Alyssa Wang, multi-talented conductor, violinist, and composer, featured as a visitor artist on violin alongside common members of the Boston Chamber Music Society at Jordan Corridor final Sunday. Mendelssohn’s Piano Quartet in F minor started the present with Marcus Thompson on viola, Raman Ramakrishnan on cello, and Max Levinson on piano. The 14-year-old Mendelssohn’s quartet requires a lightweight, unified contact. Wang, by means of her perceptive and impeccable enjoying, idiomatically invigorated Mendelssohn’s intentions, but her place as newcomer brought about her soloistic sound to stay out. Thompson usually elegantly initiated a phrase, solely to have his shapely phrasing dropped when Wang picked up the melody. Little question Wang gave a radiant account of her half, however the ensemble’s intentions sometimes cut up as Wang’s voice stepped over the remaining.
Whereas Levinson sounded impassioned and heart-wrenching on the keyboard, his heavy, tempestuous model conflicted with the composer’s playfulness. Usually the piano felt alone in a separate stormy world, failing to mesh with the lightness of the strings. Having the piano lid at full relatively than half stick additionally probably didn’t assist with mixing. For all his furor, it was no shock that Levinson’s finest moments within the Mendelssohn got here in his solos, which superbly introduced out wealthy colours and features by means of an attentiveness to the oft-neglected interior voice.
The a number of thought-provoking interpretations from particular person gamers appeared to lack a shared interpretational intention.
For David Rakowski’s 2016 Quintet for Oboe and Strings, Entre Nous, Peggy Pearson on oboe and Jennifer Frautschi on second violin joined the ensemble. It opened in rhythmically cut up pizzicato string enjoying that steadily constructed to unison bowing earlier than the oboe entered. The timbrally distinct oboe naturally stood out, usually rhythmically dancing on-top of the feel the strings maintained, which created a rhythmic and timbral counterpoint. After establishing and reiterating a harmonically overseas texture, the primary motion ended on a tonally ambiguous chord, thereby abruptly fizzling the textural spell.
The second motion started equally to the primary, with wailing violins steadily coalescing right into a melodic line. For this motion the strings strove to be unnoticed and create a hypnotic texture that the oboe might sing on prime of. The oboe’s traces spoke in technical simplicity and euphonious sentiment. Because the composer famous that the motion is “designed to focus on oboist Peggy Pearson’s marvelous enjoying,” the efficiency held a elegant effectiveness. Pearson’s dulcet tones helped function information to the overseas textural panorama that the strings created, absolutely ascending artwork to transformation as a separate musical world briefly turned conjured in Jordan Corridor.
The ultimate motion held an analogous tone to the primary two, however now within the guise of a scherzo. Pearson and second violinist Frautschi awed essentially the most on this motion with their precise stability on unison uncovered traces of excessive, melodic long-tones. All the work ended very like the primary motion, on an ambiguous chord immediately ending the spell. The stability between the strings proved a lot better than within the Mendelssohn, as they maintained the hypnotic impact to help the oboe. Via their cohesion they by no means encroached on the oboe’s distinctive voice.
Levinson returned with Frautschi and Ramakrishman for Dvořák’s Piano Trio in F Minor. The late-Romantic drama of the Dvořák completely suited Levinson’s model; he evoked explosive transcendence amidst Dvořák’s discursive chromaticism. Frautschi sounded at house inside the ensemble and helped foster a unified complete. As soon as once more, the second motion showcased Levinson’s expertise in bringing out the interior traces on the piano, now to higher impact as his model harmonized with the composer’s.
Within the third motion, an impassioned cello solo from Ramakrishman stole the present. Levinson additionally stood out with a false conclusion main right into a raging piano cadenza. The final motion then fittingly allowed for a grand payoff of Levinson’s incendiary vitality, with grandiose Romantic chords pounding the night time right into a finale.
The important BCMS will deliver Brahms, Schubert, and Berg to Sanders on March twelfth.
