FORT WORTH?There were only two pieces on the Mimir Chamber Music Festival concert Friday night, but no one could have felt cheated.
First came American composer Paul Schoenfeld?s 1991 Tales from Chelm, for string quartet. Schoenfeld?s music has been richly influenced by Middle European and especially Jewish culture and folklore. Chelm, a city in Eastern Poland, was about half-Jewish at its height, before World War II. It nurtured a whole folklore characterizing its inhabitants as, well, not that bright?perhaps the origin of Polish jokes.
Tales from Chelm is a set of four movements, each based on a funny story; it?s too bad their versions weren?t credited in the program. In the Mimir performance, at Texas Christian University?s PepsiCo Recital Hall, each movement was prefaced by a wonderfully dramatized reading of the tale by TCU music professor Richard Estes.
The musical language, pleasantly piquant with lively counterpoint, is strikingly similar to that of the Shostakovich string quartets. There?s a strong rhythmic impulse, alternately dancelike and marchlike; ?The Witch Cunegunde? is more ruminative before turning anguished, then indulging in a gentle waltz episode.
The suite was given a smart, assured performance, with only the occasional slip of intonation, by violinists Jun Iwasaki and Curt Thompson, violist Kirsten Docter and cellist Brant Taylor. Once again, one could only marvel at the precise ensemble of four musicians who come together for only a week or two in the summer.
The concert?s second half was devoted to Schubert?s big E-flat major Piano Trio. You couldn?t ask for string players more fastidious, more elegant, than Taylor and violinist Frank Huang. Pianist John Novacek was far less aggressive than he had been in Tuesday?s account of the Smetana Piano Trio, and most of the time he was in appropriate balance.
He stuck on expressive gestures here and there, but other pianists have found far more warmth and lyricism in this music. There were still times in each movement when he blasted through the ensemble, complete with foot-stompings that added a bass-drum effect Schubert can?t have wanted. In this of all pieces, if you?re periodically lunging at the piano and flinging arms in the air, you?ve probably missed the point.
Plan your life
The Mimir Chamber Music Festival continues with concerts at 7:30 p.m. Saturday and 3 p.m. Sunday at PepsiCo Recital Hall, Texas Christian University, University and Cantey, Fort Worth. $25; discounts for students, seniors and TCU community. 1-817-257-5443, mimirfestival.org.
creutzfeldt jakob disease the lone ranger mad cow pennsylvania primary jerome simpson hand sanitizer obama on jimmy fallon
No comments:
Post a Comment