Europa Galante Gets In On It

Il diario di Chiara, Europa Galante, F. Biondi (Glossa, 2014)

Antonio Vivaldi worked for much of his career at the Pio Ospedale della Pietà, the Venetian home for abandoned children. Unwanted babies, both boys and girls, left at the Pietà were illegitimate or abandoned for other reasons, sometimes brought there by their mothers or rescued by good-hearted Venetians. Only the girls raised in the Pietà had the option of living there for the rest of their lives, if they were talented musicians and wanted to have a musical career playing in the orchestra or singing in the chorus. The place functioned almost like a convent, led by a "prioress" elected by the residents, but its rule was musical rather than monastic.

The ingenuity of Il Diario di Chiara, a recent disk by the historically informed performance ensemble Europa Galante, was to trace the life of the Pietà not through one of its composers, but through one of its wards. The woman known only as Chiara, or Chiaretta, played the violin, viola d'amore, and organ, and Fabio Biondi has put together the scores of pieces that she played, that were composed for her, and for which she wrote cadenzas. It is a glimpse inside the musical life of the place, which nearly everyone who visited Venice as a tourist in the 18th century visited to hear the performances. Jean-Jacques Rousseau spent an eventful eighteen months in Venice, of which he gives a well-detailed account in Book VII of his autobiography, The Confessions. He describes not only hearing the Sunday Vespers services at the Pietà but actually meeting the performers, who were normally hidden from the audience's view by a grill:

M. le Blond presented to me, one after the other, these celebrated female singers, of whom the names and voices were all with which I was acquainted. Come, Sophia,- she was horrid. Come, Cattina,- she had but one eye. Come, Bettina,- the small-pox had entirely disfigured her. Scarcely one of them was without some striking defect. Le Blond laughed at my surprise; however, two or three of them appeared tolerable; these never sung but in the choruses; I was almost in despair. During the collation we endeavored to excite them, and they soon became enlivened; ugliness does not exclude the graces, and I found they possessed them. I said to myself, they cannot sing in this manner without intelligence and sensibility, they must have both; in fine, my manner of seeing them changed to such a degree that I left the house almost in love with each of these ugly faces. I had scarcely courage enough to return to vespers. But after having seen the girls, the danger was lessened. I still found their singing delightful; and their voices so much embellished their persons that, in spite of my eyes, I obstinately continued to think them beautiful.

Rousseau was at the Pietà in 1741, when Chiaretta was in her 20s and already widely known for her playing, although Rousseau does not mention her. As this program traces, heard live on Sunday evening at Shriver Hall, Chiaretta had a long and distinguished career in Venice, serving as director and teaching her own students until her death at the age of 73. As experienced at the last local appearance of Fabio Biondi and Europa Galante, at the Library of Congress in 2008, the details of the performance were not always in line. Mostly this was due to Biondi's many turns as soloist, best in the striking concerto by Antonio Martinelli, for Chiaretta to play on the viola d'amore, which he played with the cadenzas written by Chiaretta herself. It was hard not to think, given some of the problems that Biondi experienced here and there in the other concertos, by Martinelli and Vivaldi, that perhaps it is time for him to give some solo opportunities to the younger violinists in his ensemble.

Other Reviews: James R. Oestreich, Europa Galante Tells the Story of a Musical Orphan in ‘Chiara’s Diary’ (Washington Post, January 18) Tim Smith, Europa Galante explores 18th-century music written for Venetian orphanage (Baltimore Sun, January 19) Harry Rolnick, Rockin’ And Rollin’ With The Orphanage Gals (ConcertoNet, January 17)

Europa Galante as an ensemble has a sort of default sound, elegant and smoothed out, almost lacking any affect in a strange way. This produced some lovely moments, especially in the slow movements, where the ensemble was often thinned down to a smaller number of instruments, as in the combination of violin solo, pizzicato strings, and theorbo in the slow movement of Vivaldi's G major sinfonia (RV 149), which sounded like a big mandolin. At the same time, a sense of rule-bound homogeneity crept in to many of the pieces, which made the rare standout, like the ground bass variations in the middle movement of Vivaldi's D major violin concerto (RV 222), a welcome relief from a slightly disappointing sameness. An encore, the violent hailstorm movement from Vivaldi's "Summer" concerto, provided a last frisson of excitement.

