Chiarina founders mark an adventurous decade with Beethoven and new works
Pianist Efi Hackmey and cellist Carrie Bean Stute performed a duo program for Chiarina Saturday night at St. Mark’s, Capitol Hill.
Chiarina Chamber Players celebrated its 10th anniversary season Saturday at St. Mark’s Capitol Hill, in an evening featuring the organization’s artistic directors, cellist Carrie Bean Stute and pianist Efi Hackmey. Two bedrock selections from the chamber repertoire joined works by living American composers in a program designed to encapsulate the group’s wide-ranging interests over its first decade.
The first of Beethoven’s Op. 102 Cello Sonatas, written in 1815, is a harbinger of the heightened contrasts, unconventional structures, and emotional directness that characterize the iconic works of the composer’s late period. Stute brought a lovely tone to the theme that opens the Sonata No. 1, a sense of distance reinforcing the ambiguity in this introspective introduction. Hackmey made much of the quicksilver mood changes in the Allegro vivace that completes the unusual first movement, though Stute’s cello lacked some of the bite and assertiveness needed to fully realize the churning interplay between the instruments.
The sweetness and purity of Stute’s tone again beguiled in the ascending figures of the second movement. The duo was able to make sense of the tricky finale material, with its flashes of brilliance and sudden interruptions, despite some smudged notes in the thorniest and highest cello passages. The buoyant finish gained much from Hackmey’s ability to bring key piano lines through the texture.
Two appealing compositions by living composers completed the first half. Reena Esmail’s Jhula Jhule, incorporated melodic turns from Hindustani classical music in a fantasy that seemed to draw on the music of the French impressionists. Shimmering colors in Hackmey’s piano and a warm, elegant sound from Stute, who skillfully realized a series of sliding effects, made a persuasive case for Esmail’s sound world, even with the piece growing a bit static by the end. Lickety Split, from Kennedy Center composer-in-residence Carlos Simon brought together a riot of effects in the cello with elements of jazz and blues in a quick-witted miniature.
The second half opened with Andrea Casarrubios’ Sonia, a work that seeks to capture the spirit of current Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor. This is an eminently listenable work despite some cloying moments, perhaps inevitable in a paean to a living figure. Stute brought an expansive sound to her account of the solo, despite some challenges on a few climactic high-lying passages.
Beethoven’s Op. 69 Cello Sonata of 1809 bookended the program, an important milestone in the literature that sees the composer putting both instruments on an equal footing in a true duet. Stute and Hackmey found an easy, sunny feeling for the opening Allegro, with Hackmey’s handling of the weighty piano part, from spirited solo passages to filigree touch in the closing moments, serving as critical connective tissue throughout the movement.
Stute opened the Scherzo with a singing, confident take on the main theme, though the cello didn’t consistently fulfill its more assertive role. The final movement’s slow first sections again featured a disarmingly lovely introduction from Stute, though Hackmey’s piano was decidedly in control for the Allegro vivace, his ability to ratchet up excitement through carefully calibrated injections of pace and intensity guiding the piece to a thrilling close.
Chiarina Chamber Players’ season concludes with a performance of Camille Saint-Saëns’ Carnival of the Animals at St. Mark’s, Capitol Hill 2:30 p.m. May 18. chiarina.org
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