Market Street Music's Season Opens with Pyxis Piano Quartet

Pyxis Piano Quartet (L-R): Jie Jin, cello; Luigi Mazzocchi, violin;
Hiroko Yamazaki, piano & Amy Leonard, viola.

By Christine Facciolo
Pyxis Piano Quartet opened a new season of Market Street Music Festival Concerts Saturday, October 1, 2016 with its usual combination of superb playing and interesting programming. The ensemble consisted of Luigi Mazzocchi, violin; Amy Leonard, viola; Jie Jin, cello and Hiroko Yamazaki, piano.

The bulk of the program featured two works written a century apart: Mozart’s Piano Quartet No. 2 in E-flat Major (K. 493) and Richard Strauss’ Piano Quartet in C Minor, Op. 13.

Luckily for us, when Mozart’s publisher canceled his commission for a series of piano quartets, the composer had already completed the second quartet and it was published by another firm in 1786. K.493 is one of Mozart’s greatest compositions and a classic of the genre with its pristine form, gracious themes and exquisite interplay between instruments.

The first movement — Allegro — begins intensely but offers gracious themes throughout. The Larghetto is a richly conceived slow movement featuring an exquisite interplay among piano and strings. The third movement Rondo — Allegretto — is full of fire and energy with a prominent piano.

Pyxis was most sympathetic to this spacious and outgoing work. Particularly attractive were the gently springy rhythms and exquisite phrasing of the strings in the first movement and Yamazaki’s beautifully shaped phrasing in the Larghetto.

Whereas Mozart wrote his quarter at the height of his musical maturity, Strauss was a mere 20 and very much in the thrall of Brahms when he composed his work. The result is an unusual fusion of musical personalities: the gravitas of Brahms and the fire and impetuousness of the young Strauss. Rich and dark, the work is full of blazing energy.

The playing has all the attributes you would expect from Pyxis: impeccable intonation and fluid tempos that allowed the music to flow in unbroken phrases. The players were individually excellent, as was Mazzocchi’s rendering of the main theme of the Andante and Yamazaki’s voicing of the chords supporting him. But they are at their best when they function as an ensemble, as in the tight Scherzo or the virtuosic interplay of the closing Vivace.

The evening opened sans piano with the playful Mozart En Route (A Little Traveling Music) by Aaron Jay Kernis, past recipient of the A.I. duPont Composer’s Award. Inspired by a letter from Mozart to his father, in which he complains of being jostled during a particularly rough carriage ride, Kerns’ short (three-minute) string trio takes listeners on a whimsical musical trip from Salzburg to Nashville and back. Thematic variation is the rule as familiar-sounding pop styles interweave with the classical tradition with several quotations from Mozart’s Divertimento for Strings, K. 563.

See www.marketstreetmusicde.org.

A Review of Rehoboth Art League's 7th Juried Exhibition

By Guest Blogger, Stan Divorski 

Stan Divorski is an artist and avid art and photography collector who lives in Lewes, Delaware. He has a PhD in Psychology from Northwestern University, a Certificate in Painting and Drawing from the Corcoran College of Art and Design in Washington DC and has studied modern art curating at the Chelsea College of Arts in London.

Kyle Hackett "Forward Restraint"

The Rehoboth Art League’s 7th Regional Juried Biennial Exhibition is a significant step in the League’s continuing evolution to a regional art force. The work is bold, resolutely modern and abstract.

The juror, George Ciscle, focused on the unique and mastery of technique. His emphasis on craft is part of what makes the exhibit current. After decades of the art world emphasizing concept over technique, the quality of execution is increasingly valued. Kyle Hackett’s oil painting “Forward Restraint” was chosen as Best in Show partly because it stood out from the crowd of portraits and partly because of the artist’s command of his medium. In his detached view of the subject, Hackett distresses part of the sitter’s face and leaves part of the background apparently unfinished, reminding us that this is his interpretation of the subject, not a copy of reality. 

Brook Hedge’s “Still Standing,” a deeply emotional photograph of a gradually subsiding barn garnered an Award of Excellence. Achieving her effects “in camera” rather than through post-processing in Photoshop, she demonstrates mastery of her medium. Harold Ross’ “Still Life with Pencil Sharpener and Steel Ball” initially appears to be an example of the “Photorealism” paintings of the 1960s and 70s. In fact, it is a meticulously crafted digital photographic print comprising 30-plus layers of imagery. It bears greater relationship to the Dutch Masters than to photorealism.

Amani Lewis "The Conversation"

“Relevance,” the relationship of art to social issues, is increasingly part of the art world’s language. Amani Lewis’ “The Conversation” examines the current status of African Americans. The central figures in her creation appear to be involved in a calm exchange, but are superimposed over images of angry protest. Protesters can be seen through the figures themselves, illustrating how social upheaval penetrates individual existence. Digitally cut and pasted images printed on canvas worked over with paint evoke the screen printed posters of 20th Century protest movements. 

