Tag Archives: concert

back in the saddle

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Arnica Quartet - Photo: Martha Warrington

Playing anything after a long period of absence is difficult, but it’s my opinion that chamber music – especially the string quartet – is the most difficult to come back to and do well.  There are just so many variables among the four instruments, as well as the sheer breadth and difficulty of the repertoire, that lead to this conclusion.  It was on my mind several times during my performance with the Arnica Quartet up at OHSU Auditorium at noon today, as we played Beethoven’s Op. 95 string quartet “Serioso”, and Schumann’s Quintet for piano and strings, Op. 44 with pianist Susan Dewitt Smith.

The Beethoven presents several difficulties.  First of all, it’s by Beethoven, so he doesn’t do you any favors right off the bat.  His writing is always uncompromising from a technical standpoint, even from the early Op. 18 quartets.  Also, this particular quartet is written in such a spare and austere fashion, both in terms of its musical language and in its orchestration.  It is a particularly transparent orchestration, which basically means that each instrument is very exposed (even more than usual in a string quartet setting) and voicing must be handled carefully to make sure that the material is presented in a clearly understandable way.  Beethoven is equally sparing with his economy of materials in this quartet, too.  Harmonic transitions occur quickly, and with little preparation.  There is much more of a reliance on motivic development than on spinning melodies, which also contributes to the concentration of the materials.  So too, the mood is terse (hence ‘Serioso’, a nickname bestowed upon the quartet by Beethoven himself), often angry, and the most striking moment of the piece, for me, is in the Allegretto movement (the closest that comes to a ‘slow’ movement in the quartet), where he starts a plaintive fugue which builds in intensity until it fragments and breaks apart, leaving only the spooky downward scale of the cello topped by suspensions in the upper strings, played sotto voce.  It definitely looks forward to some incredible moments in the late quartets, and yet it all happens in the space of about 30 seconds.  All of this aside, I think we did pull off a good performance of the quartet, which definitely felt good – even tough it was a tough horse to climb back on after a long absence.  And the moment was doubly sweet since it marked the official return of our cellist Heather Blackburn, who had been out all of last year with a playing-related injury.

Pianist Susan Dewitt Smith

The Schumann Quintet for piano and strings, Op. 44 is just a joy to rehearse and perform.  It is so well written for the forces that it really does go together quite easily, and having such a great pianist such as Susan to play it with certainly made it all the better.  Everyone gets their moment in the lime light with this piece, and the piano is involved in just about every moment of the piece.  I certainly hope that we get a chance to perform this piece again soon!

For any of you that haven’t been to the auditorium up at Oregon Health Sciences University for a concert, you’re missing one of the gems of performance spaces in Portland.  I wish that it was located downtown so that parking and accessibility would be much easier, but it’s entirely worth the fuss to get up Pill Hill.  It’s the perfect combination of lively and dry, with every voice being able to be heard with great clarity – a perfect chamber music setting.

the pleasures of working and not working

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Sunday was one of those days in which I took off my Oregon Symphony hat and put on my freelance violist hat. I was on leave from the pops series, so I was not at the hall for the OSO’s pops matinee on Sunday, but I was at the hall for an evening performance of the annual MetroArts, Inc. Young Artists Debut! Concerto Competition winners (as always, ably led by Niel DePonte).  It’s always a joy to see and hear these amazing young musicians, so accomplished at such young ages.

But, it was strange for me to be on my bike ride in the afternoon swinging by the place I’d normally be getting ready to play a performance about that time, so I took a photo to commemorate the occasion.

Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall as I rode by Sunday.

tricky part of the week

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This Sunday the Arnica Quartet will be performing on the Salem Camerata Musica series at the main branch of the Salem Public Library.  The concert is at 2:30 in the afternoon, and is free to the public.

The big finish piece for the concert is Beethoven’s Op. 59 no. 1 – part of a set of three quartets that bear the moniker “Rasumovsky” after the Russian count to whom they were dedicated and from whom they were commissioned.  Like it’s sibling, 59 no 2, the first quartet’s last movement is also designated as a Thème Russe.  It’s in this movement that one of the trickiest string quartet passages occurs.  Basically, the secondary theme of the movement is played in the viola and cello, with a rhythmic counter point – played by the two violins – which is syncopated (off the main beat) from what the lower strings are playing.  Then, after four bars, the two groups switch to what they other group had previously played in the first four bars.  Not too bad so far.  Then, as the passage progresses, the syncopated part starts compressing until it nearly doubles in speed (or halves in duration), while the upper strings abruptly reverse their rhythmic pattern and hilarity ensues.  Take a look:

new chamber series opens saturday

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45th Parallel, a new chamber music series curated by Oregon Symphony violinist Gregory Ewer, presents its inaugural concert on Saturday evening, January 16th at 7:30 p.m. at the Old Church in downtown Portland (1422 SW 11th Avenue).  Seating is limited, and the concert is likely to sell out, so don’t get turned away at the door – buy your tickets now!  The first season of concerts is sponsored by our great friends over at KQAC-FM, AllClassical.org.

It’s been a lot of work, but also a lot of fun, to put together the two pieces I play on for this concert.  The Verdi string quartet was entirely unknown to me before getting the music for it last month, and I think that it will be a very enjoyable piece for lovers of both the string quartet and opera repertoire.  As cellist Justin Kagan remarked (and he spent 8 years playing with the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra), “it’s like all the hardest bits of Verdi’s operas crammed into one piece”, and it’s also got some beautiful melodies that are entirely operatic in their scope (and given to the cello, for the most part).  The Tchaikovsky Souvenir de Florence is the big finish to the concert, and there’s little to say that hasn’t already been said about this piece.  It’s a sprawling, dense, and athletic piece which makes a lot of demands upon the players, but for the audience, it’s an enjoyable virtual trip through the picturesque vistas of summertime Italy.

Link for tickets.

Link for map.

classical 1 initial thoughts

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Last night was a bit of a strange concert, at least speaking for myself from my vantage point on the stage.  First of all, there was the sobering sight of empty seats in the hall – lots of them.  It’s not as though this is a strange program – Brahms d minor piano concerto is hardly a dark horse, and the Bartók Divertimento, while it suffers from having the composer’s name printed in the program (some concert goers just turn on their heel and walk out if they even read the name Bartók), is just about as easy going and accessible as Bartók can be.  The Liszt Hungarian Rhapsody is just a lot of fun to play and to listen to, so I’m perplexed.  Oh, and Jon Kimura Parker is an amazing pianist by anyone’s estimation, and I’m always amazed when he doesn’t fill halls like a couple of other big names manage to do.  Now we have a pretty thumbs-down review from David Stabler to round out the opening night.  I’m not sure quite what this was all about, except that last night’s concert started out with a performance of the Adagietto from Mahler’s Fifth Symphony in honor of Bob McClung, who passed away last week, who was our beloved stage manager.  I think that performance took a lot of our energy and focus, both from the musicians and from Carlos, I think, and so the Brahms suffered somewhat in terms of drive and clarity (at least from the point of view of the orchestra’s performance, not the soloist’s).  Well, we’ll see what tonight’s performance brings – hope to see you there (with a lot of your friends).

By the way – if you know someone who went last night – harass them for their ticket stub, it’ll get you in free if you exchange it for a new ticket within two hours before the start of the concert!