Founded this year by my fellow conductor, composer, and friend Gaston Gosselin, the Beacon Ensemble, a chamber music organization based (naturally) in Beacon Hill, creates opportunities for early-career professional musicians of the Boston area. The ensemble’s second show, “Transfigured Night,” delivered shining renditions of classic and new melodies, radiating warmth and hope amongst winter chills to a grateful crowd at the historic Beacon Hill Friends House Saturday afternoon
To start came Danish folk tunes, arranged for string quartet by Rune Tonsgaard Sørensen and the Danish String Quartet. In the lively and frolicking Polska from Dorotea, agile, nimbly ornamented violin figures danced over steady, growing lines in the viola and cello. Reilender from Sonndala provided a jiving jaunt commencing with an off-kilter yet measured rhythmic pattern. Stylish glissandos and swinging lines created a real bop! A virtuosic violin solo opened Shine No More, notes flying joyfully with verve, backed by gradually growing sustained voices in the rest of the quartet. Violinist Sophia Bernitz’s sonorous, soulful melodies contrasted with ever-turning passages in perpetual motion, leading to an emphatic close.
In performing these opening selections, the quartet evinced the smiling vivacity of fiddle-style playing as well as the folk-like coziness of these traditional melodies. Aside from a couple moments of instability, the players felt the rhythmic grooves well as a group, making a fun start.
Gosselin welcomed the audience and spoke about his own Crystal Canvas, a piece inspired by “…the season’s snowflakes and our city of Boston’s historic architecture, such as the Tiffany windows of the nearby Church of the Covenant.” One violist and one cellist joined the group to make a full sextet.
Crystal Canvas explored contrasts between two sound worlds. A pointillistic, sort of minimalist texture prevailed in the first, featuring open strings, harmonics, pizzicatos, and little crescendos. In the other, long, singing lines resonated and spun in the air. A joyful interplay between these two musical personalities ensued; sometimes one presided, then the other; often both collided, harmonizing, creating an electric energy. Finally, a total unison dramatically broke up the flow, with all six players joining together in wide leaps. Afterwards, the first personality returned, fading out quietly.
This premiere showed well the composer’s facility in string writing, with adept use of a variety of different coloristic effects. Along with spirited rhythmic motifs, these created a picturesque suggestion of the titular crystals. However, the metric patterns were mostly in regular four-beat measures with two- or four-bar phrases, and most of the harmonies related to open strings. Few crystals in nature are perfectly regular, and occasionally this rhythmic and harmonic squareness felt slightly limiting. Still, we enjoyed the interesting and unpredictable formal development as well as the bright, wintry character.
The six players did great justice to Gosselin’s composition. Like the Danish folk tunes, they showed a propensity for driving rhythmic grooves. Perhaps the final section could have used a more definitive pacing, both in the giant unison and in the low fade-out, as the ending felt a bit abrupt. Nevertheless, they executed the many specific string effects precisely and sang out the lyrical melodies beautifully.
After a short intermission, Gosselin introduced Schoenberg’s Verklärte Nacht (Transfigured Night), highlighting its representation of human connection and love even through morbidly lunatic times. In this spirit, he endearingly encouraged the six ensemble members to introduce and share facts about themselves.
Foreboding footsteps produced the ominous, uneasy onset of Transfigured Night. The tempo here was somewhat too slow, causing melodies to lose tone in long bows, and making the character more plodding than somber. However, an accelerando brought in welcome life. An awesome build brought the music to a more pastoral, concordant land, though short-lived. Second cellist Olivia Myers’s deep, full-bodied calls, second violist Robert Bruce’s dramatic pizzicatos, and first violinist Sophia Bernitz’s high-flying melodies all added savor to the first half of the piece.
First cellist Sophie Paul played a wonderful solo in D major, kind, with warm, embracing sound. From here the ensemble created a truly compelling turning point in atmosphere, now assuaging and giving peace. The harmonies turned to a glimmering F-sharp major, then gave way to some chaos ― mostly musical, but a tiny bit of ensemble confusion — before returning to luscious harmonies, richly resonating in the hall. Stars shone as string crossings and pizzicato closed out Transfigured Night, with shame and guilt transformed to compassion and love.
Bernitz’s high melodies cut through the texture well with polished intonation and extroverted character, which first violist Arturo Fernandez’s confident lower-octave support and second violinist Jordan Hadrill’s nimble countermelodies bolstered. Myers provided a sturdy, reliable bass, and inner voices Bruce and Paul brimmed with vivid courage and commitment. In Schoenberg’s apotheosis of post-Romantic tonality, these musicians skillfully stepped through both tradition-born sonorities and chromatic, dissonant harmonies, prefiguring his future 12-tone experiments.
Throughout, the group could have expanded its dynamic range and dramatic intensity. And while the ensemble playing felt mostly settled, a few helter-skelter moments stood out past the compositions themselves, and in some large unisons, the bowings, attacks, and slides did not always march in lockstep.
However, for their second outing, the Beacon Ensemble impressed. Individual lines and melded sound both shone out well, portraying many different timbres and expressions, and it was a joy to see the musicians joyfully sharing these multicolored tones. The afternoon’s curation left a welcome optimism and brightness to suffuse the windy December day. The Beacon Ensemble plans two more concerts this season, including one with chamber orchestra. I look forward to this ensemble’s continuing growth and explorations.