Charlote Juillard,violin; Pauline Fritsch, violin; Juliette Salmona,cello; Sarah Chena, viola; (IMG photo)

Last night, we revisited the beautiful St. John’s Church in Jamaica Plain, situated on the high ground of Roanoke Avenue and Revere Street, with a sweeping view of Boston and its beautiful surrounding homes and churches. It’s surely one of JP’s secret hidden jewels. The event was part of JP Concerts, and featured the Quatour Zaïde — visiting from Paris (France, not TX or ME). The plucky and intrepid concert series itself has a fine, informative website so nothing further need be said, except that it showcases noteworthy young artists in wonderful programs. We have previously observed that classical music lovers not venturing thither suffer their own loss thereby.

The QZ (as they refer to themselves) consists of four young French ladies. They are visiting Boston in an exchange program (established in 2003), co-sponsored on the French side by  ProQuartet-European Center for Chamber Music (ProQuartet-CEMC) and on ours by New England Conservatory (NEC).

We were tempted to steep in winter reverie, home by the fire, we must confess, but did eventually resolve to venture forth, knowing that the pianist Yannick Rafalimanana was joining the group for Cesar Franck’s Quintet in F Minor. Mr. Rafalimanana is a young Madagascar-born Frenchman currently studying at NEC, where he has generated quite a buzz among his peers as a talent to watch, to enlist, or just plain fear.

So it was really by chance that we stumbled upon the other featured artists, namely the quartet. QZ appeared first with Sérénade Italienne by Hugo Wolf and then Haydn’s Quartet Op. 50, No.1. We want to remark first of all, that QZ has an extremely personable and attractive stage presence.  Entering in coordinated but understated black pants suits and pumps, they immediately inject a note of Parisian chic. And, let’s face it, as professional managers understand only too well, stage presence and appearance do matter, even beyond the subliminal. The scuffed shoes of our own young compatriot artists, to our thinking at least, always occasion the pang of a Maalox moment.

As for the performances, these fine players performed their italiànizing German, their Esterházying Haydn and their germanizing Frenchman with utter refinement and assurance. Their playing is vigorous and robust, with tense vital rhythm and flawless intonation.

The Wolf was all light and lovely lyricism. The Haydn was given all of that understated elegance Haydn deserves. The performance of the Franck quartet, known somewhat as a dark brooder, projected its seething, troubled passion, its lyricism as well as its evident tragic intent (most prominent in the first movement).  The ensemble in the Franck was flawless. Because QZ had arrived only two days before and was consumed with activities at NEC, this formidable work was prepared in one rehearsal,  we were astonished to learn, by Yannick and his Landsmen.

The small audience, justly chagrined by its modest size, did everything possible to demonstrate its tremendous appreciation of the artistry on display.

The primary message, then, of this brief post is to urge the rest of you to hear the wonderful playing of Quatour Zaïde at Jordan Hall on January 26 at 8PM, where they perform Mozart K.590, the Italian Serenade of Hugo Wolf (again), and Beethoven Opus 131. Or, faute de mieux, catch them at the French Cultural Center 53 Marlborough Street, Boston, on January 24, at 6:30 PM, where they play the Mozart and then Debussy, Quartet Op. 10.

Tony Schemmer is a New York-born composer.  His works are performed extensively here and abroad.

The performance was impressively educational: presenting a sound that is somehow simultaneously formidable and affable, Zamir engaged a rapt audience with his understanding of the French haute-contre voice in 12 arias from 12 French operas in collaboration with Juliet Cunningham on piano. Zamir’s voice immediately gave the volume and gravitas of a rich, full contralto sound in the opening “Bois épais” from Lully’s 1684 opera Amadis — a stately aria on the edge of recit — that withstood Cunningham’s robust accompaniment. Other such arias, such as a “Je crois entendre encore” transposed from Bizet’s 1863 Les pecheurs de perles or “La fleur que tu m’avais jetee” transposed from his Carmen (1875) revelled in this rich sound.

Tuning in the later arias of the program suffered, ostensibly from exhaustion. Yet, in addition to the full qualities of Zamir’s haute-contre, it’s difficult not to be amused, even charmed,  by the lyrical qualities of his voice, a lightness that becomes a countertenor, that showed itself in the more blithe arias of the evenings. “Mes amis ecoutez l’histoire,” transposed from Adolphe Adam’s Le Postillon de Longjumeau (1836), or “Ah! mes amis, quel jour de fête!” transposed from Donizetti’s La fille du régiment (1840), exposed a remarkable range and flexibility in Zamir’s instrument.

Although certainly developed for Baroque and early Classical music, the combination of Zamir’s rich timbre with remarkable flexibility were somehow ideal for the late Romantic works. Wednesday evening’s successful collaboration between Zamir and Cunningham culminated in “Vainement, ma bien aimée,” transposed from Lalo’s Le Roy d’Ys (1888) and “Pourquoi me réveiller” transposed from Massenet’s Werther (1892); both were nothing short of beautiful. Zamir’s haute-contre eschewed sometimes over-blown Romantic sensibilities for a somehow fragile reading that was inherent to his higher range, an interpretation that was supported nicely with Cunningham’s sensitve accompaniment.

The evening’s performance concluded with a encore of Massenet’s Élégie–a reading that nicely summarized all that was wonderful about Zamir and Cunningham’s collaboration on Wednesday evening.

St. John’s concert series continues at the lovely church on Bowdoin Street, Beacon Hill, on January 4th, with a piano recital by Keane Southard.

Sudeep Agarwala is a graduate student at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He performs with various choral groups throughout Boston and Cambridge.

Mitnick, a 20-year-old  junior, is a student in the Harvard/New England Conservatory BA/MM program. Playing with poise and aplomb, Mitnick delivered an intelligent and often spirited performance of Barber’s Violin Concert, which features a solo opening for the violin in the first movement, one of his loveliest, lushest creations. In the second movement, a lyrical theme engages both the soloist and the various instrumental sections of the orchestra. The lushness of the sizable string section occasionally pushed somewhat aggressively to the forefront, but Mitnick proved master of the piece and her instrument in the third movement, in which Barber’s main material is a running line of triplets. The movement shifts from one key to another and requires considerable virtuosity of which Mitnick showed herself quite capable. She was rewarded with a standing ovation and enthusiastic foot stamping, a hallmark of Harvard audiences. Kudos also are due to clarinetist Stefan Botarelli.

The second piece on the program, Tchaikovsky’s Sixth Symphony, “Pathétique,” required all the energy of both orchestra and conductor. The performance opened with a wonderful slow, mysterious start — the result of divided basses. Cortese brought out very nimble handling of phrasing, soft and delicate leading into rounded explosions of sound, of this incredibly dramatic movement, all the way from pppppp to ffff.  The beginning of the second movement was light, dance-like. Following the end of the spirited third movement (which sounds as though it is the final movement), conductor Cortese leaned against the podium as though to gather strength for the final Adagio. (The piece is unusual in that it both begins and ends with Adagio movements.) Then the fourth movement opened with a beautiful, poignant swell from the orchestra. It is sometimes thought that the symphony is suggestive of Tchaikovsky’s death, thought by some to have been a suicide. The orchestra gave full justice to the dark drama of Tchaikovsky’s orchestration, which suggests tragedy and grief. The horns and the percussion have their exciting moments in the third movement, but it is the cellos and basses that quietly usher out the final theme. Throughout, the strings, and particularly the cellos, played with confidence and ease.