The next concert on the Shriver Hall series will feature violinist Michelle Shin (January 30, 3 pm), in a free concert at the Baltimore Museum of Art.

Yefim Bronfman Opens Shriver Hall's 50th Season

Prokofiev, Concertos / Sonatas, Y. Bronfman (Sony, 2013)

Charles T. Downey, Pianist Yefim Bronfman performs Prokofiev sonatas
Washington Post, September 22

Among the concert-presenting organizations marking significant anniversaries, Shriver Hall opened its 50th season in Baltimore on Sunday evening. Pianist Yefim Bronfman did the honors, with a recital centered on the first four sonatas of Prokofiev, one of his specialties. Some musical luminaries were in the audience for the occasion, including violinist Hilary Hahn and pianist Leon Fleisher, Bronfman’s onetime teacher.

The program was an abridged version of the complete Prokofiev piano sonata cycle that Bronfman is playing around the world this season, generally spaced over three evenings... [Continue reading]

Yefim Bronfman, piano
Music by Prokofiev, Schumann
Shriver Hall

SEE ALSO:
Lawrence A. Johnson, Bronfman ignites a Prokofiev storm at Ravinia (Chicago Classical Review, August 12)

John von Rhein, Bronfman begins his Prokofiev sonata cycle in grand Russian manner (Chicago Tribune, August 12)

Charles T. Downey, Magdalena Kožená at Shriver Hall (Washington Post, February 19, 2013)

Michael Lodico, Yefim Bronfman at Strathmore (Ionarts, March 4, 2012)

Jerusalem Quartet in Charm City

Schubert, Quartet ("Death and the Maiden"), Jerusalem Quartet (Harmonia Mundi, 2008) [Review]

Charles T. Downey, Despite some weather delays, Jerusalem Quartet lights up Shriver (Washington Post, February 17)

The frigid cold may have kept some listeners home, but it did not deter the Jerusalem Quartet from playing at Shriver Hall on Sunday evening. The ensemble arrived in Baltimore only a short time before the concert, because of weather-related flight troubles, and the cellist, whose suitcase was lost, wore jeans — but when they played, all cares were forgotten.

Haydn’s “Rider” Quartet (op. 74/3) was ideally crisp and light in style... [Continue reading]

Jerusalem Quartet
Music by Haydn, Schulhoff, Schubert
Shriver Hall (Baltimore, Md.)

SEE ALSO:
Tim Smith, Jerusalem Quartet makes Shriver Hall debut (Baltimore Sun, February 17)

PREVIOUSLY:
Schumann with Alexander Melnikov | Shostakovich
Wolf Trap in 2012 | Library of Congress in 2007 (interrupted)
JCCGW in 2006 | Kennedy Center in 2005

Trifonov and Kremer in Charm City

M. Weinberg, Symphony No. 10 (inter alia), Kremerata Baltica, G. Kremer (ECM New Series, 2014)

While Daniil Trifonov has dazzled in solo recital, the Russian pianist's appearances with orchestras, most recently with the NSO, showed the same daring but not always a natural aptitude in ensemble situations. This did not augur well for Trifonov's local debut as a chamber musician, at Shriver Hall on Sunday night, doubts that were borne out in an otherwise intriguing selection of music performed with violinist Gidon Kremer and cellist Giedrė Dirvanauskaitė.

There were no questions about Trifonov's technical accomplishment, although what he did with the first piece, Mozart's slender D minor fantasia (K. 397), was not really about that. Faced with a lack of technical challenge, Trifonov pushed and pulled the music in every which direction, with enigmatic and slow arpeggiation followed by a poignant rendition of the tragic arioso, the contrasting sections shifting moods on a dime. Kremer, who was last in Baltimore ten years ago (but with the National Symphony Orchestra in 2011), did similar things with Mieczysław Weinberg's second solo violin sonata, op. 95. Each of the seven short movements received a different emphasis of tone: a deliberate, even clumsy straightness in Monody, frenetic sawing attacks in Interval, a gorgeous vibrato-heavy sound in Repliques, and a fragile deference in Accompaniment. Kremer hit his stride in the last two movements, producing that full-throated biting sound in the intense, even strident Invocation and giving a folk-flavored fiddle drive to the final movement, Syncopations.

