Gathering Note

Reviewing the Seattle Chamber Music Society’s summer festival is a difficult task. It is, I would say, the most reliable series of classical music performances in Seattle. The performers are top-notch, drawn from orchestras, universities, and solo rosters. They have to be this good, of course, because they are playing something different with a new, ad hoc ensemble each night. Usually, musicians have only a few days to prepare. Along with the excellent performers, the thrice weekly programs are as dependable as sighting Mount Rainier on a summer day. There are heavy doses of Schubert, Brahms, Mozart, Shostakovich, and others. The interesting stuff is usually reserved for the free recitals that happen an hour before.

Friday’s performance ended the first week of the festival. The first two nights sold out easily and the third night was a near sell out. Thirty minutes before the free recital began there were only seven seats left. Including the recital, the concert was a three and a half hour odyssey through the music of Faure, Mozart, Schubert, and Ernest Bloch.

After 28 years are there any superlatives left to describe the performances in this festival?

Continue reading No lemons at Friday’s SCMS performance; only lemonade

There was much to admire at the Seattle Chamber Music Festival Wednesday night at Lakeside School — from violiist Augustin Hadelich’s recital at the beginning of the evening to a luminous account of Dvorak’s “Dumky” Trio at the end.

Born in Italy to German parents, Hadelich is making his festival debut this summer. He is playing every concert this week and next in a wide range of composers: Schumann and Schubert, then Brahms, Prokofiev and Haydn.  On Wednesday he appeared in recital, playing a brace of fantasies by Telemann, a solo sonata of Ysaye, in G, and a caprice by Paganini, “The Hunt.” His playing was exemplary. At his age — he is 25 this year — and with his credentials, one would expect his technical resources to be large. They are. But he is more than a master of notes. He has finesse, style and a grasp of period sensibilities. His Telemann was nothing like his Ysaye and Paganini.  That could not be said for a lot of his elders. His tone is not large but penetrating, his musicianship carefully constructed but seemingly free on stage. The Telemann had much to recommend it. Hadelich made the most of what the composer gave him. Telemann can seem, on occasion, a little ordinary. That was not the case with Hadelich. He made every phrase count, with each note in its proper place.

Continue reading A Full Evening of Superb Music-Making Wednesday night at the Seattle Chamber Music Festival

There was so much enthusiasm Monday night at the opening of the Seattle Chamber Music Festival’s new season, it would have been hard to detect even a hint of unhappiness or regret. The festival, which opened its doors 28 years ago with a modest two-week festival — grown to six weeks in two venues in the summer and a week in the winter at a third — is spending its last season at Lakeside School.

Continue reading Seattle Chamber Music Festival Opens its 28th season Monday night