Dr. Wadsworth greeted us with his customary enthusiasm and hearty humor for the second installment of the Bank Of America Chamber Music series. The small kinks in production mentioned in Lindsay’s blog on Chamber Music I remain, but did nothing to distract our attention from the business at hand. Yes, it would have been nice if the musician’s patter between works had been amplified; it never fails to amuse, and always provides rich snippets into how theseworld-class performers approach each work. The lack of a microphone did have the effect of rendering the audience a bit quieter during the introductory remarks however, a plus in my book.

The series’ temporary home, Memminger Elementary School’s recently refurbished auditorium, provided a different acoustic than our revered old digs, underscoring the transient nature of music itself. A coy brightness, with just the hint of a chill, found its way into even the impish Mendelssohn quintet, but more about that later…

Dr. Wadsworth whetted our appetite with a story about his friend, Samuel Barber, holding on to the punch line until after we had experienced Barber’s Cello Sonata, Op. 6. This rarely performed early work of Barber’s instantly announced its passionate challenge to all present. Cellist Alisa Weilerstein and pianist Stephen Prutsman rocketed the opening Allegro ma non troppo’s intricate fire to a place where the depth of its impact could only be quickly glimpsed; indeed, I’m still wrestling with its majestic and personal turns. The Adagio started at a more lyrical pace before diving headlong into a wild frenzy as the theme stretched outward from the personal to a more universal expression. The closing Allegro appassianato served to aptly complete this expansion. Throughout the challenges presented by this wholly modernist yet royally rewarding piece, Alisa played with a wonderfully straightforward tone, musky and rich, that left no questions as to where her heart could be found.

Next up? A set of four songs by Sergei Rachmaninoff. As Lindsay has pointed out, this year we have singers in the mix! And so, with Dr. Wadsworth at the piano, SLSQ’s Geoff Nuttall on violin, we welcomed tenor Paul Groves to the stage. The set opened with In The Silence Of The Night from Op. 4. Then came Before My Window, from Op. 26 and How Fair This Place from Op. 21. The obligato for these two works was written by none other than our fearless leader, Dr. Wadsworth. Closing out the set (and Mr. Groves remarked “appropriately…”) was Oh, Never Sing To Me Again from Op. 4. Mr. Groves’ fluid and effortlessly controlled handling of the Russian words made me think that at times I was hearing Italian! And his tone! There is a roundness throughout his range (also formidable…) which reminds one of (dare I mention…) Björling. These songs were brought to fame through the recordings of Fritz Kreisler and John McCormack, so in the spirit of Rachmaninoff’s approval, I offer a peek of their work at the end of this review.

Closing out our program with the delightfully impish Viola Quintet in A Major, Op. 18, by Felix Mendelssohn could be seen as coming from the “leave ‘em laughing” school of showmanship were it not for the easy yet robust grace brought to play by perennial festival favorites, the St. Lawrence String Quartet. Joining the SLSQ on viola was Hsin-yun Huang, whose presence served to further increase in the rich joy in this work. Throughout the piece, her broad smile offered commas and periods, but most often they hung exquisite exclamation points! Oh yeah, the music… The quintet opens at an easy rollick, marked Allegro con moto, allowing the listener to be drawn in by its seemingly joyous innocence. Very soon however, there are winks and nudges of a more mischievous character, bubbling up from the cello and violas letting us know that even when at its quietest, we’ve got a really smooth flirt on our hands. And Mendelssohn wrote the majority of this work at the tender age of 15! At the still tender age of 21, a friend died, and the composer replaced the second movement with an Intermezzo: Andante sostenuto in his memory. It begins with a stately slowness, barely concealing the depths of loss. But the puckish trickster can’t abide a lack of movement for long, and emerges with guns blasting a song of raw sorrow. By the movements end our imp returns to his flirtatious ways, a bit wiser perhaps, and tinged by the passage of sorrow. The Scherzo: Allegro di molto that follows blazed a devil’s dance around the auditorium, highlighting the precise sense of balance and technical prowess that makes any concert by the SLSQ a joy to behold. The Allegro vivace closing this work takes all of the elements that have come before and writes them large across the ear with skipping leaps of a joy, now mature, unleashed and unfettered and brings them to a positively blistering conclusion.

You’ve got one more chance to catch Chamber II, tomorrow morning at 11:00 am. This was one of the most satisfying concerts I’ve attended in a long time, so it comes highly recommended.

And now for the Kreisler/McCormack I promised: