664. We might have a better appraisal of the situation if we had some documentary evidence, but the autographs of both works are lost.

The “Trout” performance on Sunday night was spirited and expressive, in every way delightful. Lee, Crow, and Thomas were joined by Marcus Thompson, viola, and Edwin Barker, double bass. The ensemble was particularly assured, relaxed and cohesive, and it’s a fair bet that all of the players had performed this famous music many times before. I will point out that the violinist played the high trills in the second half of the first “Trout” variation on octave lower than Schubert indicated; this is a wise expedient that makes for much easier playability and it injures the music not at all.

Arnold Schoenberg, in a lesson with Alban Berg, commanded him flatly: “Never write what a copyist could write for you!” The implication was: no matter what passages you might be repeating when you compose (for instance, in the recapitulation section of a sonata form, when the succession of events is able to be directly correlated with what happens in the exposition), be sure to make it different in some way. The “Trout” Quintet has to be considered an object lesson in how not to do what Schoenberg advised.

The quintet has five movements, three of which can be considered in sonata form. The first movement is formally the most complex; it actually has a development section (mm. 147-209), for the rest, the recapitulation section (mm. 210-317) is a virtually unaltered transposition of most of the exposition (mm. 25-146), with 14 bars removed. The second movement is simpler: it has an exposition (mm. 1-60) and a recapitulation (mm. 61-121) but no development, and the recap has one extra bar but is otherwise a literal transposition of the expo. The fifth movement is the simplest of all: the recap (mm. 237-472) is a transposition, unaltered except for a few octave placements, of the expo (mm. 1-236), and once again there is no development. How could a great composer like Schubert get away with being so formally lazy and irresponsible? The answer is simple: the melody throughout is so flowing and rich, the harmony so expressive, the rhythm so lively, and the music as whole so irresistibly fresh, that the formal oversimplification, if that is what it actually is, doesn’t matter in the least. The other two movements are a well-wrought scherzo and a set of six variations on Schubert’s own song Die Forelle (Trout), op. 32, D 550, the sixth variation making use of the piano accompaniment to the original song.

Mark DeVoto, musicologist and composer, is an expert in Alban Berg, also Ravel and Debussy. A graduate of Harvard College (1961) and Princeton (PhD, 1967), he has published extensively on these composers and many music subjects, most notably, harmony. His most recent book is Schubert’s Great C Major: Biography of a Symphony (Pendragon Press). His website is here.

The concert opened with Rolla’s Duetto Concertante for violin and viola in E-flat Major, op. 15, No.1, published in 1826. Alessandro Rolla, now remembered more as Paganini’s teacher than as a virtuoso and composer in his own right, performed on both violin and viola and bequeathed to both instruments a wealth of technique now considered standard. This Duetto Concertante demonstrates his virtuosic composing for viola, including the use of fast passagework, octaves and double-stops, and rapid staccato bowing, all within a Romantic musical idiom. Bella Hristova, violin, and Mark Holloway, viola, gave a thrilling reading of this work. Unlike most concert duos for violin and viola, in this piece the viola takes the lead and shines. Holloway owned this piece in performance, from the opening theme of the first movement Allegro – itself a display of viola pyrotechnics, with violin accompaniment. The Adagio ma non troppo and the following (attaca) Tema di Meyerbeer: Allegretto displayed in performance a great sense of playfulness and collaboration between Holloway and Hristova. The concluding Rondo: Alla Polacca (which seemed more a set of variations than a typical rondo movement) underscored the supportive and sensitive accompaniment alternating with dazzling virtuosity on display through this Duetto Concertante. There was only one small hiccup, when some rapid passagework in the viola came across as rushed and muddy; otherwise, this piece was an unexpected treat and left me curious to hear more of Rolla’s compositions.

The second work on the program was Robert Schumann’s Piano Trio No. 3 in G, Op. 110 (1851), with Juho Pohjonen (piano) and Andreas Brantelid,cello joining Bella Hristova,violin in the center of Calderwood Hall. From the opening movement, “Bewegt, doch nicht zu rasch,” through the second movement, “Ziemlich langsam,” the third, “Rasch,” and the concluding “Kräftig, mit Humor,” the ensemble charted changes of tempo, character, and mood with neat phrasing and complementary colors throughout. Hristova and Brantelid were seamlessly attuned to one another and played with great coherence; Pohjonen on piano was, at times, slightly disconnected from the other performers, due to the seating arrangement of the trio or perhaps the acoustics in this atypical hall. Still, it was an exciting performance with moments of truth-filled beauty.