George Thompson’s painting “Sometimes ‘IT’ Percolates uphill” depicts the permanent and reflexive damage to the earth of individual acts of pollution. He has chosen a jewel-tone palette rather than the “earthier” palette expected. It is up to the audience to decide whether this choice works against the artist’s intent or leads to closer exploration. George J.E. Sakkal’s photo collage “Climate Change: Earth at the Beginning of the End” depicts the detritus of western existence in a small, densely packed image that invites the viewer to practically stick their nose into the swirling mess.

Some current perspectives in contemporary art are not evident here. On display is what

Sondra Arkin "Shadow Drawing"

some would dismissively refer to as “wall art.” Missing are “installations” which become part of or transform the gallery space. The closest examples are Sondra Arkin’s Award of Excellence winning “Shadow Drawing,” and Jihyun Vania Oh’s “Trace My Memory.” Ms. Arkin’s wall-mounted wire sculpture is a delicate spiderweb of geometric forms that creates a shadow drawing on the gallery wall. Ms. Oh’s sculpture of leather, paper and other materials -- resembling a post-apocalyptic gas mask -- snakes up a corner of the gallery, stepping from wall to wall. Her ‘s is the only piece that seeks to directly engage the audience by encouraging viewer interaction. Below the work is a small sign that invites the viewer to “Open me.” Pulling a small metal ring opens a trap door, revealing a pop-up that transformed my understanding of the work.

Missing in their entirety from the exhibition are examples of video and performance art.

It is estimated that there are more than 2.5 million professional artists in the US -- nearly 1% of the population. Taking into consideration the additional number of amateur artists, it is easy to understand the challenge for artists to have their work seen and sold. George Ciscle’s curation demonstrates the value of artists who analyze what has gone before, both in terms of technique and theory, and seek that unique variation that lifts one’s work above the fray. The exhibit is among the best that I have seen at the RAL, but still leaves room to grow.

See www.rehobothartleague.org.

Mélomanie Opens 23rd Season with "Personal" Performance

By Christine Facciolo

Mélomanie devoted the opening concert of the 2016-17 season — its 23^rd — to the appreciation of the viola da gamba and its music.

The concert featured Mélomanie Executive Director and Co-Artistic Director Tracy Richardson on harpsichord and the ensemble’s virtuoso gambist Donna Fournier in performance at the Wilmington Friends School in Alapocas. The concert was titled “Up Close and Personal,” and that’s exactly what it was, with the audience seated on stage with the performers.

First things first: As Fournier pointed out, a viola da gamba is not a fretted cello, even though it may resemble one. A cello has four strings while a viol usually has six, like a guitar, or seven. But unlike a guitar, the viol’s frets are not permanently set, but rather made of gut and tied on, like a lute, and thus movable.

The viol is also tuned differently from the cello. Viols are tuned in fourths with a third between the third and fourth strings, just like a lute. Cellos are tuned in fifths. Viols are bowed like cellos but the bow is held underhand rather than overhand.  Another difference: The viol is much quieter than the cello. In fact, they were too quiet to be effective in large orchestras or big concert halls and fell out of favor after the 18th Century.

The program featured a sampling of works by the major gambist/composers, including Marin Marais, Carl Friedrich Abel, Tobias Hume, Gottfried Finger, Georg Philipp Telemann and Johannes Schenck. Contemporaries continuing the tradition included Mark Hagerty and Mark Rimple — the latter a former gamba student of Fournier and now a professor of Music Theory and Composition at West Chester University.

The program also featured a nice balance between solo works — including a recently discovered work by Telemann — and those with basso continuo.

And who better to deliver these works than Fournier, undoubtedly the most accomplished gambist in the region and quite possibly beyond.  Fournier’s tone is sumptuous; her intonation perfect.  The wistful notes and rich depth of the bow across the gamba were complemented by the distinctly sharper sounds of Richardson’s harpsichord.  And just when you thought Fournier couldn’t play any faster, louder or softer — she did!

Particularly arresting was Fournier’s and Richardson’s execution of the expressive lines of Marin Marais’ Suite in A Major.  The deliberate Prelude paved the way for the stately Allemande and the determined Chaconne.  Their rendering of Johannes Schenck’s Sonata No. 1 in D Minor was also expertly done, with the composer’s highly disparate stylistic palette played up to maximum effect. An equally vigorous delivery was given to Mark Hagerty’s Civilisation (2001), which imagined how Baroque might have been played in the 21st Century had not it taken a “wrong turn” in the 18th Century.

Fourier showed off her improvisatory skills in Abel’s Prelude in D Minor, and her technical virtuosity in Finger’s Divisions on a Ground and Mark Rimple’s contemporary Dementanz from Sonata Circumdederunt Me.  Her performance of A Question and an Answer by English eccentric Captain Tobias Hume was clever and witty.  Fournier also treated the audience to a performance of a recently discovered Fantasia by Telemann, applying herself to the wealth of musical ideas contained in the piece.

See www.melomanie.org.