If you haven’t heard vivacious violist Hsin-yun Huang or super-tenor Paul Groves yet, you’ve got one more chance: tomorrow’s 11:00 p.m. concert will be the last outing for Program IV – the final one featuring these fab festival newcomers. I had the unqualified joy of catching it this morning.
After years of bugging Dr. Wadsworth about this one, clarinet sorcerer Todd Palmer finally got his way. The opening item was Bernhard Crusell’s bubbly and beautifully-crafted Clarinet Quartet. Crusell, an obscure classical-era Scandinavian composer, was also one of the leading clarinet virtuosos of his day. I own his clarinet concertos on CD, and I’m here to tell you that he wrote some really great stuff. His delightful music offers a mildly Nordic take on Haydn and Mozart: it’s got the same kind of melodic appeal and gracious lilt – with just a touch of rustic simplicity. There’s precious little chamber music for clarinet out there … no wonder Palmer’s been lobbying for it.
Rounding out his all-star team were violinist Geoff Nuttall (St. Lawrence Quartet’s lead fiddler and new associate series director), violist Hsin-yun Huang and cellist Alisa Weilerstein. Todd made Crusell’s licorice stick pyrotechnics sound easy, and his colleagues supported him to the hilt.
Then it was on to yet another sublime rarity: late-romantic German cellist and composer David Popper’s glowing Requiem – in its chamber arrangement for three cellos and piano (there’s also an orchestral version). Discharging the cello duties most deliciously were Alisa Weilerstein, Chris Costanza and Edward Arron: just maybe (according to Wadsworth) the three best cellists ever to take the stage together in this series’ rich history.
Expertly backed up by Wadsworth at the Steinway, our trio of cellists delivered a searching and bittersweet account of this neglected masterpiece, bringing out its keening sense of fathomless grief as well as it’s almost Brahmsian intensity. They fed upon each other, trading off themes before coming together in luscious harmony. The final soft measures (with mutes attached) made for sheer, gut-wrenching musical sorcery. Small wonder cellists revere this piece (and the rest of Popper’s cello output).
Enter Paul Groves, for his festival swan song: the potent of Winter Words, Op. 52, an eight-piece song-cycle by 20th-Century English stalwart Benjamin Britten. The man could write a song, for sure: these masterly settings of Thomas Hardy’s poetry turned out to be quite an experience, expressing a huge range of image and emotion. The heart of the cycle lay in ‘The Choirmaster’s Burial’, a tear-jerking retelling of the tender and touching sendoff given a small town’s resident church musician (some of the tears jerked were my own).
Groves has a special way of getting inside of a song’s emotional world and making it his own (OUR own, too). You hardly needed the written texts to follow – his superb diction conveyed every word to us. He produced a vast range of vocal sonorities, from nearly inaudible whispers to clarion outcries … what a voice! Another festival newbie, pianist supreme Pedja Muzijevic, appeared for the first time, supporting Groves with an almost mystical sense of rapport (they’ve worked together before). Watch for more from him as the series continues to unfold.
OH – and here’s your latest Eargasm alert: the major work you’ll hear in tomorrow’s Concert V (kicking off at 1:00 p.m.) will be Beethoven’s seldom-heard Septet in E-Flat, Op. 20 – another big (for chamber) piece that offers an unusual grouping of instruments. Alongside festival regulars on strings and clarinet, you’ll hear horn-meister Eric Ruske and (for the first time) Peter Kolkay: the first star bassoonist to grace the festival in quite awhile.
Stay tuned – there are yet more top-secret musical cherries from this series to be gradually leaked – and the only place you can find ‘em is right here – in Eargasms.
Hear ‘Em While You Can – and a Fresh Eargasm Alert
If you haven’t heard vivacious violist Hsin-yun Huang or super-tenor Paul Groves yet, you’ve got one more chance: tomorrow’s 11:00 p.m. concert will be the last outing for Program IV – the final one featuring these fab festival newcomers. I had the unqualified joy of catching it this morning.
After years of bugging Dr. Wadsworth about this one, clarinet sorcerer Todd Palmer finally got his way. The opening item was Bernhard Crusell’s bubbly and beautifully-crafted Clarinet Quartet. Crusell, an obscure classical-era Scandinavian composer, was also one of the leading clarinet virtuosos of his day. I own his clarinet concertos on CD, and I’m here to tell you that he wrote some really great stuff. His delightful music offers a mildly Nordic take on Haydn and Mozart: it’s got the same kind of melodic appeal and gracious lilt – with just a touch of rustic simplicity. There’s precious little chamber music for clarinet out there … no wonder Palmer’s been lobbying for it.
Rounding out his all-star team were violinist Geoff Nuttall (St. Lawrence Quartet’s lead fiddler and new associate series director), violist Hsin-yun Huang and cellist Alisa Weilerstein. Todd made Crusell’s licorice stick pyrotechnics sound easy, and his colleagues supported him to the hilt.
Then it was on to yet another sublime rarity: late-romantic German cellist and composer David Popper’s glowing Requiem – in its chamber arrangement for three cellos and piano (there’s also an orchestral version). Discharging the cello duties most deliciously were Alisa Weilerstein, Chris Costanza and Edward Arron: just maybe (according to Wadsworth) the three best cellists ever to take the stage together in this series’ rich history.
Expertly backed up by Wadsworth at the Steinway, our trio of cellists delivered a searching and bittersweet account of this neglected masterpiece, bringing out its keening sense of fathomless grief as well as it’s almost Brahmsian intensity. They fed upon each other, trading off themes before coming together in luscious harmony. The final soft measures (with mutes attached) made for sheer, gut-wrenching musical sorcery. Small wonder cellists revere this piece (and the rest of Popper’s cello output).
Enter Paul Groves, for his festival swan song: the potent of Winter Words, Op. 52, an eight-piece song-cycle by 20th-Century English stalwart Benjamin Britten. The man could write a song, for sure: these masterly settings of Thomas Hardy’s poetry turned out to be quite an experience, expressing a huge range of image and emotion. The heart of the cycle lay in ‘The Choirmaster’s Burial’, a tear-jerking retelling of the tender and touching sendoff given a small town’s resident church musician (some of the tears jerked were my own).
Groves has a special way of getting inside of a song’s emotional world and making it his own (OUR own, too). You hardly needed the written texts to follow – his superb diction conveyed every word to us. He produced a vast range of vocal sonorities, from nearly inaudible whispers to clarion outcries … what a voice! Another festival newbie, pianist supreme Pedja Muzijevic, appeared for the first time, supporting Groves with an almost mystical sense of rapport (they’ve worked together before). Watch for more from him as the series continues to unfold.
OH – and here’s your latest Eargasm alert: the major work you’ll hear in tomorrow’s Concert V (kicking off at 1:00 p.m.) will be Beethoven’s seldom-heard Septet in E-Flat, Op. 20 – another big (for chamber) piece that offers an unusual grouping of instruments. Alongside festival regulars on strings and clarinet, you’ll hear horn-meister Eric Ruske and (for the first time) Peter Kolkay: the first star bassoonist to grace the festival in quite awhile.
Stay tuned – there are yet more top-secret musical cherries from this series to be gradually leaked – and the only place you can find ‘em is right here – in Eargasms.