The concluding work on the program was Schumann’s Piano Quartet in E-flat Major, Op. 47 (1842). This work brought all four musicians to stage and was the crowning work on this concert; the ensemble shone in this truly elegant performance. Mirrored phrasing of motivic lines between instruments were beautifully balanced. The effusive, joyful “Allegro ma non troppo” gorgeously offset the restrained, hymn-like “Sostenuto assai” opening of the first movement. The “Scherzo: Molto vivace” highlighted the talents of an impressive violist, a stunning violinist, a visibly happy cellist, and a superbly skilled pianist. The “Andante cantabile” was singing bliss with a lovely viola line and a pianist presenting a panoply of colors. The “Finale: Vivace” was a joyous journey ending in thrilling exultation. This performance was a shared experience between musicians, and between musicians and audience.

The only sour note, and one also shared among musicians and between them and the audience, was the excessively long delay between the first and second movements of Rolla’s Duetto Concertante for the late seating of audience members, which somehow took many times longer than usual. The violinist and violist handled this delay gracefully; still, I hope the Gardner Museum finds a better way in future concerts to manage this facet of concert-attendance, one magnified by Calderwood Hall.

Cashman Kerr Prince, trained in Classics and Comparative Literature, is now a Visiting Scholar in the Department of Classical Studies at Wellesley College.  He is also a cellist, currently playing with the Brookline Symphony Orchestra.

The opening concert on May 20^th is to be a staged production of Tchaikovsky’s opera, Iolanta, the subject of an earlier article here. The remaining events present a large and varied roster of artists and ensembles, culminating in a Jordan Hall finale with three Russian choruses, a German youth orchestra, The Festival Orchestra, Juventas New Music Ensemble, pianist Vassily Primakov and numerous impressive vocalists.  “Two years ago we brought a men’s choir, “Blagovest,” from Moscow, said Artistic Director Irina Shachneva. “The response was overwhelming and we couldn’t find seats for everyone. That’s why we’re having our finale in Jordan Hall this year.We’ve planned to host two guest choirs from Moscow and one from St. Petersburg. We’ve also invited vocal and instrumental soloists from Germany and Russia, such as the great pianist Vassily Primakov, who will not only offer a solo recital but will also be accompanying some of the singers. We’re also very proud to have one of this year’s winners of the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions, Andrey Nemzer as soloist. Since first I heard him as a soloist of “Blagovest” two years ago, I knew he had a great future.”

Shachneva conceived the idea of organizing the festival in 2009, with close friends. “We wanted to bring the best singers from Orthodox churches around America, uniting all generations of Russian émigrés, to present a high quality of choral singing in the Slavic tradition. The idea then spread wildly beyond just a choir. The Boston Russian Choir, which I had led for years, grew into the Festival Choir, which then organized the current festival itself.

“It’s my firm belief that Russian music should be important part of American culture. The connection is very strong — consider the popularity of Rachmaninoff and Stravinsky — but  I also hope to introduce audiences to other composers, such as Ledkovsky and Shvedov, lesser-known but perhaps just as important. The audience for our 2010 festival finale was about half Russian and half a general audience. We hope that this year’s program will bring inspire even more of the concert-going public to share our love of Russian music.”

The Festival’s website is bursting with riches here.

Stirring narration from Ron Williams completely lifted up the dramatic oratorio through his effective mix of old and new delivery styles. His baritone voice set the perfect tonality for Honegger’s 1921 symphonic psalm.

The Masterworks Chorale carried off both worldly and ethereal biblical themes ever so convincingly, such as in the rousing “Dance before the Ark” and the contrite “Behold in evil I was born.” Better still, all the singing was in English, relating more vividly the story of David from his days as a shepherd until his death as a king.

Of the twenty-seven songs and marches, tableaux, that the oratorio comprises, “The Psalm of Penitence” might be one of the most touching of all of Honegger’s settings. In a kind of antiphony, men’s then women’s voices chant over a repeating single chord, “Pity me, God, in my distress! Turn not away, but heal me again!” Using the original orchestration, Karidoyanes directed the instrumentalists and voices to a higher plane where there was abundant making of music and meaning.

In pure, clear-throated tones very much like the beautiful birdsongs of cardinals, Jason McStoots delivered the three Psalms Honegger set for tenor. Teresa Wakim’s soprano voice conveyed an angelic and deeply felt pureness in the concluding song “The Death of David” with its Bach chorale overtones.  Mezzo-soprano Krista River provided worldly nuance for “Song of the Handmaid” that played intelligently off the Swiss-French composer’s forward-looking, yet always appealing harmonic language. Looking the part of the Witch of Endor, Paula Plum was a bit over the top for me — her theatrics going beyond the decorum of the whole.

