Beethoven’s solely string quintet, the four-movement C Main, op. 29 from 1801, seems chronologically amongst examples just like the Opus 28 Piano Sonata and the Opus 30 Violin Sonatas, and simply earlier than the Symphony No. 2, op. 36 — in different phrases, straining on the limits of Haydn classicism. There’s a Mozartian taste to the 4 actions, and simply as a lot of the relaxed vigor of Beethoven’s Opus 18 string quartets. Some options are formally putting: the Second Theme in A significant-minor within the C main first motion; the interruption within the 6/8 Presto finale by a ruminative minuet, which reappears within the Coda (shades of Mozart’s Okay. 271 and 482). Above all, it’s a recent and lovable work, and was comfortably performed by Boston Chamber Music Society at Jordan Corridor yesterday afternoon. Yura Lee and Jennifer Frautschi, violins; Dimitri Murrath and Marcus Thompson, viola; Raman Ramakrishnan, cello, clearly having a great time, delivered big-boned and stylish tones, advocating for a chunk that had been shamefully absent from my identified repertory.
The premiere of Scott Wheeler’s new Sextet for oboe, clarinet, violin, viola, contrabass, and piano, a BCMS fee, took middle place. Its 5 brief actions conveyed a variety of tonal expression, generally with Coplandesque treble concord, elsewhere with grumbling and gritty low-register bounces, and a passion for abrupt, dangling cadences. “The Secret Journey” confirmed all of those in a intelligent mixture; “I communicate to the birds,” a fleet scherzo, featured excessive string trills and a jazz-like assortment of blended dominant-seventh chords within the piano. A particular eloquence got here via in “City Nocturne,” with a warmly expressive duet for clarinet and double bass at the start and oboe-viola close to the top, with whole-tone piano within the center. “The Alchemist” gave a brittle, staccato accompaniment to a humorous high-register melody for double bass, adopted by an extended oboe melody in closing. The quick finale, “Proverbs from Purgatory,” included an obsessive repetition on center C-sharp, tremolo strings and repeated drips within the piano, and I remembered this similar C-sharp in Debussy’s Sébastien (within the “Danse extatique”), faithfully copied by Messiaen within the “Chant d’amour I” in Turangalîla (see pp. 37 and 67 of the rating) — after which a sudden arrival like a hiccup adopted by silence. The composer’s notes clarify the importance of the titles, deriving from poetic sources in addition to sketches in progress; “Proverbs from Purgatory” got here from Lloyd Schwartz, who was within the viewers. Wheeler answered the BCMC fee name with diversified inspiration and real heat and wit, making a completely likable addition to the chamber music repertoire. Oboist Peggy Pearson and clarinetist Romie de Guise-Langlois traded arching phrases, violinist Jennifer Frautschi loved a snazzy function, and pianist Max Levinson engaged with the notes and his colleagues with readability; Marcus Thompson, viola, and double-bassist Thomas Van Dyck equipped well-inflected weight.
Bicentenarian César Franck (1822-90), the deeply Catholic Belgian, did greater than anybody to revolutionize large-form music in Paris after the Franco-Prussian Battle. His Piano Quintet in F Minor (1880) is the earliest of his single main works in each style that may be related together with his maturity as a composer. It’s massive, heavy, and noisy, and it reveals a type of exploratory chromaticism that Franck simplified in his later works. Saint-Saëns, the unique pianist and the dedicatee, allegedly protested the fixed modulations, and Franck’s spouse equally complained, however its broad expressiveness has at all times appealed to aficionados of the late Romantic. Dvořák’s Quintet in A Main is simply as lengthy and heavy, and Brahms’s early quintet (is also F minor) could also be extra actually classical, however Franck’s reveals French modernism at a time when the French badly wanted a solution to Wagner. Rebecca Marchand’s glorious essay in this system booklet cites Franck’s inspiration from Act I of Tristan und Isolde; this quintet, although, reveals as a lot stimulus from Liszt, particularly after we do not forget that Franck had begun his profession as a piano virtuoso earlier than turning to the organ. Max Levinson, piano; Jennifer Frautschi, Yura Lee, violins; Dimitri Murrath, viola; and Raman Ramakrishnan, cello; and Max Levinson, piano, performed the churning excesses with admirable seriousness of goal and advocacy.
Hearty congratulations to BCMS — sensible because it was busy — with a heroic hats-off to Max Levinson, piano, who dealt with Franck’s many, many notes with grace and aplomb, and to Marcus Thompson for his many years or organizing these live shows. BCMS crammed Jordan Corridor with torrents of old-master sound.