Other Reviews: Tim Smith, Gidon Kremer, Daniil Trifonov in brilliant form at Shriver Hall (Baltimore Sun, January 21) Niels Swinkels, Kremer and Trifonov Deliver Rewards with Challenging Program (San Francisco Classical Voice, January 18) Mark Swed, Gidon Kremer shares a performance of a lifetime (Los Angeles Times, January 15)

Schubert's C major fantasy, D. 934, is a bear of a piece, especially for the pianist, most recently heard from James Ehnes and Orion Weiss last year. Trifonov was astounding from a technical point of view, although ensemble challenges like balances and a shared rubato were not always in hand. He achieved some remarkable lightness of tone, although not everywhere he needed to do so, while Kremer floated on his arching lines in the first movement, although his high flautando sound was a little perilous at times. There was one moment in the second movement that sounded like a misalignment, although the duo quickly recovered from it, but the variations were sentimental in nature, without turning overly sappy.

The low point of the concert was Rachmaninoff's Trio élégiaque No. 2 (D minor, op. 9), a youthful work composed just after hearing the news of Tchaikovsky's death. The performance was appropriately steeped in gloom, with songful playing from Dirvanauskaitė, but the obsessive repetition of motivic cells in the melodic themes of the first movement, for example, made me wonder if the popularity of Rachmaninoff's music might not be due to the same qualities observed in successful pop songs. The theme at the heart of the middle variations movement is truly banal, and the qualities the composer harps on in each variation did not make things any better. The piece is centered almost exclusively on the keyboard pyrotechnics, and at this Trifonov excelled. Two encores rewarded strong ovations: a Scherzo by Shostakovich (the second movement from the second piano trio, I think), and the second of Rodion Shchedrin's Three Funny Pieces, titled Let's Play an Opera by Rossini.

The fine season at Shriver Hall continues next month with a concert by the Jerusalem Quartet (February 15, 5:30 pm), playing music by Haydn, Schulhoff, and Schubert.

Belcea Quartet @ Shriver Hall

Beethoven, String Quartets, Belcea Quartet (Zig Zag, 2014) Schubert, "Rosamunde" Quartet (inter alia), Belcea Quartet (EMI, 2009)

The Belcea Quartet contributed to one of the more memorable concerts of my listening life, with tenor Ian Bostridge at the Library of Congress in 2006. Between that time and their 2013 performances at the Schubertiade Festival in Schwarzenberg, the group had a personnel change, with Axel Schacher replacing Laura Samuel as second violinist. The group's appearance at Shriver Hall on Sunday evening was my first chance to hear the new formation, and the results were fine indeed.

They began with one of Mozart's "Prussian" quartets (F major, K. 590), which opened with such careful attacks, emerging from nothing, setting a tone of contained and balanced sound. (For some reason, the group did not observe the repeat of the exposition's first movement in any of the pieces on the program.) All players did not quite agree on the tempo, especially in the first and third movements, but the approach was characterized by remarkable simplicity and finesse, except some overplayed parts of the third movement. The fourth movement was perhaps just too fast, with some of the runs feeling somewhat glossed over, but if it was wild it was also thrilling. The Belcea Quartet has just released a box set of the complete Beethoven quartets, and their performance of the third quartet here (D major, op. 18/3) showed an easy familiarity. This quartet's slow movement, taken at a tempo just the right degree not too slow, suited their intensely quiet style, as they allowed the music to unreel from the spool without any fussiness. The short third movement was playfully delicate, and the fourth movement, although ultra-fast, was quite graceful.

Other Reviews: Tim Smith, Looking back on weekend's Choral Arts, Pro Musica, Shriver Hall concerts (Baltimore Sun, October 29) Zachary Lewis, Belcea Quartet treats Chamber Music Society crowd to impassioned Brahms, Berg and Mozart (Cleveland Plain Dealer, October 22)

The final piece, Schubert's gloomy "Rosamunde" quartet (A minor, D. 804), was just in my ears thanks to the Dover Quartet. Although that performance felt unburdened and natural in its choice of tempos, the Belcea Quartet showed that one could err on even slightly more moderate choices in all the movements. In the Schubert, the soft sweetness of first violinist Corina Belcea's tone was beautifully placed, and all four musicians used a senza vibrato straight tone effectively in a few places, to draw out stark harmonies. The Minuetto's opening dotted motif, which returns in the cello many times, here was not menacing, seeming instead just to announce a serious recollection, while the Trio, slightly faster, had a folksy lightness. The finale had a dance-like weight on strong beats, and although it was taken at a quick pace, the first violinist also had all those runs light as a feather.

