KC Chamber Players and Brahms Horn Trio

Brahms, Trio for Horn, Violin, and Piano, T. van der Zwaart, I. Faust, A. Melnikov (Harmonia Mundi, 2008)

Charles T. Downey, Engaging new voice with Kennedy Center Chamber Players (Washington Post, October 20)

During his tenure as music director of the National Symphony Orchestra, Christoph Eschenbach has overseen the appointment of eight principal musicians.

The changes are audible not only in performances by the NSO, but also in the recitals by the Kennedy Center Chamber Players, drawn from the NSO membership.

The group’s first concert of the season, on Sunday afternoon, offered a chance to hear the outstanding new principal horn player, Abel Pereira.

First on the program were two Beethoven trios, composed in the 1790s... [Continue reading]

Kennedy Center Chamber Players
Music by Beethoven, Brahms
Kennedy Center Terrace Theater

KC Chamber Players: Nine Is Enough

Bach, Goldberg Variations (arr. D. Sitkovetsky), D. Sitkovetsky, G. Caussé, M. Maisky (Orfeo, 1996)

Charles T. Downey, Kennedy Center Chamber Players perform Bach’s ‘Goldberg Variations,’ Rheinberger
Washington Post, June 2, 2014

The Kennedy Center Chamber Players, composed of principal musicians from the National Symphony Orchestra, have many advantages. One of the most important is that they can, without much fuss, perform rarely heard pieces from the extended chamber music repertoire. Such was the focus of the group’s final concert of the season, heard on Sunday evening in the Kennedy Center Terrace Theater.

Joseph Rheinberger’s “Nonet in E-flat Major” concluded the program, a broad-shouldered work at the edge between chamber ensemble and chamber symphony... [Continue reading]

Kennedy Center Chamber Players
Joseph Rheinberger, Nonet in E-Flat Major, op. 139
Bach, Goldberg Variations (arr. D. Sitkovetsky)
Kennedy Center Terrace Theater

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• KC Chamber Players: 2013 | 2011 | 2010 2009 | 2005
  
• Jens F. Laurson, Songs without Words Leave Audience Speechless (April 23, 2004)

Kennedy Center Chamber Players

Charles T. Downey, Kennedy Center Chamber Players offer top-notch evening of Bach, Brahms
Washington Post, October 8, 2013

J. S. Bach, Gamba Sonatas, J. Savall, T. Koopman

The chemistry of a chamber music ensemble can be as elusive and mercurial as any relationship, or even more so. Many factors can contribute to making a performance excellent or not so much. Whatever those factors may have been, they all lined up for a top-notch concert by three members of the Kennedy Center Chamber Players on Sunday evening at the Kennedy Center Terrace Theater.

Cellist David Hardy and pianist Lambert Orkis showed two different musical facets in the first half. Bach’s Sonata in D for viola da gamba and continuo (BWV 1028), updated to cello and grand piano, was blithe and sweet, with only a few minor tempo inconsistencies between players in the fast movements. Orkis kept his foot off the sustaining pedal, adding some pleasing ornaments, and Hardy minimized his vibrato, both playing with consummate sensitivity. [Continue reading]

Kennedy Center Chamber Players
Music by Bach, Mendelssohn, Brahms
Kennedy Center Terrace Theater

KC Chamber Players in Terrace Theater

This review is an Ionarts exclusive.

On Sunday evening in the Kennedy Center’s Terrace Theater, the Kennedy Center Chamber Players, all principals of the National Symphony Orchestra, presented a polished program of music tied loosely together by the theme of contrast between sacred and profane.

The program began with Darius Milhaud’s four-movement Suite for Violin, Clarinet, and Piano, op. 157b (1936), for which pianist Lambert Orkis was joined by violinist Marissa Regni and clarinetist Loren Kitt. The piece’s prevailing lighthearted and danceable mood is tinged with tongue-in-cheek detachment and polytonal complexity, while a dreamy second movement reveals a heart of childlike simplicity. In a smooth and precise reading, Regni played with especially tender, almost vibrato-free purity in the second movement. Here as throughout the evening, Orkis was the most expressive performer of the group.

Next, Orkis joined cellist David Hardy for César Franck’s Sonata in A Major (1886), written for violin and piano and later arranged, with the composer’s blessing, for cello and piano. The piece gains expressive depth with the use of cello instead of violin, although in Sunday’s performance the cello was swallowed up by the piano in places where a violin would have soared above it. This was not helped by the placement of the cellist right next to the piano, making it hard to distinguish the two instruments. In this world-weary sonata, Franck’s nomadic chromaticism and cyclic rehashing of motifs create a sense of endless searching without finding. Orkis and Hardy brought an appropriately grand seriousness to the piece, while also injecting fire into its exhilarating fast passages. At times, though, this entailed a loss of some precision in the piano part. Hardy delivered the cello’s final gruff outburst with dramatic flair.

