Virtues of the viola spotlighted in Chamber Music Society program
The Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center performed Sunday night at Wolf Trap. Photo: C. Downey/WCR
Five musicians from the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center presented a rewarding concert Sunday evening in the Barns at Wolf Trap. The program focused on the so-called viola quintet, a string quintet with two violists for double the fun. Furthermore, all the composers featured in this performance themselves played the viola, favoring this oft-maligned instrument’s role in chamber music.
The first half consisted of less commonly heard repertoire, beginning with Vaughan Williams’ Phantasy Quintet, composed in 1912. First violist Paul Neubauer opened the first movement on the minor pentatonic tune that supplied most of the piece’s melodic motifs. After a serenely balanced first movement, the five musicians gave the Scherzo, in lopsided 7/4 meter, a tightly managed rhythmic precision.
After driving the Scherzo with an ostinato pattern, cellist Jonathan Swensen remained silent for the elegiac third movement, a rich tapestry of violin-viola sound played with mutes on. Swensen, Neubauer, and second violist Matthew Lipman then gave the opening of the fourth movement a chatty, comic edge. After an impassioned cadenza from first violinist Alexander Sitkovetsky, the piece closed on more playful dialogue among the five musicians.
Stella Chen took the first violin part for a true curiosity, Beethoven’s Fugue in D Major, also composed for viola quintet. The subject opens with a gawky motif in octave leaps, but Beethoven managed to work in a lot of contrapuntal ideas, including a brief stretto section near the end. The performers attacked the piece a little too heavily, overpowering its slender dimensions, underscoring its unsatisfying conclusion.
Neubauer and Lipman stood at the front of the stage, sharing a music stand, for York Bowen’s equally compact Two Duos in G Major. Composed in 1920 for two violas, the piece features its own clever sort of counterpoint, which the two musicians clearly enjoyed as they traded motifs back and forth. The second piece, in particular, was a charming romp, with heavy flavors of Offenbach.
Australian composer Brett Dean, formerly in the viola section of the Berlin Philharmonic, furnished the most recent work, the mournful Epitaphs for viola quintet. Each of its five movements memorializes a person significant to the composer. Sitkovetsky returned to the first violinist’s chair for this extraordinary survey of unusual techniques and dissonant sounds. The musicians strove to keep the first movement’s irregular metric shifts aligned.
Sitkovetsky and Chen’s high, pitchless scratches mimicked bird sounds in the second movement, with the more solemn theme begun in the lower instruments growing more discordant. Swensen’s cello growled aggressively at the start of the third movement, then deploying a rich tone on the upper string in the extended solo serenade that followed. The other instruments surrounded this lament with soft, descending lines.
The fourth movement, a tribute to György Ligeti, bristled with joyous, syncopated energy, a beautifully coordinated dance among all five musicians. The fifth movement, a moving tribute to the late conductor Richard Hickox, began as a series of slowly morphing chords. The two violists embarked on a more lyrical passage, accompanied by cello pizzicati, which grew into a howl of despair. These five relatively brief movements, burgeoning with ideas, never tired the ear.
After intermission came the evening’s highlight, the String Quintet No. 3 by arguably the greatest composer of the viola quartet, Mozart. Chen took the first violin part for her most accomplished playing of the program, exchanging the phrases of the first movement’s chipper opening theme with Swensen. The overlapping motifs in the development section came across with utter clarity from all five musicians, set at playful tempo.
The Menuetto lilted at an easygoing pace, with gorgeous interplay among the lower three instruments and a trio section of contrasting seriousness. In the slow movement, Chen sang the longing violin melodies with lyrical abandon, answered with equal beauty by Neubauer on the crucial first viola part. All five musicians worked in ensemble lockstep to make the sunny finale a tour de force, carefully placing each return of the main theme with grace.
Inevitably, during the Q&A that is a part of every Chamber Music at the Barns concert, viola jokes were told. But as everyone knows, the best viola jokes are the ones made at the expense of violinists.
The Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center performs Boccherini’s String Quintet in G minor, Beethoven’s String Trio in G major, Barrière’s Sonata for Two Cellos, and D’Ambrosio’s Suite for Strings 7:30 p.m. January 30, 2026. wolftrap.org
Leave a Comment