The next event on the Shriver Hall season will feature the Calidore String Quartet (November 8, 3 pm), in a free concert at the Carver Center for Arts and Technology.

Angela Hewitt Gets to the Heart of Fugue

J. S. Bach, The Art of Fugue, A. Hewitt (Hyperion, 2014)

Pianist Hélène Grimaud was scheduled to open the season at Shriver Hall in Baltimore on Sunday afternoon, but when the French pianist withdrew, due to a finger injury, it was Angela Hewitt who stepped in to save the day. We wish Grimaud a speedy recovery, of course, but it was hard not to feel that this change of events was an upgrade, meaning the chance to hear Hewitt play twice this fall -- she will play a Mozart piano concerto with the National Symphony Orchestra next month -- and to hear her play J.S. Bach's Die Kunst der Fuge, apparently the only time she will play the work live in the United States this season. Fortunately, thanks to the tendency of Professor Hewitt to lecture before she plays, my late arrival did not mean missing any of the actual music.

Hewitt gave a preview of her Art of Fugue at Shriver Hall in 2012, when she played the first four contrapunctus movements. Early in that year, Hewitt underwent an emergency surgery, and she wrote that following the procedure she did not touch the piano for over a week, coming back to practicing eventually by taking her first look at the score of The Art of the Fugue. Hewitt believes in the piece, which will be the capstone of her traversal of the complete Bach keyboard works for Hyperion when her new recording is released next month. The work has a reputation for being dry and cerebral, and a less skilled performance can make it live up to that reputation. Endlessly, infinitely complex, yes, but Hewitt brought out all of its warmest, lyrical qualities.

Other Reviews: Robert Battey, Pianist Angela Hewitt performs Bach’s ‘The Art of Fugue’ at Shriver Hall in Baltimore (Washington Post, September 23)

In the more intricate fugues, she applied considerable rhythmic freedom and sometimes slow, but not lugubrious tempi, to allow her to examine each thread of the tapestry, using rallentandi at the edge of excess to cue the listener to the approaching entrance of the subject. I have noted for some years the affinity of Hewitt, who once trained as a dancer, for dance movements, and she brought that love of movement to the notes inégales of Contrapunctus II and the gigue-like mirror fugues of Contrapunctus XIII.

The only place that the performance bogged down a bit was in the four canons near the end, where Hewitt's careful pacing and detail-oriented touch became a little too austere in the already spare two-part texture. Hewitt says of these pieces, in her extensive program essay, that "there is beauty to be found in severity, and we should let them speak simply without trying to add too much in the way of interpretation." Goal achieved. After that, though, she gave a religious, intense reading of Contrapunctus XIV that brought the performance full circle. Hewitt believes that Contrapunctus XIV is an incomplete quadruple fugue, whereas I am more convinced that Bach's inclusion of his own name-theme indicates that he intended to leave the final piece incomplete, with the understanding that the final piece of the puzzle, the weaving in of the main subject, is hanging in the silence, a gesture to the infinite. Despite her belief, Hewitt wisely eschewed the various possible completions of the final piece, letting the score come to an abrupt end where Bach's score does. In homage, she then played Vor deinen Thron tret ich hiermit, the quirky chorale harmonization added to the final version of The Art of Fugue.

The next concert on this series will feature the Belcea Quartet (October 26, 5:30 pm), at Shriver Hall in Baltimore.

Kožená, Bestiary of the Exotic

Charles T. Downey, Magdalena Kozena at Shriver Hall
Washington Post, February 19, 2013

Love and Longing (Ravel, Dvořák, Mahler), M. Kožená, Berlin Philharmonic, S. Rattle (2012)

The things that make a good song recital happen can be as elusive as alchemy. Part of it is the choice of songs, part is the singer’s ability to narrate in music as if simply reciting poetry, and part is the pianist’s ability to set the scene. All three of these elements came together in the recital by Magdalena Kozena on Sunday at Shriver Hall, the Czech mezzo-soprano’s first in the area since 2009.