Orkis and Hardy returned for J. S. Bach’s Sonata in G minor, BWV 1030b. Bach reworked this piece in different keys and for different instruments; it is more commonly performed on flute or oboe than on cello. Bach’s unsettled chromaticism here recalled Franck’s, and Orkis and Hardy again grappled ably with this intricate music. However, they also succumbed to some of the dangers of playing Bach on modern instruments; it was generally too bright and insistent. Hardy’s higher register began to fray toward the end, sounding squeaky and not quite in tune. The players closed with Béla Bartók’s Contrasts for Violin, Clarinet, and Piano (1938). This fiery piece was commissioned by jazz clarinetist Benny Goodman, and in it, Eastern European dances mingle with jazz riffs appropriate to Goodman’s style. The players reveled in its eccentricities, from the opening mock-serious military recruiting dance to the jarringly mistuned (scordatura) violin scratchings of the final movement.

Brahms, Double or Nothing

Read my review published today in the Style section of the Washington Post:

Charles T. Downey, Kennedy Center Chamber Players double down on Brahms
Washington Post, April 12, 2011

Brahms, Complete Trios (piano, horn, and clarinet), Beaux Arts Trio (et al.)

Is the first piano trio of Johannes Brahms good enough to warrant playing it twice in the same concert? The Kennedy Center Chamber Players attempted to show that it was during their Sunday afternoon concert at the Terrace Theater. The group juxtaposed the two surviving versions of the Op. 8 trio, the first published when Brahms was in his early 20s and the second made in the final decade of his life.

This is a rare situation for a composer who had infamously exacting standards for what he allowed the public to hear. The early version contains many melodic references to Brahms’s love for Clara Schumann. At the time, he was helping her deal with her husband’s mental breakdown, and Clara advised against publishing it. When he revised the trio, Brahms soft-pedaled some of those references but created a more concise and better work. [Continue reading]

Kennedy Center Chamber Players
Brahms, Piano Trio No. 1, op. 8 (both versions); Two Songs for mezzo-soprano, viola, and piano, op. 91
Kennedy Center Terrace Theater

For more background on this concert, see my preview article.

KC Chamber Players: Ravel, Dutilleux, and Dvořák

Composer Henri Dutilleux (photo by Myles Granger)

Sunday afternoon, the Kennedy Center Chamber Players presented an elegant program of Ravel, Dutilleux, and Dvořák that, though less than meaty, was certainly well suited to the Chamber Players’ effortless grace in collaboration. The first work, Ravel’s Introduction and Allegro for Harp, Flute, Clarinet, and String Quartet, is a gem of the chamber literature that was originally conceived as a showcase for the harpist. The piece was written in 1905 in response to a commission from Érard, who had just designed a pedal harp in direct competition with the Pleyel Company, which had commissioned a work from Debussy for their new chromatic harp.

The resulting work by Ravel was supposedly polished off in a hurry, but his creation was perfect in its display of the new instrument. The harp, often an accompanying instrument, here comes to the forefront, surprisingly able to carry a melody over all the other instruments in a few instances, and Dotian Levalier, principal harpist of the National Symphony Orchestra, was marvelous. Levalier played with weight and grace, and the distinctive sweeping sounds of the instrument were gorgeous in her rendering of what was, at the time, a new chromatic sound, via the pedals. Though the harpist shone in particular, the ensemble as a whole blended beautifully, with each instrument weaving lightly through and among each other.

Henri Dutilleux, a living French composer, is known in the area because he had a close relationship with the National Symphony Orchestra and director Mstislav Rostropovich. This work, Ainsi la nuit (1976), would have perhaps had a better effect had it not been preceded by an ill-conceived spoken and played introduction to it, articulated by cellist David Hardy. The work has seven movements, with “parentheses” in between that recapitulate old or foreshadow new material, and with no time between. Foreseeing possible confusion among the audience as to where the titled movements began and ended, the musicians played the first few measures of every movement, and then proceeded to play the parenthesis preceding that movement and its transition into the movement itself. Needless to say, this was a long, drawn-out introduction to a piece that stands firmly on its own, and which does not need a thorough analysis for audience-members’ untrained ears. Dutilleux has exacting and quirky standards, and a love of harmony above all else. Out of his dissonant twentieth-century sound will emerge lush and richly intricate harmonies that seem to hearken to an earlier century. Always technically rigorous, the musicians acutely captured the jarring sounds of this string quartet, only to come together to create richly sonorous harmonies.

Other Reviews: Cecelia Porter, Harp takes center stage in Chamber Players' varied program (Washington Post, April 27)

The final work, Dvořák’s String Sextet in A major, op. 48, was so much in the Kennedy Center Chamber Players’ element that the piece practically played itself. However, at the beginning of the fourth movement, the musicians let this comfort get the better of them, and intonation began to slip. Despite this shortcoming, there were some wonderful moments, such as during a variation in the final movement in which cellist Hardy had a haunting solo over the other instruments’ transparent and blending sound. All in all, it was a wonderful program from a group that rarely disappoints.

The Kennedy Center Chamber Players offer one more program to end this season (June 6, 2 pm), a program featuring quintets by Gieseking and Schubert, as well as Szymanowski's Mythes for violin and piano.

Kennedy Center Chamber Players

This review is an Ionarts exclusive.

