Toledo Blade: Chamber music mingles romance with modernity
By SALLY VALLONGO
BLADE STAFF WRITER
“Art is something shared between two or more people,” noted Merwin Siu, Toledo Symphony artistic administrator, at the start of the first Blade Chamber Concert last night in the Toledo Club.
Making the point that art is not just an end result but a dynamic process, Siu dutifully wished the enthusiastic audience “great nouns of art and great verbs of art.” There was plenty of both in the program, a simple-seeming juxtaposition of one iconoclastic 20th-century work with one iconic 19th-century classic. Both were Toledo Symphony premieres.
Written in 1924 during his Parisian years, the Quintet, Op. 39, by Prokofiev, lays bare the influence of Les Six composers including Darius Milhaus, Francis Poulenc, and Arthur Honegger on the Russian, who by then had earned worldwide respect for symphonic and operatic works. It also reflects the work of an older fellow Russian, Igor Stravinsky, in its bold stridency and angularity.
Performed last night by Michele Tosser, oboe; Jocelyn Langworthy, clarinet, Siu, violin; Mihaela Ragusitu, viola, and William McDevitt, bass, the Quintet was a tangy and wonderfully textured opener for the evening, as well as auguring well for the whole series. An animated introduction by Langworthy provided a welcome entrée into the piece, written originally for a ballet about a circus.
Programmatic as it was, the Prokofiev nonetheless succeeded thanks to the exquisite musicianship of this ensemble.
The second half of the program was all about Brahms, the great master of Romantic complexity who, surprisingly, produced only three string quartets. This 1873 masterpiece — Quartet No. 2 in A minor, Op. 51 — was painstakingly wrought over nearly two decades.
Undertaken by the Odyssey Quartet — violinists Cristina Muresan and Siu, violist Ellen Craig Archambeau, and cellist Damon Coleman — the Brahms proved compelling and colorful, a turbulent river of sound, all surging waves and quiet troughs.
In general the performance was creditable, with much conviction and accuracy of pitch. Of particular excellence were Craig Archambeau and Coleman, viola and cello, whose warm sounds and nuanced playing captured the passion of Brahms convincingly.
Yet in general the impact of the frequent dramatic shifts in musical color, tempo, and instrumentation was muffled somewhat, perhaps by less than total ensemble unity, also by some seeming uncertainties during transitions.
The Odyssey as a group was clearly prepared and determined to merge their individual lines into something bigger than the sum of the four parts. Yet the soul of romanticism that emerges in subtle rubatos and tender cadences seemed lost in the push to move through the notes.
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Original article: http://www.toledoblade.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070924/ART10/70924015