By most vocal standards, Kozena’s voice is not extraordinary; it has a pretty but relatively small tone that tends to sound forced at extremes of dynamic and range. Her wide-eyed storytelling was key to bringing off this unusual program of rarely heard song sets, in which she conveyed the rambling thoughts of children (Mussorgsky’s “The Nursery”), the obsessions of birds and insects (Ravel’s “Histoires Naturelles”), and the shrieks and quirks of Slovakian folk song (Bartok’s “Village Scenes”). Kozena could float these vocal lines — most straightforwardly in Rachmaninoff’s six Op. 38 songs — with ease and confidence, with virtuoso pianist Yefim Bronfman providing the color at the keyboard.

[Continue reading]

Hamelin @ Shriver Hall

Haydn, Piano Sonatas, Vol. 3, M.-A. Hamelin (2012) Liszt, Piano Sonata (inter alia), M.-A. Hamelin (2011)

Marc-André Hamelin is a showman, but far from an empty-headed one. The program he played on Sunday evening, for his debut at Baltimore's Shriver Hall, combined the Canadian-born pianist's cardinal virtues: ear-tickling virtuosity, an exploratory curiosity for unlikely repertory, and an unexpected approach to the familiar.

In the first category was the opening work, Bach's Great G Minor Fantasia and Fugue, BWV 542, in the expansive transcription by Tivadar Szántó. Conceived by Bach for the organ, it is a piece beloved of many composers and performers -- Liszt, among others, arranged it for piano -- and one had the sense of Hamelin meditating on one of music's ancient scriptures. With a liberal use of the sustaining pedal, applied in all sorts of interesting ways, Hamelin gave the prelude a vast scope, both crushing in volume on fully voiced chords and glowing in a haze of sound at other points. The fugue had both crystalline clarity and massive textures in turn, astounding in fortitude of tone. Put Hamelin's own set of variations on a theme of Paganini -- the theme of Paganini, the one subjected to outrageous variations in his 24th Caprice -- in the same category. Part circus march, part homage to various composers -- snippets of Beethoven, Mozart, and tribute to Rachmaninoff, Chopin, and Stravinsky -- the piece is a hoot and Hamelin played it fearlessly.

For our pianistic edification, there was Ferrucio Busoni's rarely played Piano Sonatina No. 2, an enigmatic piece that is radically unlike what is implied by the unassuming word "sonatina." Hamelin sought to unravel every eccentric tangle of the piece, reveling in its contrapuntal complexities -- a connection to the Bach that had preceded it -- and its harmonic extravagance. To draw a connection between Busoni and the Debussy that followed it, he used the work's odd conclusion to hold the audience in silence, beginning the first book of Images after a short pause. Through his scrupulous control of hand weight, Hamelin gave these three pieces an extraordinary transparency, creating the sense of imperceptible mists in Reflets dans l'eau and a blurred, almost atomic instability in Mouvement, of motion captured in a series of frozen stills. Only the middle movement, Hommage à Rameau, disappointed slightly -- sultry, but a little slow and dull, not catching the Baroque delight in rhythm. The set was capped off by a virtuostic, aquatically shimmering reading of L'Isle joyeuse.

Other Reviews: Tim Smith, Pianist Marc-Andre Hamelin gives compelling recital at Shriver Hall (Baltimore Sun, January 28) ---, Marc-Andre Hamelin to make Shriver Hall recital debut (Baltimore Sun, January 26) Jens F. Laurson, Ionarts-at-Large: Marc-André Hamelin at the Herkulessaal (Ionarts, December 16, 2012)

Not many pianists really make me want to hear the music of Sergei Rachmaninoff, but Hamelin is one of them. He gave a pearl-like finish to two of the op. 32 preludes: a wistful, rubato-stretched no. 5 (G major) and an aphoristic no. 12 (G♯ minor), marked by a restlessly fluttering right hand. The program concluded with the composer's second piano sonata, wisely played in the revised 1931 version -- trusting the composer's later (perhaps too late) impulses toward self-editing. Hamelin raged through the fast parts of the first movement with technical aplomb but left room for poetry, giving the second movement a voluminous sweep without letting it become too sugary. The third movement rocketed with vitality. Hopes for a Haydn sonata encore -- from Hamelin's growing set devoted to that Ionarts favorite composer -- were almost met, with a guileless, crisp reading of the first movement of Mozart's C major piano sonata, K. 545. This famous little piece, which Mozart entered into his catalog of compositions with the words "Eine kleine klavier Sonate für anfänger" (A little keyboard sonata for beginners), was a last wink of the eye and nudge of the elbow from Hamelin the showman.