The next HRO concert will take place Saturday, March 3, 2012 and will present Acts 2 and 3 of Puccini’s Tosca.

Daphne Abeel is a committed amateur pianist and chamber musician who is currently studying at Longy.

St. Paul's Aeolian Skinner (BMInt staff photo)

Though it is the normal practice of BMInt to review and discuss only events relating to classical music, we occasionally venture afield — in this case with an appreciative account of an improvised organ accompaniment to a silent movie. On July 21 a large screen was set up in the chancel of the Cathedral Church of St. Paul (Episcopal) on Tremont St. for an audience of the participants in and friends of Pipe Organ Encounters, a gathering organized by Christian Lane including several days of workshops, concerts, and other events centered on the organ. Peter Krasinski was at the console of the 1950 Æolian-Skinner, a visually unprepossessing instrument meant to be hidden behind a façade, for Buster Keaton’s The Cameraman. This classic is one of the glories of the last flowering of silent cinema one year before the widespread adoption of sound.

To evoke memories of movie palaces Krasinki began with an overture, Bernstein’s Candide, in a bravura though not immaculate performance. Then the show began with a pitiable tintype vendor (Buster Keaton) falling in love with the unattainable beauty. Buster eventually wins her love by capturing a gang war on film, and further by having by his organ-grinder monkey crank the camera and thus document the brave Buster’s rescue of the drowning damosel.

Large screen at St. Paul's (BMInt staff photo)

It was all great fun. The audience was totally on board for this timeless comedy, and Krasinski was very effective as an accompanist. While some theater organists assign memorable themes to each character and develop and intertwine them over the course of the film, Krasinki was more of the school of highlighting action and emotion with effective though not memorable music, thereby serving more as an excellent supporting actor than as a star.

His playing had a convincing period feel with no added anachronistic elements. By using thoughtful and evocative registrations, he even got the “American Classic” Æolian Skinner to sound like a Wurlitzer theater organ. He made good use of a throbbing Vox Humana stop and contrasted reeds and flutes colorfully.  This was a great marriage of movie and music and was received with enthusiasm.

Kransinski concluded the evening with a performance of our National Anthem.  His modulation  in the last stanza was an amusing surprise.

In closing one cannot help but observe that through the performance of Peter Krasinski, the grand sounding Æolian Skinner organ met the spiritual needs of this congregation most movingly.

F.  Lee Eiseman is the publisher of The Boston Musical Intelligencer

BMInt’s extensive POE interview with Christian Lane is here.

Anna Elashvili, violin; David Alpher, piano; Julia MacLaine, cello; Margaret Dyer, viola (Michael Lutch photo)

Were we in for a treat on Thursday, June 9, opening night of the 2011 Rockport Chamber Music Festival, and its gala 30th anniversary concert to boot. We have known about the Festival’s new home, opened one season ago, through Rockport’s deftly positioned media exposure. Be advised that the reality of the building is every bit as good as the glossies. And the “media plants” about Shalin Liu only speak to the adroit and sharp professionalism that the festival administrative staff has developed.

Remember, Rockport Music started thirty years ago with the “wouldn’t it be nice” which two New Yoek innocents, soprano Lila Deis and composer David Alpher, sighed, as they viewed Rockport harbor. They found an initial supporter in Rockport local businessman Paul Sylva. At a minimum, we have here a regional jewel. Anyone in the Northeast who doesn’t make a pilgrimage to Rockport needs his head examined.

We knew that Rockport has been able to garner absolutely top-flight talent for many seasons. And this year’s roster, prospectively, is a fantastic assemblage of talent.

This concert opened with the Ikarus Chamber Players, — Anna Elashvili, violin, Margaret Dyer, viola, and Julia MacLaine, ‘cello, presenting the Beethoven String Trio in G major, Op. 9, No. 1. Not the least important for effective presentation, the young ladies looked like they were on the short list for casting the Three Graces. Colorfully and elegantly attired, coiffed and joyful in countenance as they performed, they were a visual delight. All the music’s wit, ebullience, effervescence and charm played across their faces. (It is almost heartbreaking to hear early Beethoven, setting out the young hero with bright-eyed brio, knowing the via dolorosa that awaited.)

How can we characterize the playing by Ikarus? Clean, precisely articulated ornamentation, beautiful balance of tone, humor, brio, elegant expressive phrasing, teasing rubatos, beautifully planned, breathing elasticity of tempo — in short, just a high level of musicality.

(At the reception after the performance, we complimented one of the Ikari — should that be Ikaræ? — on the Beethoven and inquired if they had performed in this fabulous Rockport space before. No, was the answer and, she added disarmingly, as this was their Rockport début and as it was the Festival’s gala opening, they had expended great care on their preparation. “As well you might,” we rejoined.)

The trio’s playing remained just as distinguished in the next selection, although here even more scope was afforded for long sustained lyricism. The piece was David Alpher’s Song Without Words, a piano quartet commissioned by Rockport Music in memory of the composer’s colleague, friend, and Rockport co-founder, the Dallas-born Deis. Alpher first took the podium to make some preliminary eulogistic remarks. With fascinating detail and moving eloquence, he sketched his association with her as they nurtured the festival into prominence.

Lest our readers assume that the observations about the Ikarus’s physical appearance were prompted by crass gender favoritism, let us report that the composer/pianist saw, if not raised, the trio’s sartorial chic. His smartly tailored white dinner jacket underscored a seigneur-ial demeanor that we found most engaging. Retro can be so cool.

Alpher’s commemorative piece in three movements followed. Elegiac, lyrical, and unapologetically tonal, the work was touching and effectively delivered by Ikarus with the composer at the keyboard. The first movement, “Loss,” is a slow, lyrical meditation. One notable effect had us jerk our head up in pleased surprise. The composer transfers an exposed solo line from the violin to viola so seamlessly that at first it appeared to be one instrument playing the entire passage. Sometimes simple tricks can be so effective.

The second movement, “Perpetual Motion,” was an up-tempo bit of boisterousness with emphatic hoedown flavor, decidedly apt to celebrate the Soprano Texan. We admired some neat and nice fughetto passages in this writing.

“Perpetual Song” (the third movement) reverted to the more introspective cantabile of movement I, again appropriate to honor the memory of a beloved singer. If we must add the smallest of respectful criticism to our account of a piece which both we and the audience found pleasing, then we would say that in this movement, we hoped for the emergence of some extended, transcendent lyrical line to round out and consummate the lyricism so nicely introduced in the first movement. Also, perhaps by design, the piano was held strictly in check, so its full resources were never recruited.

