{"id":64,"date":"2006-08-06T21:50:12","date_gmt":"2006-08-07T05:50:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/?p=64"},"modified":"2013-02-07T17:48:05","modified_gmt":"2013-02-08T01:48:05","slug":"methow-report-columbia-quartet-doings","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/2006\/08\/06\/methow-report-columbia-quartet-doings\/","title":{"rendered":"festival report: methow music festival"},"content":{"rendered":"

We’re back for just an overnight at home, then it’s off to Sunriver for some chamber orchestra action. The Methow Festival went very well. There were more than a few communication and logistical snafus, but given that Artistic Director and Pianist Lisa Bergman had to leave for Seattle during the middle of rehearsals due to a medical situation, it all came together very well, indeed!<\/p>\n

Heather was to play the Chopin Pollanaise Brilliante<\/em> with Lisa, and then four of us were to do the Brahms Piano Quintet<\/em> with her as well. The Chopin got axed, as did the Brahms, and in place of the Brahms we filled out the second program with the Haydn “Lark” Quartet, on two day’s notice and without having ever played it together, no less! It was a great confidence booster to see that we’d jelled enough as an ensemble to tackle the intricacies of Haydn on short notice and very little rehearsal time.<\/p>\n

The Mozart Quintet in g minor (Kv. 516a) was great fun, and it was such a pleasure to share the stage with our fellow festival artists Maria Sampen and Timothy Christie (violin and viola, and wife and husband), who also played the Bach Double Violin Concerto with us. The quintet really is such a staggering work of heartbreaking genius (with apologies to Dave Eggers) and it was incredible to get back in touch with it after years of only knowing it as a recording and excerpts from Alfred Einstein’s biography of Mozart harking to Gethsemane and the poisoned chalice. Great stuff!<\/p>\n

We also did the Haydn Op. 20 no 4 ‘Sun’ – a work from the amazingly mature and interesting (if a bit underplayed by the major touring quartets) opus 20. The set gets its name from the title page illustration of the original edition. It also made a cool bookend to our last work, the titanic Beethoven Op. 59 no 2 of the Razumovsky<\/em> set, which Czerny called an evocation of a great starry night sky and the music of the spheres<\/em>.<\/p>\n

As if there wasn’t enough musical and life drama during the week, the complex of wildfires known as the “Tripod Complex” was buring through over 57,000 acres of rugged backcountry forest a short distance north and east of the town of Winthrop, where the festival is held. The fire provided a dramatic backdrop to the concerts, and became even more so after dark. Timothy Christie noticed tongues of flame coming up from the crowns of newly ignited trees and christened the area Mordor, after the land of the evil wizard Sauron from The Lord of the Rings.<\/p>\n

For those of you who might be interested in such things, we’ll be deciding repertoire for the coming season by the end of the month – so far Beethoven Op. 130 has a strong chance of being on our fall concert…
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We’re back for just an overnight at home, then it’s off to Sunriver for some chamber orchestra action. The Methow Festival went very well. There were more than a few communication and logistical snafus, but given that Artistic Director and Pianist Lisa Bergman had to leave for Seattle during the middle of rehearsals due to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":303,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[2],"tags":[95,55,53,3660,3659],"class_list":["post-64","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-the-orchestra-world","tag-festivals","tag-orchestra","tag-piano","tag-viola","tag-violin"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pa8kC-12","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":13802,"url":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/2015\/07\/22\/methow-preview-part-three\/","url_meta":{"origin":64,"position":0},"title":"methow preview: part three","author":"Charles Noble","date":"July 22, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"The final work that I'm performing at the Methow Valley Chamber Music Festival is John Harbison's Piano Quintet, written in 1981 for Georgia O'Keefe and the Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival. John Rockwell, then music critic for the New York Times, wrote this in his review of the premiere performance\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "chamber music"","block_context":{"text":"chamber music","link":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/category\/music\/chamber-music\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/20120112162024-1-e1437610857728.jpg?fit=500%2C227&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":14097,"url":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/2016\/05\/17\/mahler-time\/","url_meta":{"origin":64,"position":1},"title":"Mahler time","author":"Charles Noble","date":"May 17, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"If it's the end of the Oregon Symphony's season, chances are it's time to hear one of Mahler's magnificent symphonies. This season it is his massive Symphony No. 3. It will be my second time playing this wonderful piece, the first having been back in 2003 under Maestro James DePreist.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "chamber music"","block_context":{"text":"chamber music","link":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/category\/music\/chamber-music\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"1895-12-13-Mahler_ABPh_","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/05\/1895-12-13-Mahler_ABPh_-300x429.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":14429,"url":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/2016\/12\/31\/my-2016-in-music\/","url_meta":{"origin":64,"position":2},"title":"My 2016 in music.","author":"Charles Noble","date":"December 31, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"I enjoy reading the end-of- year performance lists. It reminds me of what I haven't yet done, what I wish I hadn't done, and what I really enjoyed having done. So, in that spirit, I present my far from exhaustive list of major musical events in my life from 2016.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "the orchestra world"","block_context":{"text":"the orchestra world","link":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/category\/music\/the-orchestra-world\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"DSC_2372","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/DSC_2372.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/DSC_2372.jpg?resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/DSC_2372.jpg?resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/DSC_2372.jpg?resize=700%2C400 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/DSC_2372.jpg?resize=1050%2C600 3x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/DSC_2372.jpg?resize=1400%2C800 4x"},"classes":[]},{"id":12875,"url":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/2013\/07\/24\/cellos-at-methow\/","url_meta":{"origin":64,"position":3},"title":"cellos at methow","author":"Charles Noble","date":"July 24, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"IMG_9885, a photo by nobleviola on Flickr. Pictured here are three of the cellists who are playing at this year's Methow Valley Chamber Music Festival. From left to right: Paul Wianko, Kevin Krenz (festival artistic director), and Armen Ksajikian. Accompanying them in David Popper's Requiem is festival pianist Craig Sheppard.","rel":"","context":"In "the orchestra world"","block_context":{"text":"the orchestra world","link":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/category\/music\/the-orchestra-world\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":14140,"url":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/2016\/06\/20\/the-learning-continues\/","url_meta":{"origin":64,"position":4},"title":"the learning continues","author":"Charles Noble","date":"June 20, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"After this past week's rehearsing and performing at the Portland Piano International Festival, I learned, or re-learned several things. First, I learned what the Dutch expression \"mierenneuken\" means (nit-picking is the least offensive way I can explain it) from former Concertgebouw Orchestra concertmaster Alex Kerr. (It came up in the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "chamber music"","block_context":{"text":"chamber music","link":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/category\/music\/chamber-music\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Photo: Portland Piano International","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/13490732_10154297682423383_6484095375776235960_o-500x333.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":3184,"url":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/2009\/09\/30\/brahms-youthful-concerto\/","url_meta":{"origin":64,"position":5},"title":"brahms’ youthful concerto","author":"Charles Noble","date":"September 30, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"This weekend, the Oregon Symphony is performing the early (op. 15) First Piano Concerto of Johannes Brahms with the great pianist Jon Kimura Parker.\u00a0 It's long been one of my favorite pieces, a stormy, hyper-emotional, post-adolescent expression of the 25 year old Brahms.\u00a0 I only own one recording of this\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "appreciation"","block_context":{"text":"appreciation","link":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/category\/music\/appreciations\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"brahms","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/09\/brahms-400x355.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/303"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=64"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=64"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=64"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=64"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}