The orchestra of mostly winds and percussion drawn from Boston’s most amazing pool of musicians, summoned up sonority upon sonority along with sharp-edged excitement for a virtually flawless King David. During certain moments of Honegger’s personalized scoring and the orchestra’s own voicing, I was reminded of the sounds of jazz band master, Gil Evans. Balance between chorus and orchestra wavered more in the early going than in the third and final part of evening-long oratorio. While the singers did all they could to create the kind of presence needed, the orchestra often needed toning down to help foster a presence so all important for drama-making.

Also coming to mind were Lili Boulanger’s inspirational psalm settings for chorus and orchestra that were composed about the same time and that Hollywood took to in its religious epics dating from the fifties.  In his brief welcome and introduction to the concert, Karidoyanes informed us that Stravinsky was first to be asked to write incidental music for Swiss poet and playwright René Morax’s play, “Le roi David.” Turning down the offer, Stravinsky said something to the effect of “go to Honegger.”

Disappointing was the sparse turnout for a once extremely popular and often performed work — “a hit,” as Karidoyanes remarked. At intermission, two concertgoers related their own experiences with King David: quite a few years ago, one performed it while in high school and another while in college. About that same time, I first encountered Honegger’s “hit” in a church. Those were the days. Nearly a half century later, I find myself wondering what would King David be like with the addition of, say, background visuals projected on a screen. What with Honegger’s penchant and adeptness for musical image painting (think of Pacific 231 and Rugby), does this work not call out for such enticement or enhancement for today’s listeners?

Ed. Note: Edited in response to comment.

David Patterson, Professor of Music and former Chairman of the Performing Arts Department at UMass Boston, was recipient of a Fulbright Scholar Award and the Chancellor’s Distinction in  Teaching Award. He studied with Nadia Boulanger and Olivier Messiaen in Paris and holds a PhD from Harvard University. www.notescape.net.

Emmanual Ax (from his website)

“Celebrity” is often synonymous with excess, ego and undue attention. Thank goodness then for Emanuel Ax, whose appearance at the Celebrity Series of Boston was a reminder that fame and talent, not to mention modesty, don’t have to be mutually exclusive. Ax was lucid, powerful, and above all, moving; in others words all the things that should be celebrated in an artist.

A short, slightly stocky older gentleman with grey hair in simple grey suit, Ax looks more likely to offer tea or explain insurance premiums than to unleash the pianism that has made him an internationally acclaimed artist and welcome guest with the world’s leading orchestras. He entered the Jordan Hall stage on Friday May 11^th with a humility and gratitude almost bordering on awe that so many people came out just to hear him. It’s no surprise that Ax was playing to a sold-out Jordan Hall, though judging from the applause, it sounded like it had been far longer than two years since Ax’s last appearance in the Celebrity Series’s star-studded roster.

The real surprise was opening with Copland’s Piano Variations from 1930. Leonard Bernstein joked that Copland’s set of 20 contiguous variations could empty an entire room with just its four-note motif. Ax played this work as a menacing, absolutely addicting introduction. It’s easy for a pianist to hammer through this work, and perhaps clever but ultimately trite to reform it into an arching narrative. Ax approached each of Copland’s thundering, desiccated phrases as introspective blocks, stone ruins to some grand but disturbing ideas. Chilling upper-register chimes and subtle pedal fades only reinforced that gravity. Ax mouthing to himself over empathic phrasing and a rock-steady beat made it clear that for him, Copland’s work is far more than sophisticated modernism or challenging display.

That ability to “get inside a composer’s work,” spoken of so frequently as to become a cliché, allowed Ax to find continuity as well as individuality when seguing to Haydn’s Andante with Variations in F Minor (Hob. XVII/6). Chronologically and stylistically far from Copland’s work, Haydn’s 1793 rumination on the death of a friend (yes, some historians suggest Mozart) seemed like just another exploration of darkness in Ax’s hands. There wasn’t a touch of preciosity or “period” dryness. Ax treated Haydn’s delicate first theme with utter seriousness as well as grace. Lacy legato, a dreamy, nearly stunned atmosphere and reflective breadth for Haydn’s proto-bluesy bass lines also figured prominently. The pianist’s overtly frilly handling of Haydn’s more upbeat, major-key second theme did come across as disinterested, though by the second variation things seemed more organic. Perhaps Ax didn’t find Haydn’s attempts at self-consolation believable.

On the other hand, Ax seized upon Beethoven’s Variations and Fugue in E-Flat Major, “Eroica” Op. 35, composed in 1802, as an opportunity to explore several aspects of this work and its composer.  Beethoven surpassed contemporary notions of a “theme with variations,” and Ax’s contrapuntal clarity and vibrant rhythm highlighted the energy, humor and fragility unfolding in its fifteen variations.  The fugues and canons, played with tuneful glee by Ax, demonstrated what a diligent student of older composers the rebellious Beethoven in fact was, while harmonic deconstructions and melodic clarity show him to be far ahead of his time. Ax in turn demonstrated that a true “celebrity” knows just when to hold back as well as throw everything in. His attention to detail even during storm-tossed passages allowed for an even more visceral experience. Ax let the glowing, rhapsodic penultimate variation speak for itself, except for some immaculate, thoroughly personal trills.