After intermission, cellist Andrés Díaz joined violinist Anne Akiko Meyers in the wonderful Mendelssohn Piano Trio in d minor, Op. 49. Artistic Director David Deveau excused himself from the performance because of tendonitis, and Wendy Chen substituted. She happened to be available because she was scheduled to perform the following evening, June 10. So first of all, as to Chen serving “above and beyond” as a ringer: wow, what playing. Much of this Mendelssohn contains the capriciousness of his Midsummer’s sprites. But, pianistically, the fairies have turned fiend. Chen’s playing was precise as taut steel springs and crystalline in its clarity. Expressive, rollicking through the full dynamic range of the instrument, yet sensitive to her colleagues, her performance was a “Wow!” Yes, “wow” bears repeating.

The team of Chen, Meyers and Díaz delivered a tense, straight-ahead, exciting reading, with the dynamism of a locomotive. Please, this does not imply without grace and taste! Indeed, we sat in admiration of both Díaz’s and Meyers’s consummate artistry.

To file under “For heaven’s sake, do not take this amiss,” we would add the following observations. We gather that Meyers and Díaz are not a permanent performing team (ensemble), as is Ikarus. On top of that, given the last-minute substitution of pianist Chen, the trio could not afford the risk of more elasticity and freedom of tempo, more rubato. By contrast, Ikarus, which is an on-going ensemble, could. So ironically the more “romantic” of the two pieces had less spontaneous freedom in its rendition, probably, as we note, of necessity. (Not that Beethoven is not a romantic himself!)

Also, the “blend” of string sound seemed to us smoother, rounder and more balanced with the trio. For some reason, especially in those passages of the Mendelssohn first movement, where the two strings play parallel at two octaves (e.g. measures 187-195 and subsequent similar iterations) the two instruments didn’t seem to blend. We thought there might be something going on acoustically, not with the two artists’ intonation, which was fine. Meyers plays the ex-Napoleon/Molitor Strad. If Díaz was playing an equally prestigious cello, maybe we have the problem of two important personalities in the same room: talking at each other rather than to each other.

And finally, constructively, I offer that the management should turn the houselights up during the setups between pieces so that the audience can consult the program notes With the lights left down, the auditorium is too dark for reading.

Other than that, the evening was sweetness and delight. We cannot wait to return for another performance.

Tony Schemmer is a New York-born American composer.  His works are performed extensively here and abroad.

The songs were ordered harmonically and thematically, each half of the concert presented as a set. By combining songs in the same or relative key, progressing by intervals with some thematic pairings tossed in, the recital brought out continuities and contrasts across time and national traditions. The opening Purcell Music for a while led to Schubert’s Im Frühling, followed by Fauré’s “L’aube blanche” from La chanson d’Eve, Schumann’s Die Lotosblume, then Dowland’s Come again, sweet love doth now invite. The opening songs stress the power of music to allay cares and assuage nostalgia, to express manifold loves in diverse musical idioms. In the first half there was a recurring theme of melancholy — yet set lovingly to music – leavened with rich and powerful moments of contentment. The first half ended with Schubert, Rastlose Liebe. Does this song of fickle love serve Upshaw as an anthem of sorts, attesting to her own love of such wide-ranging music?

The second half offered more songs on the theme of love and included some lesser-known gems which I greatly appreciated hearing: Warlock, Sleep (set to words by John Fletcher penned some three centuries earlier); Golijov, Lúa descolorida; and Bolcom, Waitin’ (a beautifully jazzy and gospel-inflected song that, as performed, inspired intense longing). There was also a very playful reading of Weill, I’m a Stranger Here Myself, including flirting with the pianist and trying to get frisky with him, all to great comic effect. (The full program can be seen here with the list and order of songs.) One way to summarize the ordering of music is to note the return to the Baroque throughout the recital, circling back throughout the program as chronologies of music history rolled backwards and forwards in waves.

Thematic pairings of note include Debussy, “La chevelure” from Chanson de Bilitis, followed by Messiaen, “Le collier” from Poème pour Mi: two love songs about a necklace, yet radically different in musical style and idiom. Similarly, Seeger, White Moon, followed by Korngold, “Mond, so gehst du wieder auf” from Lieder des Abschieds: roughly contemporaneous composers writing songs about the moon – and yet there the similarities end, with Seeger penning a more modern work, serious music to Ogden Nash’s words, and Korngold offering a more immediately accessible song, the profundity of the whole insinuating itself subtly upon the ears of the listener. These orderings made familiar songs fresh anew.

Given this variety of song written in many different styles across centuries, each song still sounded unique. Upshaw sang Purcell and Dowland with a simplicity and purity that allowed her voice to shine; for Bartók, Eddig való dolgom (a setting of a traditional text) as for the lieder, her voice seemed fuller, with more vibrato and projection, matching the demands of the music. The modern pieces demonstrated a musician magisterially singing difficult works with grace and ease. The show tunes were by turns lush and playful. From one piece to the next Upshaw seamlessly shifted vocal style and presentation. She sang beautifully with wonderful articulation – precise, carefully placed consonants, wide, open vowels – in all selections. My one issue was with her pronunciation, notably in French, perhaps also Russian (although there I am no expert): these songs, to my ears, sounded overly American, overly broad and bright. I would have appreciated a pronunciation closer to the spoken language. Prutsman proved the perfect accompanist in this recital, attuned to Upshaw and himself a master of the several styles programmed. I did find Prutsman’s flourishes and arabesques with his hands as he removed his fingers from the keys at various points to be distracting: did I hear vibrato because of his shaking fingers, pulsing notes on account of his aerial strummings above the keyboard, or just imagine them? These are, I freely admit, but cavils which hardly diminish a truly wonderful recital.

On a different note in closing, this season marks Marty Jones’s twenty-fifth and last season working with the Celebrity Series of Boston, fifteen of them as its president and executive director. She announced that this recital was in some ways her own swan song. Thanks to her efforts, we have all found pleasure and enlightenment in the copious offerings of Celebrity Series of Boston. Let us hope future seasons continue to offer us such a treasury of delights, continuing and expanding on Marty’s work and vision.

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

When, in fact, were the roof’s rafters raised? The fifth and final movement of Robert Schumann’s Symphony No. 3 in E-flat Major, Op. 97, the “Rhenish,” danced as directed—Lebhaft, lively. Lewis himself danced on the podium. The potential of the orchestra, not to be questioned at this point as they responded in every way to their conductor, found Schumann, with his off-beat pulsing and quicksilver, always catchy, quirkiness; and they gave it everything they had.  It could be said that, albeit it shouldn’t be that way, the moment was worth the wait.

Much of the time, poetics of these various faces of Romanticism eluded the director, though not altogether; rather, just often missing that edge that raises listening to feeling, that step, sometimes ever so small, we look for in our musical experience. Not so the lighter sides of the Germans. The orchestra came fully to life in the not-so-serious sections of the one-movement Chamber Symphony of Austrian composer Franz Schreker (1878-1934). Harp and string strumming set the tone for the winds in their attractive, childlike playfulness.