The Kennedy Center Chamber Players never disappoint, and Sunday afternoon in their first appearance this season at the Terrace Theater, they presented an exceedingly fine concert of music by Fauré and Tchaikovsky. The group strikes a balance between collective musical ownership and the guidance of a single leader -- the ever graceful, but strong Nurit Bar-Josef. The opening theme of the first piece, Fauré’s Quartet No. 1 in C minor, is declared right away in unison by the strings -- an immediate pronouncement of the Chamber Players’ tight ensemble playing -- offset by thick chords in the piano on the offbeats. Pianist Lambert Orkis, in his extended solo parts, showed his ability to create strikingly long phrases and not give in to the seasick back and forth style of phrasing (which is certainly appropriate in some instances). He was truly unaffected, and for this style of late 19th-century French music, it was perfect. However, notes were dropped in many of the technically demanding spots that required flitting back and forth and spanning of the whole keyboard (although it certainly did not help that he was turning his own pages).

The second movement was brilliant: a showcasing of the pianist, whose part is ever quick and nymph-like in its devilish delicacy. Orkis handled the part beautifully, and the accompanying pizzicatos in the strings were in tune and together. The false ending in the scherzo is a delightful quirk that is immediately followed by similar music in the piano, but the strings at this moment are different. Subdued and again in an accompanying role, the strings were unadorned and without vibrato, which created an ethereal sound since the players tuned so well. The opening of the third movement highlighted the group’s dynamic as an ensemble: the movement starts with a single line in the cello, seamlessly joined by the other strings, sounding all the while as one voice that is simply growing in strength.

Without their violist, Daniel Foster, the ensemble went on to something different in the second half of the program, Tchaikovsky’s Trio in A minor. The opening piano starts from nothing and sets the stage for the cello, played by the formidable David Hardy, who then passed his theme without effort to Josef. The first movement, Pezzo elegiaco, a broad sonata form, is almost rhapsodic in the ground it covers and in a seemingly irregular form. At one point, the first violin trailed off hauntingly before a slow middle theme, which was stunning in its mournful temperament. The second movement is a gigantic theme and variations, whose theme is a pastoral, simple melody begun in the piano. Imitated by the violin and cello, the music’s breadth then encompasses everything from that rich Russian fire to more folk-like sounds. The ensemble easily went from one thematic material to the next and, pulling out all the stops, summoned that overly Romantic, Russian tugging-of-heartstrings sound to bring the piece to an exciting close.

The next concert by the Kennedy Center Chamber Players (January 10, 2010, 2 pm) will feature a program of three Brahms sonatas (violin, viola, and cello) with piano.

Kennedy Center Chamber Players Beethoven Marathon I

Lambert Orkis and David Hardy (photo by Margaret Ingoldsby Schulman)

Sunday afternoon, National Symphony Orchestra Principal Cellist David Hardy joined forces with pianist Lambert Orkis for a marathon double program of duos at the Kennedy Center Terrace Theater. Ionarts was able attend the first program, played on replicas of period instruments. The replica of a 1788 Dulcken fortepiano made by Thomas and Barbara Wolf makes regular appearances in the Washington area and suited perfectly the early works of Beethoven that comprised the first half of the program.

As Orkis remarked in verbal program notes, Beethoven was the first composer to write for cello and piano alone, tactfully writing the Sonata in F (op. 5, no. 1) for King Friedrich Wilhelm II of Prussia, who was apparently a decent cellist. Hardy performed on a gut-stringed replica of his usual 1694 Testore instrument, made in 2000 by his father. Beethoven clearly simplified the cello part to allow the king to save face, while the piano part is exceedingly busy. Even if Orkis faced technical challenges with the instrument, this was an opportunity for many to hear the dynamic context of a fortepiano with a quick, light action, supremely quiet pianissimos with the moderator, and soundboard resembling more a snare drum than a large, resonant piece of wood. Hardy never seemed to achieve the gorgeously robust tone he is known for in the NSO, leading one to wonder if the instrument was flawed or if Hardy, in an attempt at historically informed performance (HIP) practice, just underplayed. However, this would not explain Hardy’s intonation issues, lack of varieties of tone, and narrow dynamic range.

Other Reviews: Mark J. Estren, A Winning Time for All In a Beethoven Marathon (Washington Post, February 17)

Orkis switched to a replica of early 19th-century “models” made by Regier of Maine (with three strings per note, over the Dulcken copy’s two) for the later Beethoven, in the second half of the program. The Regier instrument’s larger size and warm sound were ideal for Beethoven’s lovely Sonata in A Major, op. 69. Orkis seemed to run circles around Hardy in terms of musical leadership, leaving one pleased to hear the wonderful repertoire, yet wishing for equally persuasive playing from both performers that better resonated within the room. Perhaps the second performance of the afternoon’s “marathon” on modern instruments was more evenly balanced. The two sets of variations on the program -- a tune by Handel in See the conqu’ring hero comes and Mozart in Bei Männern, welche Liebe fühlen -- could have had further distinction in character between each variation. Generally, HIP forays should be left to specialists.

The next chamber music concert at the Kennedy Center will feature the Post-Classical Ensemble with soprano Harolyn Blackwell, next Sunday (March 1, 7:30 pm).