Sunday’s matinee Interlude concert, billed as “Chamber Music Reimagined,” featured two alumni players from Chesapeake Music’s annual International Chamber Competition for Young Professionals. Ensemble 132, a collective of 11 musicians, of whom five performed before a packed house at the Ebenezer Theatre in Easton, featured two members of Trio St. Bernard – cellist Zachary Mowitz and pianist Sahun Sam Hong – who won the competition in 2018.
“We’ve been returning every year since,” Mowitz said, addressing the audience between the opening Piano Trio in A Major by Haydn and Hong’s arrangement for piano quartet of Robert Schumann’s “Carnaval,” plus the concert finale, Stravinsky’s challenging “Petrouchka” ballet.
Haydn was the most prolific composer of the 18th- to 19th-century classical period, with a prodigious 106 symphonies that won him the unofficial title of “Father of the Symphony.” But he also earned the nickname “Father of the String Quartet” and that of piano trios (he wrote 45 of the latter.) As a mentor to Mozart, Haydn composed fewer quartets and trios after his genius student surpassed him in that art form. His Trio in A Major, performed by Hong and Mowitz with violinist Stephanie Zyzak, opens with a cheerful allegro moderato that flows irresistibly in what seems so easy for this threesome. The middle movement andante is more subdued as the strings weep as if haunted by regrets. But the allegro finale recovers from this brief despair with chirping syncopations that lead to a happy ending.
Schumann’s “Carnaval,” subtitled “21 Little Scenes on Four Notes,” was composed in the 1830s for solo piano, which Hong deftly arranged instead for Ensemble 132’s piano quartet. I lost count of the 21 sections of the piece, as many are not marked by a discernible pause. An assertive opening inspired by variations on a Schubert theme yields to refrains from the strings – now including violist Luther Warren – responding to the pianist’s insistent calls to attention ranging from near whispers of notes to a playful romp before surrendering to a romantic finish with happy/sad solo diversions for each instrument.
After intermission, the program moves into the 20th century with African-American composer Coleridge-Taylor Perkinson’s String Quartet No. 1 (“Calvary”), now including violinist Abi Fayette in the first chair for the concert’s Act II. Named for Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, the black Romantic-era composer from Britain, Perkinson’s wide-ranging career is reflected in his interests in jazz, working as a pianist, as well as film scores and pop arrangements for Marvin Gaye and Harry Belafonte. His classical works are marked by a contemporary sound that anticipated modern trends with blues, spirituals, and jazz influences fused with Baroque inspirations.
His musically abstract sensibility and emotional complexity are most often led assertively in each change in mood by violinist Fayette on pianist Hong’s cue. The second movement adagio, opens with plucking notes to Warren’s brief viola solo just before violins and cello amplify melancholic passages to a pizzicato heartbeat. The third movement rondo, opens with bold dual violin statements joined in by lower strings, providing a train-like undercurrent culminating in a decisive unison conclusion.
While pianist Hong also arranged the solo piano piece (Schumann’s) for a quartet, scaling up from a full-orchestra ballet presents far more obstacles – no brass or woodwinds, not to mention dancers. It helps listeners of this rearrangement to know a little about the plot of “Petrouchka.”
The first of the four Tableaux of Stravinsky’s ballet set in Russia opens with the piano and first violin together preceding the other three string players who make their separate entrances into what we must leave to our imagination – the Shrovetide Fairgrounds of St. Petersburg. Jaunty dance numbers based on Russian folk tunes are introduced by a single piano note or two. The chamber quintet’s performance palette paints a celebratory picture that unfolds the story of three puppets brought to life by a magician. (We get the jaunty dance numbers played robustly by the ensemble). As for living, breathing puppets, my only experience is “Pinocchio.” But that’s another story.
The next two tableaux take place, first in the room of Petrouchka, who has fallen in love with the lovely former puppet, Ballerina. You can hear Petrouchka’s heart pounding to a pizzicato beat. But the music turns downbeat as the scene shifts to The Moor’s room, where Ballerina has fled Petrouchka’s entreaties in favor of his rival’s.
In the final tableau, nightfall descends on the Shrovetide Fair, where Petrouchka’s jealous rage leads – spoiler alert! – to his murder. The cacophony of his demise is captured in folk minuets that break up with mad atonal intensity into mind games of deranged humiliation that costs puppet Petrouchka his life mere hours after he first drew breath – about a half hour in concert time. (And to think: Pinocchio only sprouted a really long nose.)
Even without a plot outline to guide us, Ensemble 132’s performance of this impossibly complex reduction of full orchestra instrumentation to that of five feverishly skilled musicians is a remarkable achievement both for the players and their fellow pianist/arranger. Maybe they should try it in the future with a silent video backdrop of vintage scenes from the ballet.
CHESAPEAKE MUSIC INTERLUDE CONCERT
Ensemble 132 performed at Ebenezer Theatre, Easton, on Sunday, March 10. The next Chesapeake Music event is its annual International Chamber Music Competition, April 13-14, at the Ebenezer. chesapeakemusic.org
Steve Parks is a retired New York arts critic now living in Easton.
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