Are they ready, though, for Harvard’s big space in Cambridge, or is it somewhat premature for this fledging “chamber orchestra that draws together forty of the finest performing musicians in Boston,” all of whom are bracingly quite young? Certainly the prestige and acoustics of Sanders is inviting.

It might be that word has not yet made its way around despite having received positive reviews here in the Boston Musical Intelligencer as well as elsewhere. While that remains to be seen, one still has to wonder how many performance organizations of this kind Boston is capable of sustaining. Will Discovery Ensemble be able to carve a niche for itself in the coming years that will find a larger listenership? When will we know the results of their endeavors to cultivate tomorrow’s audiences from inner-city schools? Are such efforts being tracked?

“Three Faces of Romanticism” did, to its credit, expose Schreker’s music, relatively unknown. Along with the two well-known faces, their programming follows a typical formula around these days. Another even bigger challenge (an ongoing one for years even for the Boston Symphony Orchestra), continues to be that of audience development and, more particularly, the matter of cutting across generations. As one critic put it, speaking about both A Far Cry and Discovery Ensemble, their appeal is not directed to Boston’s “sober” audiences. What on earth could he have meant? Has he forgotten the likes of, say, the New England Conservatory Philharmonia, or what the energetic and young conductor Frederico Cortese has been bringing to the Boston classical musical scene?

Discovery Ensemble is, after all, in its formative years. The forty players, who seem to be 20-something, are certainly accomplished, dedicated performers to the very last one. Seasoned enough? That is harder to determine from last night’s concert, which was the first time I had heard them. German Romanticism from talented Courtney Lewis found discipline over feeling. In Wagner’s Siegfried Idyll — his well-known dedicatory music to his wife, Cosima — Lewis over-achieved the softer dynamic markings in the score, denying richness to the strings. His whole approach, careful in considerable detail, kindled little emotion in but a few of the exuberant passages. For the young conductor, those poignant, speechless passages, the quiet long-held harmonies recurring throughout simply became resting places.

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

“An Artistic Ménagerie: Collaborations of Mind, Hand and Imagerie, Paris1900-1926″ was divided into two halves: the first was a study of opposites. Ann Allen, adjunct lecturer at the MFA and member of the Council for the Arts at MIT, was calm and composed. Those who enjoy art lectures loved her informative slide show and appreciated what they saw later in the afternoon, when most of the artwork turned up again in a richer context. Jonathan McPhee, music director of Boston Ballet, was all ebullience and charm, telling tales of Stravinsky and his ballets. At one point when he started dancing the rhythms of “The Rite of Spring,” I thought he was just about to break into a flamenco. He talked more about the composers and their music; he was full of great ballet stories, so freshly told they sounded like delicious arts gossip. He likened the amazing confluence of the arts in Paris at this time to New York City in the 1940s and 1950s.

For those who came to hear the music, little else mattered. Most of the large crowd seem delighted to see the artwork with the poems and dances to which they “belonged.” To me, the artwork, lovely though it was, was generally a giant distraction. Perhaps had the performers been less than stellar, the artwork would have been more fun, but the performances of Randall Hodgkinson, Mihae Lee, and baritone David Kravitz were completely engaging. For this listener, the music was a powerful enough experience.

The whole program was the brainchild of violist Marcus Thompson, and his superb program notes (along with those of Steven Ledbetter) were a model of thoughtfully informative writing. The first piece on the program, (1917) by Eric Satie, was based on a theme by Jean Cocteau and featured curtain, sets, and costumes by Pablo Picasso; all were shown on the screen behind the afternoon’s excellent pianists, Hodgkinson and Lee.  Parade was one of many succés de scandale that Cocteau so enjoyed creating, and that Sergei Diaghilev had in mind for a new ballet when he commanded: “Astound me!”

Maurice Ravel’s charming Histoires naturelles (1906) was sung by the wonderful baritone David Kravitz, accompanied by Lee. These five charming songs, set to poems of Jules Renard, were illustrated by Pierre Bonnard and Henri de Toulouse-Latrec. They tell the short, almost scientifically precise tales of a peacock, a cricket, a swan, a kingfisher, and a guinea fowl. The woodcuts on the screen were lovely indeed, and in this case, the collaboration of piano and voice and art and words was, to me, a charming success.

Darius Milhaud’s famous (in its orchestral version) La création du monde (1923) was given a bang-up performance by the two pianists. Two sets of collaborations —  the pianists, who played remarkably together, and the original collaboration of Milhaud writing for Blaise Cendrars’ Ballet nègre in one act, with sets and costumes by Fernand Léger — provided synergy at its best.

More animals were featured in Francis Poulenc’s 1919 Le Bèstiaire ou cortège d’Orphée (1920), with six poems of Guillaume Apollinaire and woodcuts by Raoul Dufy. Here Kravitz wittily and wistfully described a camel, Tibetan goat, grasshopper, dolphin, crawfish, and a carp, with Hodgkinson accompanying. The twenty-year-old Poulenc chose six quatrains by Apollinaire, each a tad longer than a haiku. Here, the carp:

In your fishtanks, in your ponds

how long you live, carp!

Is it that death has forgotten you,

O fish of melancholy?

Before Apollinaire’s death at age thirty-five, Poulenc set thirty-five of his poems to music. Poulenc, who went on to earn the reputation as the finest musical interpreter of French poetry, was the youngest of “Les Six,” a group of composers which included Darius Milhaud, who were named and promoted as such by Cocteau.

Finally, the two pianists gave a spectacular performance of Stravinsky’s Le Sacre du Printemps (“The Rite of Spring”). The sets and costumes by Nicholas Roerich were among the constantly changing art-work. Everyone at the premiere in 1913 had an opinion of this work, whether they stayed to hear it or left in disgust or alarm. Jean Cocteau spoke of its “savage sadness” and its “little melodies that arrive from the depths of the centuries.” Saint-Saens called it “an insult to habit,” and Debussy called it “an extraordinary, ferocious thing … primitive music with every modern convenience.” Debussy nevertheless sight-read “Rite” with Stravinsky in this four-hand version.  (I would have liked to have been a fly on that wall!)

Again, most people seemed to feel that the artwork enriched their “Rite” listening experience; I found it distracting. When pianists play this piece this well, I need nothing else.

Susan Miron is a book critic, essayist, and harpist. Her last two CDs featured her transcriptions of keyboard music of Domenico Scarlatti.

Early indicators of Zhang’s artistry could be observed in his opening bow. His every move was practiced. He created distance between his audience and himself. Once seated, he wiped the keys with a white handkerchief, then, pausing, assessed and adjusted the height of the bench. (Did anybody notice all the fingerprints left on the Steinway’s ebony?) After remaining completely still for several moments, he began playing, placing nearly all of the action in his hands. Throughout his recital, the Van Cliburn Gold Medalist showed little body movement or facial expression. He has, in his hands, a commanding technique that is not only high-speed and of near perfect accuracy but extraordinary powerful and seemingly unlimited even for the most treacherously difficult passages. His is an immense control, the envy of anyone who has ever played the piano. The softest of touches he could also produce at will. Zhang is as disciplined a soloist as you will encounter. Is it youth? Could it be a contemporary concept of performance? Could mentoring have helped? The program notes tell of his ongoing studies with Gary Graffman at the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia.

