The Catskill Chronicle

Review by Barry Plaxen

JEFFERSONVILLE, NY (July 18, 2012) – As most people know, summer in general brings world-class classical chamber music festivals to Sullivan County, and July in particular means Weekend of Chamber Music’s.

On July 15, 2012 at 2:45 p.m., a highly appreciative group of music lovers was happy to see that the inaugural 2012 Weekend of Chamber Music (WCM) on-the-lawn-concert at the Jefferson Presbyterian Church was relocated inside the church. Many had driven through downpours near Roscoe and Wurtsboro on the way, and the sky looked ominous. But they came anyway, knowing that the WCM concerts are always, in a word, superb.

As it turned out, the indoor acoustics were excellent, and WCM Artistic Director, Judith Pearce (photo left) lived up to her reputation as a “programmer extraordinaire” with a delightfully “light” program with the emphasis on melody.

The music she chose for the opening concert was not part of the Festival’s 2012 theme, “The Great Conversation,” which refers to the re-emergence of improvisation at classical music concerts. Though not actual improvisation, much of this concert had music not as originally written, but arranged for wind instruments.

The melodies began with two “tunes” from the pen of the great tunesmith Kurt Weill – the “Overture to Threepenny Opera” and “Mack The Knife.” The serious arrangements for winds by Alan R. Kay surprisingly gave these two melodies perhaps the most depth of all the pieces played (with one exception). The plaintive sounds of a wind quintet seemed to heighten Weill’s ability to stir emotion with simplicity.

The exception mentioned above were short pieces, “Mountain Airs” by Judith Weir, (b.1954) chosen from Pearce’s memory bank – as she had performed them in the 1970s when Weir submitted them for a musical competition in Britain. They seemed to be complex pieces, but were treated by the musicians as simple ones, bringing a desire to hear their uniqueness and freshness a second time.

On to what might arguably be the most simple and perfect melody in all of opera, Mozart’s “tune” for the aria “Voi Che Sapete” from “The Marriage of Figaro.” Arranged with the melody given to the clarinet, Pavel Vinnitsky (photo right) played as if he were the most musical mezzo (it’s an aria for a mezzo-soprano) in the world. With legato phrasing that could not be faulted, he made the music sail along so very smoothly, upholding WCM’s reputation for world class performances.

In 1804, Rossini wrote six quartets for two violins, cello and bass. Twenty years later he arranged them for string quartet, and in 1828 Friedrich Berr arranged them for wind quartet. The group played the melodic first quartet, full of Rossini’s musical humor, with light melodies and a bit of some rondo-allegro-pyrotechnics for the expected rousing finale.

A wonderfully eclectic series of “Melodies from Europe & Russia” ended the concert. First came oboist Matt Sullivan’s (photo left) arrangement for English horn taken from the English horn solo from the second movement of Dvorak’s 9^th Symphony, one of the world’s most familiar melodies, a Czech one, explained Sullivan, that morphed into the American spiritual, “Goin’ Home.”

Melodies by the prolific Anon, by Franz Schubert and by Anatoly Liadov followed, and also “Faith” by Edvard Grieg, which afforded hornist Adam Schommer (photo right) his chance to shine.

The welcomed encore began with a wind quintet intro – I was listening intently hoping to “guess” what the unannounced piece was – and had no idea where it was going. The music intro was not familiar at all. As the intro ended, bassoonist Gina Cuffari (photo left) opened her mouth and inhaled, but not to play the bassoon. Instead, accompanied by the four other wind players, she sang out with the familiar Hammerstein words, “if I loved you, time and again I would try to say….” What could have been more fitting as an ending for the concert than one of Richard Rodgers’ gut-wrenching, simple melodies! It is so heartening to know that nowadays all those wonderfully crafted Broadway “tunes” are now “re-genred” as American Art Songs.

Thanks to Pearce and her cohorts for once again regaling us with glorious music enabling us to lose ourselves and wallow in beauty.

The WCM 2012 Festival concerts continue in Jeffersonviille, Callicoon, Kauneonga Lake and North Branch thru July 28, with improvs at most of the performances. Check www.WCMconcerts.org for a full listing.

Click on the “CANVAS” bullet on the right-hand side of this page, and go to page 7 (or click here: http://issuu.com/dhcanvas/docs/july_2012_canvas) to read Philip Ehrensaft’s excellent article on classical music improvisation, the history of and the reason why Pearce’s 2012 guest co-directors, Andrew Waggoner and Caroline Stinson, are bringing improvs to Sullivan County.