Washington Classical Review

The Kennedy Center Chamber Players performed their final concert of the season Sunday afternoon. Photo: C. Downey

The Kennedy Center Chamber Players ended their season Sunday afternoon with what may be their last concert in the Terrace Theater for a while. The ensemble, led by principal musicians of the National Symphony Orchestra, presents a series of chamber music concerts for various combinations throughout the season. Marissa Regni, principal second violinist since 1996, led this intriguing program of Bach and Dvořák.

Nigel Boon, director of artistic planning for the NSO, spoke before and after the concert to give the audience some updates on the future. The KCCP will continue to perform concerts next season, he confirmed, adding that specific details will be announced “in due course.” The latest developments at the center have heightened uncertainty about the July 4 closure and what may follow it next season. Boon also revealed two major NSO retirements: principal keyboard player Lambert Orkis and principal cellist David Hardy, both founding members of the KCCP, who step down at the end of this season.

Regni, who is also a founding member of the KCCP, spoke warmly of Johann Sebastian Bach’s Goldberg Variations as her “favorite piece of music of all time.” She joined NSO principal violist Daniel Foster and Hardy for Dmitry Sitkovetsky’s celebrated string trio arrangement of the piece (which Sitkovetsky later expanded for string orchestra). The musicians omitted all of the repeats, which made the performance more compact and, if anything, emphasized the extraordinary variety of the thirty variations.

The advantage of this string trio arrangement lies especially in the nine canons that occur every third variation. Regni and Foster gave these intertwined contrapuntal lines exceptional clarity and grace, delineating them more than a keyboard player normally can. Hardy played with the greatest variety of character, capable of both contained delicacy and growling force. The tone of his two colleagues sounded somewhat tame by comparison.

The best ensemble moments came in the quieter movements like the ninth variation, especially those set in the minor mode, like the fifteenth and the quietly intense twenty-fifth. The more virtuosic variations often prove difficult to realize on string instruments, as they did in this performance, such as the French overture of Variation 16 and the series of technical challenges toward the end of the cycle. The musicians widely missed the mark only in Variation 5, where a botched cello entrance set the trio at rhythmic odds for several measures.

Pairing the Goldberg with an early Dvořák piece, the String Quintet No. 2 from 1876, seemed an odd choice. The ensemble found a throughline in the combination, however, especially in the charming inner movements, a folk-influenced Scherzo and the tender slow movement. (Dvořák cut the quintet from five to four movements in his 1888 revision, removing the Intermezzo he had originally included before the Scherzo.)

Dayna Hepler, appointed by Gianandrea Noseda as NSO assistant principal second violinist in 2020, brought a sophisticated combination of strength and reserve to the first violin part. Regni, Foster, and Hardy filled the middle of the texture with carefully matched lines. Robert Oppelt, NSO principal bassist since 1996, provided a solid foundation at the bottom of this unusual combination, never overpowering his colleagues and merging admirably with Hardy when their parts doubled one another.

The outer movements, fast and forceful, are easily overplayed, a temptation that this group avoided. Hepler’s E string tone, always clean and impeccably tuned, led the way in this regard, not overwhelming the texture. The mellowness of the Trio section of the second movement proved especially pleasing. Only the fourth movement, at the end of a long and challenging program, revealed some intonation disagreements among this cohesive group of musicians.

The NSO presents its penultimate KC program June 5 and 6, with conductor Kellen Gray and pianist Michelle Cann in music of Dvořák, Ravel, Milhaud, Gershwin, and the world premiere of Elaine Eclipse by Charles Lumar II. kennedy-center.org