Unfortunately, I was unable to find the other side of Zhang, his personality; and, except for flashes of brilliance, nearly all of his playing of Chopin, Brahms and Ginastera was, for me, cold. One wonders if it might just have been an off night for this emerging artist. One of the key reasons for there being these questions centers on dynamics, or more simply, volume. In a manner of speaking, Zhang raised the volume by a notch or two. The written dynamic marking of f, forte, in the first measure of Piano Sonata No. 1, Opus 22 by the Argentinian composer Alberto Ginastera was turned up to ff, fortissimo. Similarly, Chopin’s Ballade No. 4 in F minor, Opus 52, which should have begun softly — p is written in the opening bar — in Zhang’s performance was something closer to forte.

It wasn’t as though this made his performances in any way raucous. As loudly as Zhang played in the Ginastera sonata, clarity of sound was never lost. The biggest loss resulting from the ramped-up output came with the shaping of a whole piece or movement. Climaxes did not materialize. Drives to cadences buckled under the enormous volume. For instance, toward the close of Chopin’s Ballade No. 2 in F Major, Opus 38, a driving Agitato culminates with surprising harmony. Instead of a resolving harmony that you would expect to bring closure, this “deceptive cadence,” as it is often called, and that leaves the listener hanging up in the air, also did not materialize. The ensuing final cadence to be executed at a very soft level as if to take the feet right out from underneath you suffered from a lack of real contrast. Thus, the intended effect was lost.

Following the four Ballades came Brahms’ Klavierstücke, Opus 118, six pieces in all. The more “classical” Brahms seemed to be a better match for Zhang’s prodigious hands.

It was a fairly good turnout at Jordan for a newcomer on the scene. All in the audience had to be amazed by Zhang’s unbelievable virtuosity throughout the Ginastera. For an encore, young Zhang chose Robert Schumann’s evergreen, Träumerai. His choice was as perfect as the entire programming.

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

The concert was part of CMCB wine-and-music series, a clever idea, indeed, that pairs songs with wines that exemplify the chosen pieces, and in total the combination concert and wine tasting lasted about eighty minutes. The songs in this concert, entitled “Italy- Italian,” were grouped into three sets of four: Triste Canzoni (Sad Songs), Commedia Canzoni (Comical Songs), and Canzoni d’Amore (Love Songs), with wine-tasting in between. Of course, in terms of the Neapolitan song, there is no clear-cut identification for any song, as there is great thematic overlap between the three. I was puzzled about the categorization of  a few of the songs. “Era di Maggio,” which is about a man who leaves his fiancée to go to America and promises to come back when the roses are blooming, leans more toward the sad songs than the love songs. Similarly, the way that Carmen Marsico, voice teacher at the Boston Community Music Center, interpreted the Commedia canzoni, is what made them humorous. Otherwise, the words themselves perhaps would more aptly describe these four songs as Felici Canzoni (Happy Songs).

I am not sure if guitarist Björn Wennås was working from an arrangement or not, but the accompaniment seemed quite sparse, and often the places where there were heavy ornamentation seemed almost arbitrarily placed. Likewise, Marsico’s ornamentation on a couple of occasions seemed overly embellished. But the interaction between the artists ensured that the emotional content of the music came across — helped by the fact that the two artists are married to one another.

The only thing better than wine and music is wine and music together, and the concert provided a warm, cozy, and enjoyable evening on what otherwise was a brisk December night.

Reba Wissner is in the Doctoral Program in Musicology at Brandeis University.

Largo, the only extant movement — and a reconstructed one at that — from Beethoven’s Oboe Concerto in F, Hess 12 (1792), found solace through the airborne interpretation of Andrew Price. The restoration work of Dutch musicologists Jos van der Zanden and Cees Niewwenhuizen varied quite markedly from the score I had before me, a reconstruction by Charles Joseph Lehrer. Price has a concentrated tone neither thick and rich or thin and piercing, an ideal moderation of the two that can grow on the listener in a short time. It appeared to me that the orchestra itself found the consoling mood of Beethoven’s youthful composition by way of Price who lifted the oboe line allowing it to settle on an imaginary high wire strung above us.

An intense inner-outer coverage of Beethoven seemed to be Deveau’s way of moderating the Classical with the emerging Romantic traits of the Beethoven Piano Concerto No. 1 in C, Op. 15 (1796-1797). Soloist Deveau breathed and danced in a space that he set up carefully and intelligently, then within it let go emotive spirits completely allied to the surface and subtext of this early concerto.

Completely scintillating was his playful performance of the rondo theme of the third movement. Marked Allegro scherzando, it tinkers with deception and interception. Again, but this time with the pianist, Hobart’s Civic Orchestra caught onto some of the Deveau spirit. Beethoven in his A-flat Largo mood took on finely paced and richly articulated phrasing under this non-showy musician’s hands. Deveau thoroughly engages at the keyboard technically and expressively when it comes to joking around, as in the last movement, or shaping longer classical constructs meant for more complex contrasts, as in the first movement. Passagework in all the movements, sometimes florid, other times punctuated, found, with Deveau, welcome sincerity, directness of purpose. As with Price, it doesn’t take long to be won over to this artist’s corner.

Overture to Egmont Op. 84 (1809) and Symphony No. 6 in F Op. 68, Pastoral (1808) met with tuning problems (especially in the strings), horn troubles, sectional imbalances, and some rowdy brass. “Scene by the brook” spinning out many kinds of nature’s vibrations, yes, I daresay, was murky, if not muddy. Flashes of excitement in the “Thunderstorm” were as exciting as they were roughly hewn. The overture and symphony in addition to the other Beethoven, proved to be too much for all the genuine wealth of desire and experience this orchestra projects. Judging from today’s program, I would proffer that Boston Civic Orchestra may not yet be up to “All Beethoven.”

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

Mei-Ann Chen with Osvaldo Golijov

Scored for chamber orchestra, the new work has a somewhat mysterious title that may refer obliquely to Galileo’s Sidereus Nuncius, a 400-year-old treatise on celestial observations made through a telescope. Golijov offered the following tantalizing comment about the name: “I was hoping for a giant object from outer space, floating ominously above us. I hope that with all the superlow instruments and the compressing and expanding accents in bass trombone and bass [clarinet], we can generate enough overtones and strange atmospheres there.”

Sidereus Nuncius cartouche from Galileo's frontipiece

Osvaldo Golijov is one of Boston’s most accessible, prolific and popular composers. Some of the better known pieces from his varied output include:  Yiddishbbuk for string quartet, The Dreams and Prayers of Isaac the Blind for clarinet and string quartet, a folksong cycle Ayre, the opera Ainadamar, and a major BSO commission, La Pasión Según San Marcos. His Azul for cello and orchestra will be premiered this December with the Boston Symphony Orchestra and Yo-Yo MA.

