Concert review |
The audiences attending the Seattle Chamber Music Society's Summer Festival are an extremely coddled bunch. First of all, they ask perfection. And get it. Then they have the audacity to expect regular more: a spark of genius.
They acquire that, too.
All season farsighted, the Summer Festival has been offering stunning performances during both its runs, at the Lakeside School in July and the Overlake School in August. Wednesday night's concert delivered the common technical virtuosity and passionate musicality though a Romantic lineup of Clara Schumann, Mendelssohn and Smetana. My bet departure in was that the showy pyrotechny of the Smetana Trio were well-nigh likely to steal the show.
Sometimes, organism wrong is utterly adorable. The crown jewel of the evening belonged to always-popular Mendelssohn and his String Quintet in B-flat Major. The piece opens fast and furious, like the buzzing of brilliant bees, and the conclusion of the frenetic low gear movement literally left the audience gasping. The entire piece crackled with the energy poured into it by violinists Joseph Lin and Ida Levin, violists Che-Yen Chen and Richard O'Neill, and cellist Amos Yang. The highlight came near the end of the slower Adagio, when the cello and violas mournfully sang together before being perforated by the plaintive bawling of the violins. Each player was internally focussed, but machine-accessible to the group by that particular ESP some chamber players seem to have. This whole ensemble had it, with each member lifting the others until they were all on that exalted planer of musicianship where every note is just right.
Athletes call it being in the zone.
My original pick for the zone, the Smetana Trio for Violin, Cello and Piano, came close just didn't quite make it inside for me � although it did for many members of the enthusiastic hearing. The Smetana opens with the fiddle throwing a Gothic hissy fit in front unleashing all sorts of dissonant legal and vehemence from the piano and cello. This tumult continues through the multithemed second movement before reaching a fever pitch in the finale, when Smetana pulls out every melodramatic trick in the book, including a number of simulated endings. Violinist Scott Yoo and pianist Andrew Armstrong threw themselves into the melee with abandon. I was grateful for the relative calm of Amit Peled's cello, which soothed the stunts of the violin and piano like a balm.
Compared to the Mendelssohn and Smetana, the Clara Schumann Trio � written, according to the program notes, when she was pregnant with the fourth of her eight children � is ladylike in its restraint. Violinist Erin Keefe, cellist Robert deMaine and pianist Anton Nel performed this sympathetic piece with tact and grace.
Summer is almost over. So is the Seattle Chamber Music Society's Summer Festival. If you haven't yet attended a concert, Friday night's season closer is your last chance. Incredibly, there are a few seating still uncommitted for a powerful political platform that includes a Beethoven String Quartet and a Brahms Trio. Even if those names mean naught to you, take my advice: Go.
Sumi Hahn: sumi@bewodo.org
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