American Chamber Players at the Kreeger

Read my review published today on the Washington Post Web site:

Charles T. Downey, Kreeger festival offers seasonal pleasures
Washington Post, June 10, 2010

Beethoven, Serenade for Flute, Violin, and Viola, Gaudier Ensemble

The June Chamber Festival at the Kreeger Museum is an annual sign of the imminent arrival of summer. For the second concert, on Tuesday night, Miles Hoffman and the American Chamber Players gave urbane performances of three relatively rare works for somewhat unusual combinations of instruments.

Flutist Sara Stern shone the brightest of the five musicians heard in this program, playing with a limpid, refined tone and consistently precise attack and intonation. A good thing, too, as the music on the first half featured the flute as the first among equals, beginning with Beethoven's early Serenade in D, Op. 25, for flute, violin and viola. This sunny work is not quite a suite, although it has dance movements, and not really a sonata, although it recalls some of the forms associated with that genre. The crisp, detached style of playing suited the "Entrata" first movement, which had a pleasing spring in its step. The final movement was a Haydnesque romp, with the last statement of the theme taken ingeniously at a much slower tempo, although Beethoven did not mark the score with any tempo change. [Continue reading]

June Chamber Festival, Second Concert
American Chamber Players
Kreeger Museum

• Beethoven, Serenade for Flute, Violin, and Viola (D major, op. 25)
  
• Madeleine Dring, Trio for Flute, Violin, and Piano (1968) -- violin part originally composed for oboe (her husband was an oboist)
  
• Brahms, Piano Quartet No. 2 (A major, op. 26)