NEC publicist Ellen Pfeifer adds, “[Golijov] will bring in some new music to be inserted at the Monday morning rehearsal. So, Tuesday’s performance will be a kind of second premiere.” Also on the program are Dvorák’s Scherzo Capriccioso and Rimsky-Korsakoff’s Sheherazade. The violin soloist in the latter work, Quan Yuan ’12, a student of Donald Weilerstein, was the winner of a competition.

The concert at 8 p.m. in NEC’s Jordan Hall is free and open to the public.

Reflecting Artemesia’s mobile life, the program was divided into five parts: Rome (1593-1614), Florence (1614-1620), Venice (1626-1630), Naples (1630-1638), England (1638-1642), and finally, Tutta L’Italia (1642-1656), altogether a splendid array of multi-faceted music, ordered to provide both continuity and contrast. Rome opened sedately, but ended with a Villanelle Suite on “L’Onda che limpada,” by Giovanni Girolamo Kapsberger, incorporating a lively Ballo, Gagliarda, and Corrente that almost made you want to get up and dance. The voice of the versatile Nel Snaidas was introduced by Vergilio Mazzocchi’s solo cantata, Sdegno campion audace (with continuo only). After an initial Sinfonia by Marco da Gagliano, Florence dwelled on the other two sopranos, and then all three via Francesca Caccini’s love songs, Lasciatemi qui soli, Io mi distruggio, and Che desia di saper (presumably in the versions edited by Savino and published by Indiana University Press in 2004). Here Jennifer Ellis Kampani’s light-voiced but dramatic singing began to shine as clearly so idiomatic in this music.

The highpoint, as in many concerts, was reached just before intermission. Venice revealed Savino’s solo musical excellence by a lively guitar solo, a Ciaconna by Domenico Pellegrini. This was followed by Monteverdi’s oft-recorded Zefiro torna, from his sixth book of Madrigals, sung by Snaidas and Ellis Kampani. From the opening “Return O Zephyr” to the final line, “As my Fate wills it, now I weep, now I sing,” the singers warmed to the poignancy of the text, and to the splendid richness of this music. This was followed by Monteverdi’s happier, Come dolce hoggi l’auretta (How sweet the breeze today), sung by all three. Their well matched voices and clear enthusiasm for part-singing enlivened these works to pure pleasure.

Not that it was all downhill from there by any means. From Naples came Falconieri’s vigorous Folia pecha me  señora Doña Tarolilla, unlike any Folia I have ever heard — if this is supposed to be variations on same, the ground bass was impossible to detect. Rather it presented continuo player Laura Jeppesen with an opportunity for an expert romp on her viola da gamba, which she performed with great energy and a wry smile. From England we heard two dances from a suite by William Lawes, and a song and a duet by Nicholas Lanier: the first, a long “No More Shall Meads be Deck’d with Flow’rs” sung with clear diction and musical emphasis by Ellis Kampani, and the second, “Though I am Young,” by Rentz-Moore and Snaidas, whose voices are so closely aligned, even though their range varies, that we were hanging on every note of such musical just-rightness.

The final Tutta L’Italia brought forth Luzzasco Luzzaschi’s solo madrigal, Aura soave (Gentle breeze), sung by Ms. Rentz-Moore, who soared sublimely throughout her wide range, the lowest notes providing quietly spectacular added drama to the poignant text. Harpsichordist Michael Sponseller finally got his soloistic due with an almost too difficult and dense Passemezzo by Giovanni Picchi. The concert closed with two “battle” pieces: a Battaglia by Marco Uccellini, and the Fan Battaglia by Luigi Rossi, the latter a cantata for the three voices and instrumental ensemble. The projections for these were three paintings on the same subject (“Judith Slaying Holofernes”): one by Caravaggio, and two by Artemesia, namely the Naples version of ca. 1613, and the Uffiizi version of 1620, the latter hidden by the owning Medici family and considered too gory to reveal to the public until 2002 in the Uffizi Gallery at Florence. Art historians discuss a possible autobiographical significance of this painting; nevertheless there were groans from the audience at repeated close-ups of the most brutal details. Looking away, the music was, however, glorious.

The Aston Magna Festivals were founded in 1972 by the late harpsichordist Albert Fuller (1926-2007). Daniel Stepner, who this past season concluded nearly a quarter century as concert master of the Handel & Haydn Society, has more than risen to the challenge of maintaining the high standards thus established, and has this year expanded the concert venues to include some performances at Brandeis University in Waltham. Critic Michael Steinberg once said (something like), “Anything done over a long period of time is done well.” That has certainly proven to be the case in this instance.

Mary Wallace Davidson has directed the music libraries at Radcliffe, Wellesley, Eastman School of Music, and Indiana University. She now lives in the Boston area.

For most of the 15th century, the singing schools of an area comprising parts of present-day Belgium, southern Netherlands, and northern France supplied the courts and cathedrals of Europe with a highly sophisticated repertory of sacred and secular music along with the skilled performers capable of doing it justice. Many of these composer-singers found work in Italy, Spain, Germany, or Hungary, often moving from one venue to another as they were traded, like international soccer stars, among rulers eager to enhance their prestige — on earth as in the afterlife — with a display of polyphonic music. Many of these skilled musicians returned home in their later years to assume comfortable administrative positions in their hometowns. Others, however, did not travel abroad but found good jobs in northern cathedrals or the French and Burgundian courts. The parallel careers of Gilles Binchois (c. 1400-1460) and Guillaume Dufay (c. 1397-1474), both born around the turn of the 15th century, are illustrative. Binchois, born and probably trained in Mons, Belgium, spent most of his career at the Burgundian court chapel, although his music was known and admired throughout Europe. Dufay was born near Cambrai, and received his early training at the cathedral (burned to the ground during the French Revolution), which boasted one of the finest choir schools in Europe. His far-flung career included service with the Malatesta family in Pesaro, the d’Este family in Ferrara, the papal chapel in Rome, and the dukes of Savoy in Turin. Rewarded with numerous benefices (church offices that provided solid income and few duties), in his later years he returned home to finish his career in Cambrai.

Saturday’s program began fittingly with a song attributed to Binchois in the earlier of its only two manuscript sources and to Dufay in a later Italian source. According to an eyewitness account, the piece was sung at the famous “Feast of the Pheasant” in 1454, the extravagant banquet held by Philip the Good, duke of Burgundy, to promote the idea of a new crusade to conquer the Turks, who had recently captured Constantinople. The rondeau Je ne vis oncques la pareille (“I have never seen the equal of you, my gracious lady”) is a love song that inspired a number of sacred works that quote its melody or tenor part within a polyphonic complex. Late medieval and Renaissance poets and composers were less interested in inventing original themes than in displaying their compositional skill. Part homage to an older master, part rivalry with contemporaries, borrowing from earlier works demonstrated a composer’s knowledge and skill to his fellow musicians and to informed audiences. In fact, all of the sacred music on Saturday’s program quoted or alluded to pre-existent music. If the mixture of sacred and secular themes seems odd to us today, for 15th-century musicians it occurred naturally in the context of a cult of the Virgin Mary and the exegetical tradition that interpreted the Song of Songs as a hymn to Mary as bride of Christ.

