The second week of the Astoria Music Festival brought chamber music, a few new musician faces to the mix, a very different operatic experience than week one, and a unique pair of soloists for the final concert.
The chamber music concert on Friday night featured three different configurations of instrumental quintets. The principal winds of the festival orchestra played Mozart’s Quintet in E-flat major, K. 452 for Piano and Winds, along with the concert’s director, pianist Cary Lewis. It’s a wonderful work, and the players all sounded fantastic. The second quintet on the program featured another composer with the name Wolfgang, this time Korngold, who was represented by his youthful Piano Quintet in E major, Op. 15. It’s a massive three-movement work, supremely challenging for the ensemble. I likened this, our second performance, as being like stepping into the boxing ring for a rematch with an opponent who’d scored some solid punches in a previous bout. While it has some great stuff for all the instruments in the ensemble, I remain unconvinced of its whole being greater than the sum of its parts. Perhaps a third performance will get me all the way there. In any event, the violin cadenzas that began the finale were stunningly played by first violinist Anthea Kreston. Second violinist Nelly Kovalev was second fiddle in name only, and cellist Jason Duckles shone in his many solo turns. Pianist Cary Lewis rounded off his long evening of superb pianism with his usual blend of virtuosity and elegance.
The final quintet was by another composer who made his mark in Vienna, along with Mozart and Korngold, Franz Schubert. This was his String Quintet in C major, D. 956 – otherwise known as the Cello Quintet. Anthea Kreston again led, joined by concertmaster Inés Voglar Belgique, principal violist Joël Belgique, cellist Jason Duckles, and cellist Sergey Antonov. There’s not much that can be said about this piece that hasn’t been said countless times, but the performance more than measured up to the supreme heights of musical genius that Schubert scales with this incredible masterwork.
The Saturday evening orchestral concert again paired Mozart with another composer whom he inspired, this time Richard Strauss. Portland-born and now UK resident Andrew Brownell joined the orchestra as soloist in Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 21 in C major, K. 467. He brought a limpid touch to the soaring operatic melodies of the famous slow movement, and a keen virtuosity and elegant ausgang (mini cadenzas) to the sparkling outer movements. The bridge between the Mozart and the Strauss was the Composer’s Aria “Sein air wider gut” from Ariadne auf Naxos, sung by mezzo-soprano Angela Niederloh. Niederloh is always a stunning addition to any stage, and she sang the aria with great conviction and control. The ‘second act’ of Ariadne comprised the entire second half of the concert. Effectively an opera within an opera (the Prologue concerns the behind-the-scenes machinations of mounting an opera), it was presented here in a slightly reduced form with six solo strings plus some supporting numbers, and a minimal wind, brass, and percussion section. Maria Aleida sang Zerbinetta’s brutally difficult coloratura aria with poise, while Marie Plette was a lush and assured Ariadne. Tenor Allan Glassman was strong in his late-arrive role of Bacchus.
The final concert on Sunday was a unique affair in that it was made up of two concertos. One a beloved concerto for a very familiar concert instrument – Dvorak’s Cello Concerto, Op. 104 – and the other a very unfamiliar concerto for an unusual concert instrument – Guilmant’s Symphony No. 1 for Organ and Orchestra, Op. 42. Cellist Sergey Antonov was his usual arresting self on the platform, with a gorgeous tone in the long, aching melodies; and sparkling virtuosity in the concerto’s showier passagework sections. Concertmaster Inés Voglar Belgique played her solos beautifully, as did principal hornist Mike Hettwer. In the Guilmant, the great concert organist Hector Olivera was given many opportunities to show his prowess with both his hands and his feet. There was pedal work galore, and the piece gave the Rogers Concert Organ a chance to nearly blow the roof off of the Liberty Theater. And then – it was over. Summer festivals are much like those shimmery mirages that dot the landscape in the hot months – they seem to emerge slowly as one approaches them, and then disappear quickly once passed. But, luckily for us, we have the next summer’s festival to look forward to!