Chamber Music Society wraps Wolf Trap season with the joy of sextets
The Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center performed string sextets and trios Friday night at Wolf Trap. Photo: C. Downey/WCR
As artistic director of Wolf Trap’s chamber music series, Wu Han brought many excellent programs to local audiences with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center. The last one of this season, heard Friday evening in the Barns, carried the promise of more to come in the future. Violinist Daniel Hope succeeds Wu Han this fall, and his first season will feature four CMSLC programs, among other fine offerings.
Friday night’s all-strings program featured three sextets including Tchaikovsky’s massive Souvenir de Florence. The six-part Ricercar from Bach’s The Musical Offering opened the evening in an unexpected way. Meant to be played on a keyboard instrument, the piece is the climax of a set of contrapuntal works on a theme given to Bach by Prussian king Frederick II.
Notated on three and even four staves, the Ricercar calls out for performance by six melodic instruments, to untangle its extraordinary complexity. The six musicians played it at an upbeat tempo, which prevented the music from becoming dour and academic. With careful balances regulated among the parts, every appearance of the royal subject came through with utmost clarity and musicality.
Each half of the sextet then played a trio, beginning with Haydn’s slender String Trio in G Major (Hob. XVI:40). Violinist Danbi Um, violist Timothy Ridout, and cellist Sihao He achieved an ideal even-voiced quality in the first movement, although the tempo felt a little too fast-paced for this happy-go-lucky double variations, marked Allegretto ed innocente.
A calmer tempo there would have made a stronger contrast with the Presto marking of the second movement, which had a pleasing comic air with its unexpected rests. In both movements, Um executed the restless first-violin part with mostly seamless technique.
Results were more consistent in Schubert’s String Trio in B-Flat Major, his only completed work for the combination. Violinist Paul Huang, violist Matthew Lipman, and cellist David Finckel used the more moderate tempo markings in this longer work to create a warm, whimsical reading, emphasizing important formal transitions with gentle ease. Although some of Finckel’s cello runs could have been more fluent, by the time of the second movement’s triplet variation, the music flowed admirably and without undue freneticism.
Huang sounded warm and graceful on the top part, especially in the charming Menuetto, matched by the first significant viola solos of the evening, played with rustic elegance by Lipman. Comic pauses in the Rondo, sounding like a tribute from Schubert to Haydn, came off with humorous timing from the musicians, who communicated with one another to create a sense of smiling spontaneity.
All six musicians returned to the stage to end the first half with the gorgeous String Sextet that opens Richard Strauss’s opera Capriccio. Ridout, taking the first viola part, set a lush tone for this yearning, nostalgic piece. The work’s swooning romantic fullness did not quite suit Um’s light tone on first violin, but in the buzzing middle section, her 32nd-note roulades struck with impressive clarity and speed. All in all, the overly brisk tempo prevented the players from luxuriating more in their individual lines, as well as rushing the frequent harmonic surprises Strauss throws at the ear.
With Huang on first violin, Tchaikovsky’s sextet proved an apt climax for the evening. Titled Souvenir de Florence because the composer sketched out one of the four movements during a visit to that city, the first two movements felt airy and buoyant. Huang purred on the glowing second theme of the first movement, a warm-hearted serenade accompanied by pizzicati. Strong melodic contributions also came from Ridout and He, at crucial moments for second violin and first cello, respectively.
The second movement sounded at times like a rapturous duet from an Italian opera, with Huang’s violin as the soprano answered by He’s cello as the baritone. The score takes a turn toward Russian melancholy in the third movement, which proved the climax of this performance. Lipman gave a dark-hued sadness to the solos on first viola, a tragic air contrasted by the rapid Trio section, with echoes of Tchaikovsky’s ballet scores.
The whole ensemble played the fourth movement with impressive unity and musical shaping, at an appropriately joyous, fast tempo. Even in the loudest moments, as Tchaikovsky seemed to search for a way to end the piece, Huang deftly kept his volume balanced with his colleagues. A romantically tinged fugal section, recalling the Bach piece that had opened the evening, cranked up the intensity of the performance one last time before the audience and musicians could go enjoy a well-deserved dessert reception.
The season’s final chamber music concert at Wolf Trap features countertenor John Holiday and pianist Jeanne-Minette Cilliers, performing songs by Price, Bonds, Morris, and Gershwin 7:30 p.m. May 23. wolftrap.org