Je ne vis oncques la pareille was sung by soloists (“musicians of the chamber”) mezzo soprano Daniela Toši? and tenor Aaron Sheehan on the cantus and tenor parts, with Paul Guttry on the bass. Although one could have wished for a more forward pronunciation of the beautiful Middle French text, the three voices were perfectly matched in timbre — straight tone without vibrato — the sinuous intertwining of their melodic lines coming together at cadences with perfectly tuned octaves and unisons. Next we heard a setting of the Marian antiphon Salve regina by Johannes Ghiselin, active in Italy and France at the turn of the 16th century. The members of the Blue Heron choir assembled for the evening — identified in the program as “musicians of the chapel” — included Jennifer Ashe and Martin Near on the cantus, or top part, with Cameron Beauchamp and Paul Guttry singing bass, and Michael Barrett, Allen Combs, Owen McIntosh, Jason McStoots, Mark Sprinkle, and Sumner Thompson taking the contratenor and tenor parts. Choirs of this period would have comprised trebles who were usually male falsettists, sometimes boys, and never women. The contra-tenor (not to be confused with the modern term “countertenor”) was a voice part of alto or tenor range and function. Ghiselin’s Salve regina, like the setting of the same antiphon by Pierre de la Rue heard later in the program, is an alternatim settings in which the traditional Gregorian chant melody is heard in the odd verses, and four-voice polyphony in the even verses. Both settings quote from the melody of Je ne vis oncques la pareille. La Rue also quoted from Guillaume Dufay’s song Par le regard de vos beaux yeux (By the sight of your beautiful eyes) that begins with the last line of a poem by Jean Molinet, which itself begins Je ne vis oncques la pareille. For this song, Blue Heron director Scott Metcalfe joined chamber singers Daniela Toši? and Aaron Sheehan wearing another hat, that of vielle, or medieval fiddle player, providing some welcome timbral variety.

A small ensemble of five male voices, singing without conductor, was employed in the five-voice motet Intemerata Dei mater (“Undefiled mother of God”) by Johannes Ockeghem, one of the most revered composers of the 15th century, who spent much of his career at the French royal court. This piece alludes to two of the composer’s own songs, while the contratenor part of his four-voiced Alma redemptoris mater (“Beneficent mother of the Savior”), sung by the full choir, is based on the plainchant melody on the same text. Ockeghem wrote an entire Mass Ordinary (Kyrie, Gloria, Credo, Sanctus, Agnus Dei) based on his own rondeau Ma maistresse, which we heard in a beautiful performance by Lydia Brotherton, soprano soloist, joined by vielle players Scott Metcalfe and the ever-versatile Laura Jeppesen on the contratenor and tenor parts. Brotherton’s perfect intonation and mellifluous tone did full justice to the beauty of Ockeghem’s melody. Borrowings from the cantus and tenor parts of the song in the Kyrie and Gloria of the Mass in four voices, sung again by the full choir, are as hard to identify in performance as the numerous learned canonic devices for which Ockeghem became famous, but which do not begin to tell the story of this gloriously rich and densely unfolding polyphony.

Two more movements from the Mass Ordinary completed the program. Alexander Agricola’s Credo from his Missa Je ne vis oncques la pareille is a stunning setting for four low voice parts, in which material from the song is manipulated arithmetically — sung at normal speed, then augmented by three, again by three, then halved, virtuosic complexities that had to wait until the twentieth century to reappear. For listeners, however, it was not this “eye music” but the virtuosic intricacy of the contrapuntal lines, resolving in full harmony in a dark low range, that captivated the ear. The Missa Ecce ancilla Domini / Ne timeas Maria (“Behold the handmaiden of the Lord / Fear not, Maria”) by Johannes Regis, an almost exact contemporary of Ockeghem, is based on two and occasionally five plainchant antiphons to the Virgin Mary. Blue Heron presented the Kyrie in the first half of the program, and the Agnus Dei as the concluding number.

Scott Metcalfe’s tempi throughout seemed about ideal: fast enough to preserve the sense of horizontal line so important to this music, yet leisurely enough to do justice to the many rhythmic subtleties that are the hallmark of 15th-century polyphony, particularly in ambitious sacred works. We can be grateful to Blue Heron for delving into this repertory, still less known to most audiences than 16th-century polyphony, but richly rewarding in its wayward and sometimes angular beauty. Despite the occasional jagged entrance, and the need for better projection of the texts, particularly in French, this was virtuoso ensemble singing, lovingly prepared and convincingly presented.

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

Shuann Chai in rehearsal (Christopher Greenleaf photo)

For her fourth appearance on the Frederick Collection’s Historical Piano Concerts Series on May 30, Chinese-American pianist Shuann Chai, who now lives in Amsterdam in The Netherlands, chose to perform on the 1840 Érard.  This is the company’s concert grand of Chopin’s day, and is perhaps the most photogenic instrument in the collection, with its brass-inlay-in-rosewood case; you can find views of it here.  It is less powerful than the 1877 “Extra-grand modèle de concert” heard in the previous two recitals, but what it loses in power, it gains in tonal expression.  It has a husky, deep-throated base, a velvety middle, and a silvery upper register, giving it a sensitive richness.  Although Chopin preferred the more intimate sounding Pleyel pianos, this one would have certainly satisfied his proclaimed preference for sensitivity over power, providing enough of the latter to fill a salon or even a moderate-sized recital hall; it was fine in the squarish sanctuary of the Ashburnham Community Church.

Chai’s program was tailor-made to show off this richness and to showcase the year’s two bicentennial luminaries: Chopin and Robert Schumann, with a few short showpieces by their contemporaries and one of their successors, some now forgotten, others now rarely performed, thrown in.  She opened with Chopin’s Scherzo No. 3 in C Sharp, Op. 39 from 1839.  This was followed by three of his Nocturnes: in E, Op. 62/2 (1846); in Db, Op. 27/2 (1835); and in c, Op. 48/1 (1841).  The first half concluded with a set of four diverse bravura gems: Liszt’s Gnomenreigen [Dance of the Gnomes], S. 145/1 (1862-3); Adolf Henselt’s Etude in D, “Si oiseau j’étais” [If I were a bird],  Op. 2/6 (1837-8); Chopin’s Etude in  C Sharp, Op. 10/4 (1832); and Moritz Moszkowski’s Étincelles [Sparks], from his Acht Charakterstücke, Op. 36/6 (1910).  The Henselt and Moszkowski pieces were once popular encores by renowned pianists, such as Vladimir Horowitz in the case of the latter.

