Summer Chamber Music Returns to Delaware Scene

By Christine Facciolo

For more than 30 years, chamber music had enjoyed a strong and secure place in the summer arts schedule in Delaware. Aficionados of the art form could count on exciting and intelligent performances each June courtesy of the Delaware Chamber Music Festival.

That came to an ended with the demise of the festival two years ago.

The good news: Thoughtful and well-played chamber music has once again found a place on the local arts scene as Serafin Summer Music debuted at The Music School of Delaware in Wilmington on Thursday, June 20.

“Bohemian Gems” was the umbrella title for the music of Dvorak and Smetana. What’s refreshing about this festival is the diversity of its repertoire with the varied lineup of instrumental combinations, including vocal music.

Case in point: Dvorak’s Terzetto in C major for two violins and viola, Op. 74. Each of the three movements explored a myriad of musical ideas and sentiments, with an emphasis on the cheerful. The playing was excellent, especially in the unison sections, which were polished to a high gloss. The performers were Kate Ransom and Hal Grossman, violins and Luke Fleming, viola.

Grossman and pianist Amy Dorfman were well-matched for a performance of the composer’s Sonatina in G major for Violin and Piano, Op. 100. Its use of Native- and African-American themes place it squarely in the company of the more familiar “American Quartet.” 

Grossman and Dorfman listened attentively to each other as they spun out the charming musical themes. Grossman imparted a poignant — yet tasteful — expressivity to the Larghetto second movement, sometimes extracted as the “Indian Lament,” while Dorfman echoed with measured atmospherics. In perfect synchrony, the performers flexed their interpretative muscle while delivering the stylish nostalgia the composer sought to impart.

The second half of the program featured compositions by the father of Czech nationalist music, Bedrich Smetana. Ransom and Dorfman collaborated on two gentle pieces for violin and piano, From My Homeland. Written in 1880, the title suggests that these lyrical works form a sort of chamber counterpart to the composer’s great cycle of symphonic poems, Ma Vlast, but in fact reflect the peace that the composer, wracked by physical and mental illness, found in the countryside of central Bohemia.

Ransom and Dorfman offered a charming, unassuming and well-played interpretation of this work by a major composer that has not been played to death.

The inaugural concert closed with the composer’s E minor String Quarter, No. 1 (“From My Life”). A happy piece this is not. True, the early movements do offer themes that reflect the composer’s early life, his youth, the joy he found in dancing and his first love, but the tragedy of his inevitable deafness increasingly added somber tones to the score, petering out on just a single chilling note.

Ransom, Grossman and Fleming were joined by cellist Charae Krueger and this ad hoc quartet performed with all the qualities of a veteran ensemble. Both in technique and artistic temperament, these musicians, drew inspiration from one another, coalescing into an instrumental choir, with the individual voices clearly heard, yet singing as one.

Serafin Summer Music continues through the weekend with performances on Friday, June 28, Saturday, June 29 & Sunday, June 30's "Finale Fireworks" of Brahms' Sextet in Bb Major, Op. 18 for two violins, two violas & two cellos and Tchaikovsky's Souvenir de Florence for two violins, two violas, two cellos. Tickets are available at brownpapertickets.com.

Another Festival Visit...More Excellent Music!

Guest blogger Maxine Gaiber is Executive Director of the Delaware Center for the Contemporary Arts and founding board director of the Delaware Arts Art Alliance. Her high school art teacher wrote in her yearbook, "be gentle as a critic," and she is finally following his advice!

The Delaware Chamber Music Festival Quartet.

Each time I attend the Delaware Chamber Music Festival, I am overwhelmed both by the quality of the performances and the enthusiasm of the audience.  And each time I gaze over the variegated sea of shades of gray hair around me, I worry about the future of classical music in the U.S.  Maybe each classical musical group should have a mandatory “bring your grandchild for free” day, so that a new generation can get “turned on” to this rewarding musical genre!

 

The Friday, June 21 Virtuosos concert was no exception.  I must admit that I lingered over my lo mein too long at the Chinese Festival and missed the Rachmaninoff piano trio, but the rest of the program more than made up for it.

 

Clancy Newman was brave to take on the well-known Brahms Sonata for Cello and Piano in E minor, Op.38, but seemed up to the task.  He gave a lyrical performance filled with stunning musical contrasts and emotional energy.  He plays the cello high up against his body almost like a bass and — surrounding the cello with his arms and head — becomes almost one with his instrument.

 

The two Paganini pieces which followed, while well performed by Barbara Govatos and Christiaan Taggart, seemed slight and restrained by contrast, as though the musicians were warming up for the jazzy, tango-based Piazolla work which was next on the program.  This first movement of the History of the Tango gave Govatos and Taggart more opportunity to show the range and versatility of their instruments.

 

Smetana’s Piano Trio in G Minor, Op.15 was a fitting finale to this virtuoso evening. Newman told the sad story of the composer dedicating the work to his daughter, who died at age 7, but it wasn’t really necessary.  The passionate work is filled with sadness, anger, tenderness, and joy and needs no back story to amplify its power. It is a beautiful ensemble piece that enables all of the instruments to perform as one, as well as shine on their own. Govatos’ firm control of her instrument and her head of unmoving tight curls were in sharp contrast to Newman’s dramatic poses and flying locks of hair, but, visual styles aside, they make beautiful music together and were ably complemented by Marcantonio Barone on the piano.

 

By the end of the evening, I was shaken and stirred and slightly tipsy from the brilliant concoctions of music that wafted from the stage of the Concert Hall of The Music School of Delaware. Bravo and salud!

See www.dcmf.org.