Following intermission, the same restraint and sensitivity allowed the melancholy theme of Schumann’s Études en Forme de Variations, commonly known as the “Symphonic Etudes” Op. 13 room to grow. Schumann took his material from a theme written by a lover’s father. While Steven Ledbetter’s excellent program notes explain that it’s uncertain how much attention Schumann would have paid to the theme if not for his romantic inclinations, it did allow Schumann to push the boundaries of piano technique as well as symphonic effects.

Ax smoothly negotiated the harmonic shifts of the first variation as though turning a page while contrasting the bold colors of the second variation against the gauzy textures of the third. The inclusion of three etudes originally omitted by Schumann added lyrical asides to the work, with Ax moody, abstract, and at times milking a phrase into exquisite emotional blackmail. While he tastefully chose not to take the ninth variation’s “Presto Possibile” as literally as he could have, the powerful, uninhibited finale featured Ax pounding out a rocketing theme Schumann took from a then-popular opera. Several appreciative but by no means indulgent curtain calls and breezy encores of Chopin and Liszt just reinforced the fact that for a celebrity like Ax, it’s impossible to ever just show off.

Andrew J. Sammut also writes for Early Music America and All About Jazz, and blogs on a variety of music at clefpalette.wordpress.com. He also plays clarinet and lives in Cambridge.

Dina Kuznetsova, the Iolanta

The Second International Rachmaninoff Russian Music Festival opens on May 20^th with a rarity, a staged performance of Tchaikovsky’s Iolanta produced by the Boston Vocal Arts Studio. “Our tightly-knit Russian community is rich in cultural events,” explained BVAS’s Executive Director Olga Lisovskaya, “so it was logical for our Artistic Director Alexander Prokhorov to team up with International Rachmaninoff Russian Music Festival’s titulaire, Irina Shachneva. They have been colleagues and friends for many years and are both living their lives for the music.

 “Iolanta is BVAS’s first major production of a full-length (1.5 hours) opera. It’s fully staged and costumed with great soloists. [Details are here.] We’re very fortunate that this project came together, rather magically, I would say, with the Rachmaninoff  Festival. We have some wonderful international stars in the cast including the Russian-American Met Opera soprano Dina Kuznetsova in the title role (on May 20^th.) Count Vaudémont will be played by Met tenor Adam Klein. He does not have the advantage of Russian as his mother tongue but has benefited enormously from our talented language coaches and will sing like a native. Probably half of our soloists are Russian speakers, though!”

The production of Iolanta will be taking place in Makor Concert Hall, 1845 Commonwealth Ave., Boston. A synagogue that seats about 800 people and has a very large stage, it was built, according to Lisovskaya, “with the intention of making the un-amplified human voice intelligible with both liveness and crispness. It has the required wing-space and dressing rooms for an opera company, though it’s not up to the Metropolitan Opera standard. We can’t fly scenery or make significant scene changes, so we have to be creative in how we use it.”  The setting is a castle garden in Mediaeval France, “a simple arrangement that allows the emphasis to remain on the costumes and the passionate story.”

Tchaikovsky’s brother Modest wrote the libretto, which Lisovskaya called “surprisingly good.” Lisovskaya also commissioned an arrangement of the score from Moshe Shulman to allow for fewer winds. The 20-piece orchestra will be seated to the side of the singers but off the stage. There will be supertitles with both English and Russian texts. (The performance is in the original Russian.)

Boston Vocal Arts Studio was founded by Russian emigrés in 2006 and at first did mainly scenes and excerpts except for a full production of Mozart and Salieri by Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov. In 2010 the company began mounting complete one-act operas such as La serva Padrone by Pergolesi, which was reprised several times. Since there are so many opera companies in Boston offering the standard repertoire, BVAS decided to stand out from the beginning by concentrating on Russian operas. “One might have seen a production of Tchaikovsky’s Eugene Onegin or Snow Maiden in recent years, but since 1970 there have been no more than five Russian operas staged in Boston by local companies. I was in the recent Snow Maiden production by Harvard’s Lowell House, and four of six performances were sold out. So there does seem to be an appetite from the mostly American audience. … Boston Vocal Arts Studio will continue to focus mainly on Russian music as our niche. But certainly you can expect some Ukranian offerings and the occasional rarities like Pergolesi’s La serva Padrone or Mozart and Salieri byNikolai Rimsky-Korsakov. Our long-term goal,” Lisovskaya stresses, “is to become a folk-opera company like ones that exist in Europe, ones using a company of equals with a few stars.”