The second half opened with Clara Schumann’s Romanza in a minor, Op. 21/1 (1855), followed by Liszt’s transcription (1848) of Robert Schumann’s song “Widmung” [Dedication] (1840), on the eve of his wedding with Clara, S. 566.  Clara Schumann played Érards in concert, although, unlike Liszt, she did not own one.  The balance of the recital was devoted to Robert Schuman’s Kreisleriana, Op. 16 (1838), which was dedicated to Chopin.  In acknowledgement of the prolonged standing ovation, Chai played an encore bringing us, as she said, back to the beginning (in both composer and key signature): Chopin’s Waltz in c sharp minor, Op. 64/2 (1846-7).

After the opening piece, Chai offered spoken program notes that were detailed and displayed her knowledge of the composers and the works she programmed.  She included anecdotes such as Liszt’s purported statement after hearing Henselt play that he wished he had such “velvet paws.”  Henselt, a piano pupil of Hummel, was severely afflicted with stage fright and gave up performing at the age of 33, moving to St. Petersburg in 1838, where he was essentially the founder of the Conservatory; his body of compositions includes only a dozen original works, although he made numerous transcriptions and arrangements.

Chai’s performance was as competent as her comments, and as sparkling as the compositions.  She played all but the Henselt and the Kreiserliana from memory, and was by no means wedded to the scores in these.  Her connection to this region dates from her Master’s degree at the New England Conservatory in Boston, time when she first became acquainted with the Frederick Collection.  Unlike many of the pianists who discover it and come to it principally from the perspective of the modern Steinway, Chai has also extensively studied performance on instruments even earlier with such experts as Malcolm Bilson, Claus-Christian Schuster, Bart van Oort, and Stanley Hoogland.  She has chosen a different instrument for each of her appearances on the series.  All of this was eminently apparent in her masterful exploiting of the full potential of the 1840 Érard.  This summer, she will be playing a pair of concerts in Surrey (UK) celebrating the Chopin bicentennial, performing on the composer’s own Pleyel grand.

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.

There was a great ‘pop’ right from the start in a classic opener, Russlan and Ludmilla Overture of Glinka, setting the virtuosic tone for the concert. There was also admirable solo work in the Overture, Scherzo and Wedding March from Mendelssohn’s Midsummer Night’s Dream, in Johann Strauss Jr’s Donner und Blitz Polka and Frühlingsstimmen, and Siri Smedvig’s introduction to Jacob Gade’s Jalousie, the world’s best Danish tango.

We also heard the world premiere of a classy new brass and percussion piece, Fanfare for Dick, by Bernard Hoffer, written in honor of Richard Pittman’s 40th anniversary with the Concord Symphony Orchestra, parent of the Concord Pops.

Arthur Foote was a prominent and much-admired member of  “The Boston Six” at the turn of the last century. (His piece, In the Mountains, was performed by the Boston Symphony under Wilhelm Gericke at the Paris Exposition in 1889.) Foote’s 1918 A Night Piece, a great example of American music of the period, with complex counterpoint, ‘exotic’ harmonies, and a distinctive voice, was given a clear and lyrical performance by principal flutist Susan Jackson and the orchestra strings. The light touches of the cymbals were effectively discreet.

Soprano Karyl Ryczek sang Zerlna’s “Batti, batti” from Mozart’s Don Giovanni beautifully and with perfect diction, as well as leading the Arlen, Rodgers and Duke sing-along; the arrangements were quite lush and elegantly underplayed. The audience singers faded quickly from her rendition of April in Paris, however, and let her beautiful tone carry the day.

The concert closed with “Stars and Stripes Forever,” complete with perfectly unfurling red, white and blue.

Conductor, pianist and composer Eric Culver is Music Director of the Holy Cross Chamber Orchestra and Lecturer in Music at the College, and also composer-in-residence at Redfeather Theater (Worcester Shakespeare Festival).

But Yeghishe Manucharyan is also a singer who is, or certainly should be, eliciting excitement locally. He was a finalist for the Met New England region in 2002 and, as a graduate student at Boston University’s Opera Institute, sang the title role in Mozart’s La clemenza di Tito and two Puccini roles: Rinuccio in  Gianni Schicchi and Rodolfo in La bohème.

Photo by Clive Grainger

Other Boston appearances were in the Dvorak Stabat Mater with the Masterworks Chorale; in Lukas Foss’ Griffelkin with the Boston Modern Orchestra Project, performed both in Boston and at Tanglewood Festival; as tenor solo in Verdi’s Messa da Requiem with the Boston Cantata Singers; as guest soloist in a concert celebrating the 100th Anniversary of the birth of composer Aram Khachaturian, and as (his first) Alfredo in La traviata in 2003 with the Chorus Pro Music and Concert Opera Boston (another local opera group, which started in 1995). With Opera Boston, he was Nadir in Les pêcheurs de perles.

Our local reviewers were on to his ability. The Boston Globe’s former classical music critic, Richard Dyer wrote of that La traviata performance, “Yeghishe Manucharyan . . . has developed into an excellent singer, with style, line, and a beauty of tone that becomes exceptional when he filed it down to a sweet and elegant half-voice. The most beautiful singing of the afternoon came in his verse of the last-act duet. It’s easy to understand why he’s building a significant career . . .”

Besides, anyone who reminds opera lovers of Giuseppe di Stefano, as a Newsday writer did following his Carnegie Hall debut as Percy in Donizetti’s Anna Bolena in December 2003, must be wonderful. (Editorial admission. My maiden name is di Stefano, but I was told by a very cultivated uncle, to my dismay, that we are not related).

His list of roles, lyric and bel canto, at various opera performances throughout the United States is impressive: Donizetti roles include Riccardo in Maria di Rohan, Leicester in Maria Stuarda, and Potoski in the world premiere of Donizetti’s long lost opera Elisabetta (based on his Otto Mesi in Tre Ore — “eight months in three hours” ? from his student days); Mozart roles, Don Ottavio in  Don Giovanni, Tamino in Die Zauberflöte, Belmonte in Die Entführung aus dem Serail; and for Rossini, Rodrigo in La donna del lago and Count Almaviva in Il barbiere di Siviglia.

He has also sung the Duke in Verdi’s Rigoletto, Rodolfo in Puccini’s La bohème, Gerald in Lakmé, Lenski in Tchaikovsky’s Eugene Onegin.; and he has been tenor soloist in Verdi’s Messa da Requiem, Berlioz’s Requiem, Bruckner’s Te Deum, and Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9 and Missa Solemnis.

A native of Yerevan, Armenia, Yegishe Manucharyan graduated from the Tchaikovsky Central Music School in Moscow in 1988, earning a Bachelor of Music in French Horn Performance. He returned to Yerevan to continue his studies at the Komitas State Conservatory, where he earned a Master of Music in French Horn Performance (1993) and in Vocal Performance (1995), before pursuiing his studies at Boston University.

Opera Boston is deliriously happy with the response to this production. But there are still a few tickets to tonight’s performance, and more to subsequent ones.