News
ENLARGE
Musical nationalism was prominent last weekend as Germany, Poland, Spain and the USA were featured in exemplary InConcert Sierra concerts by acclaimed performers.
Friday's House Concert was a stimulating program by the Germany-based violin and piano duo of Nora Chastain and husband Friedmann Rieger, with the audience physically close and intensely involved.
The program opened full-bore with German Romanticism: Schumann's Violin Sonata of 1851, a vehicle for Chastain's rhythmic precision and soaring lyricism as she and Rieger, a formidable partner, reveled in its passion. Though her Guarneri violin was in the shop (even violins need their tune-ups) the rich tone of her youthful 160-year-old English instrument suggested the viola in the lower register and was lush even in the upper echelons.
Two movements from Karol Szymanowski's 1904 Violin Sonata continued the Romantic vein, with a Polish twist and the influences of Scriabin and Wagner. The turbulent first movement and poetic second demand impeccable coordination, the piano part heavy with chords, the violin by turns agitated and introspective. It was an expressive performance. Two movements from Joaquin Turina's Sonata Espanola pursued the nationalist theme, classical in feel yet imbued with Spanish rhythm, played with élan.
The delightful encore paid homage to Chastain's grandfather, composer Roy Harris, a key figure in mid-century American music. The lilting slow movement of his Violin Sonata was affectionately played, an offering to Chastain's family, several of whom were in the audience.
The Third Sunday concert was quite a contrast: a performance by world-renowned Spanish Brass, a quintet of two trumpets, French horn, trombone and tuba. They are technically astounding players, with musical insight and self-mocking humor. Playing mostly without music, the quintet opened with Handel's Arrival of the Queen of Sheba, and amazed with a high-speed Bach D-minor Toccata and Fugue, suggesting the power of an enormous pipe-organ.
Solid and romantic was Victor Ewald's 1888 quintet, while the world premiere of Odd Man Out by American Stanley Friedman, written for the group, was a tour-de-force. With hints of Bartok and Stravinsky, Odd Man Out combined thrilling staccato chords, complex jazz-like syncopation, and fugal fragments tossed back and forth, resolving into a dazzling fugue all over a metronome-steady pulse, its steadiness the more remarkable since no note ever seemed to be on the beat.
The program also offered pieces, some originally for piano or guitar, by Albeniz and Granados, and composers of “zarzuelas,” popular Spanish operettas. Hearing a familiar work in another guise gives new insight: Spanish Brass helped to highlight key moments with individual players stepping into the limelight. The first encore, played after the intermission (“In case you don't like us enough at the end to ask for one”) was the poignant adagio from Rodrigo's Concierto de Aranjuez, counterpoint to the preceding high energy. The real encore was an exuberant Just a Closer Walk with Thee, the popular gospel hymn.
“Heaven,” it has been suggested, “is eating foie gras to the sound of trumpets.” With or without foie gras, Spanish Brass came pretty close to musical heaven.
Charles Atthill lives in Alta Sierra. Awed by this week's concerts he is sticking to his musical knitting: The CD player.
Friday's House Concert was a stimulating program by the Germany-based violin and piano duo of Nora Chastain and husband Friedmann Rieger, with the audience physically close and intensely involved.
The program opened full-bore with German Romanticism: Schumann's Violin Sonata of 1851, a vehicle for Chastain's rhythmic precision and soaring lyricism as she and Rieger, a formidable partner, reveled in its passion. Though her Guarneri violin was in the shop (even violins need their tune-ups) the rich tone of her youthful 160-year-old English instrument suggested the viola in the lower register and was lush even in the upper echelons.
Two movements from Karol Szymanowski's 1904 Violin Sonata continued the Romantic vein, with a Polish twist and the influences of Scriabin and Wagner. The turbulent first movement and poetic second demand impeccable coordination, the piano part heavy with chords, the violin by turns agitated and introspective. It was an expressive performance. Two movements from Joaquin Turina's Sonata Espanola pursued the nationalist theme, classical in feel yet imbued with Spanish rhythm, played with élan.
The delightful encore paid homage to Chastain's grandfather, composer Roy Harris, a key figure in mid-century American music. The lilting slow movement of his Violin Sonata was affectionately played, an offering to Chastain's family, several of whom were in the audience.
The Third Sunday concert was quite a contrast: a performance by world-renowned Spanish Brass, a quintet of two trumpets, French horn, trombone and tuba. They are technically astounding players, with musical insight and self-mocking humor. Playing mostly without music, the quintet opened with Handel's Arrival of the Queen of Sheba, and amazed with a high-speed Bach D-minor Toccata and Fugue, suggesting the power of an enormous pipe-organ.
Solid and romantic was Victor Ewald's 1888 quintet, while the world premiere of Odd Man Out by American Stanley Friedman, written for the group, was a tour-de-force. With hints of Bartok and Stravinsky, Odd Man Out combined thrilling staccato chords, complex jazz-like syncopation, and fugal fragments tossed back and forth, resolving into a dazzling fugue all over a metronome-steady pulse, its steadiness the more remarkable since no note ever seemed to be on the beat.
The program also offered pieces, some originally for piano or guitar, by Albeniz and Granados, and composers of “zarzuelas,” popular Spanish operettas. Hearing a familiar work in another guise gives new insight: Spanish Brass helped to highlight key moments with individual players stepping into the limelight. The first encore, played after the intermission (“In case you don't like us enough at the end to ask for one”) was the poignant adagio from Rodrigo's Concierto de Aranjuez, counterpoint to the preceding high energy. The real encore was an exuberant Just a Closer Walk with Thee, the popular gospel hymn.
“Heaven,” it has been suggested, “is eating foie gras to the sound of trumpets.” With or without foie gras, Spanish Brass came pretty close to musical heaven.
Charles Atthill lives in Alta Sierra. Awed by this week's concerts he is sticking to his musical knitting: The CD player.
