Tag: Chamber Music

By Harlan Glotzer

The most widely known early music ensemble in Seattle would probably have to be Seattle Baroque Orchestra, but the true scene of early music in this city are gems like Gallery Concerts. This afternoon’s performance—the Bach Family Birthday Bash—was the second in a two part Bach’s Birthday Festival. The outstanding display of works by Johann Sebastian Bach and three of his four musical sons, Carl Philipp Emanuel, Johann Christoph Friedrich, and Johann Christian on period instruments in appropriate performances practices held me enraptured from the preconcert lecture to the final movement.

This concert closed out the 21st season of Gallery Concerts, and I was ecstatic to see the pews of Queen Anne Christian Church (the regular performance space for Gallery Concert) completely filled. In addition to presenting a personal, friendly, and intimate concert going experience, Founding Director Jillon Stoppels Dupree and Artistic Director George Bozarth make Gallery Concerts a truly unique and important concert series by including repertoire and performance practices of the 19th century—something I have yet to see at any other early music society in this city. Even though this was a concert of Bach, which usually conjures the image of the “High Baroque,” they presented works that spanned the Baroque, Galant, and Early Classical idioms while simultaneously shedding light on the scope of music created in the Bach family’s nearly 300 year prominence in Germanic Central Europe.
Continue reading Gallery concerts celebrate the Bach boys

By R.M. Campbell

The group, with violinists Sebastian Gurtler and Regis Bringolf, violist Gertrud Weinmeister and cellist Florian Berne, offered lean and tangy accounts of Haydn, Janacek and Brahms. Haydn’s String Quartet in G Minor, the third of three quartets of the Opus 20, was the least successful. Isn’t that often the case with string quartets today? It was anxious, with inconsistent ensemble and lack of organic growth. It appeared the quartet hadn’t made up its collective mind about how to approach the work. The very free-flowing ease with which Haydn is often associated was not entirely absent but often so.

Janacek’s Second Quartet (“Intimate Letters’) was a different kettle of fish. Here the quartet seemed on home turf, although why Haydn would not be home turf for a Austrian quartet seems difficult to understand. Maybe chronology is more important than geography. In any event, the performance was compelling, at once anguished, disconcerting, uneasy. Janacek is better known for his operas and orchestral works, but this quartet is worthy of attention. The Wolf Quartet must have an affinity for its character, because it was so deeply in it. All of its varied emotions, and the range is quite wide, were given acute expressions. With the Wolf, one heard some of the same potency one hears in his operas.

The conclusion was the last quartet Brahms wrote, in B-flat Major. One could have assumed the lean approach heard in the Haydn and Janaceck would have been cast aside. That was not the case. The Wolf was precisely the same, although certainly there were stylistic differences. This is not a complaint. One hears Brahms played so often with the heart on the sleeve that to hear something less openly expressive is welcome. Gurtler has a finely wrought tone that gives the quartet its essential tonal attributes. This was counterbalanced, somewhat in the Brahms by Weinmeister’s rich viola sound. Brahms was very generous to the viola, and Weinmeister took every advantage, lending a rich, handsome sound to what Brahms provided. Moreover, there was energy and variety to the playing. This was not everyday Brahms.

By R.M. Campbell

Since its founding in 1924, the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia has become one of the most important music conservatories in the United States. Its list of alumni, as well as faculty, represent some of the most celebrated names in music. They are everywhere, including a number in the Seattle Symphony Orchestra, like principal violist Susan Gulkis. However, the school is not as well-known to the general public as the Juilliard School in New York. Curtis on Tour, hopes to correct that and give its young, talented students an early crack on the professional stage. It made its Seattle debut last year at the Henry Chapel in the Highlands. It returned Tuesday night, with different students accompanied by two eminent faculty members — violinist Ida Kavafian and cellist Peter Wiley — and its eminent president Roberto Diaz, who was principal violist of the Philadelphia Orchestra until his appointment to Curtis. Kavafian and Wiley played. Diaz did not, a pity, because he is such a fine musician (he played at the Seattle Chamber Music Festival the year of his appointment), although his student, Hyo Bi Sim, did, and acquitted herself with honor.

Continue reading Curtis musicians return to Seattle

By Gigi Yellen

David White is a great performer! At the keyboard, he is a crisp, athletic artist, defining an energetic musical rapport among his fellow players that, in turn, keeps an audience on the edge of its seat.

But he’s more than that: he’s a gifted and entertaining speaker, whose pre-concert energy added great value to the experience of the small crowd of cognoscenti gathered at Town Hall for this Sunday afternoon concert of Haydn and Mendelssohn chamber music. Onyx continues its 2009-10 season commemorating the dual bicentennials of Joseph Haydn (died in 1809) and Felix Mendelssohn (born in 1809). The newly-reconstituted Onyx is White, violinist James Garlick, and cellist Meg Brennand.

Continue reading Review: Onyx Chamber Players at Town Hall Seattle

By R.M. Campbell

Joshua Bell discovered some years ago that being a very good violinist was not sufficient to earn fame. So, he turned his attractive personality and boyish looks into a populist appeal. He appeared on television in all sorts of roles, did soundtracks, to name a few. The music world had already noticed his playing, now a wider audience discovered him. One might think he had cheapened himself somewhat in the process, but he didn’t. He continued to play with an immaculate tone, clean technique and appreciation for the music at hand, regardless of its origins.

Continue reading Joshua Bell and Jeremy Denk at Benaroya Hall