We will be back at Shriver Hall next month for the recital by mezzo-soprano Magdalena Kožená and pianist Yefim Bronfman (February 17, 5:30 pm).

Anderszewski @ Shriver

Charles T. Downey, Pianist Piotr Anderszewski makes Shriver Hall debut
Washington Post, December 4, 2012

Bach, English Suite No. 6 (inter alia), P. Anderszewski (2004) Schumann, Humoreske (inter alia), P. Anderszewski (2011)

Polish-Hungarian pianist Piotr Anderszewski is on a U.S. tour this month, making his first return to the Washington area since a recital at the National Gallery of Art in 2006. For his debut at Shriver Hall in Baltimore, where he played Sunday evening, the program paired two of the composers whose music he has recorded to critical acclaim, Bach and Schumann. Anderszewski is not a fastidious fine-tuner of sound at the keyboard, but he used a broad palette of articulation and voicing to put his mark on some familiar pieces.

He chose Bach's third and sixth English suites, and they made an ingenious pairing. Anderszewski added many small embellishments to the score, taking all of the repeats but never to the point of obfuscating Bach's music. [Continue reading]

Piotr Anderszewski, piano
Bach, English Suites 3 and 6
Schumann, Fantasy in C Major, op. 17
Shriver Hall

ADDENDUM:
The third and sixth English suites are the two that both have gavottes in the optional dance position, and as Anderszewski's performance showed, they have many other things in common. For both of these suites, Bach also wrote out completely ornamented “doubles” for the sarabandes, which Anderszewski played after making his own ornamentations to the original dance, then further ornamenting Bach’s ornamentation on the final repeat. In both cases, the “double” had the feel almost of a completely different movement.

Angela Hewitt: Art of Fugue

Bach, Keyboard Works (15 CDs), A. Hewitt Rameau, Keyboard Suites, A. Hewitt Couperin, Keyboard Music, Vol. 2, A. Hewitt

This review is an Ionarts exclusive. This article has been corrected since publication.

When Angela Hewitt comes to the area, Ionarts is there -- in 2009, 2006, and 2003. Right on schedule, the Canadian pianist, an Ionarts favorite in Bach and other Baroque music, came to Baltimore's Shriver Hall on Sunday afternoon. We are lucky, as it turns out, that she made it: after a performance in Nashville in early March, Hewitt underwent some emergency surgery, a situation that she naturally prefers to keep private but that was scary enough for her to comment on in a recent statement on her Web site. Her recovery, fairly arduous, forced her to cancel recitals in Copenhagen, Birmingham, and Berlin, and concerto appearances in Brussels and Ankara, after which she returned to her planned schedule in Dublin on March 30. She made no mention of her ordeal on Sunday, and it reportedly had nothing to do with a change in the programming of this recital, with Rameau (alas) replaced by some 19th-century French music (the confusion over the program announced was due to a miscommunication). My disappointment at the lost of the Rameau suite is not out of disrespect for Fauré or Ravel, but because my chances to hear Rameau's keyboard music live are so depressingly rare.

A François Couperin set was limited to four selections from the composer's Sixième Ordre, arranged in a sort of mini-suite. These pieces were impeccable in the way one expects of Hewitt: crisp ornaments, gorgeously shaped phrasing, variation of dynamics and articulation. Putting the lie to the sometimes repeated assumption that all Baroque music sounds the same, Hewitt drew a different character from each movement, with a languid Les Langueurs (so much made of so little on the page), an understated way with the famous Les Barricades Misterieuses, and a rug-cutting Le Moucheron -- a gnat dancing a jig. Bach's fifth French suite (G major, BWV 816) was likewise a marvel, with charming embellishments adorning the repeats, even in the spirited, bouncy Gigue. The Sarabande was exquisitely turned, perhaps wallowing just a bit too much in the details, but the buoyant Gavotte, light with the sense of dancers' leaps on the strong beats, was about as perfect as it could be.

After her surgery, Hewitt has written that she did not touch the piano for over a week, coming back to practicing eventually by taking her first look at the score of The Art of the Fugue, which is planned for performances at Royal Festival Hall next season. We had a sneak preview of her thoughts about the piece because she played the first four contrapunctus movements, and my advance response is that it is going to be very good indeed. In brief comments, she admitted that she thought that the sections of this complicated piece would all sound the same. With that in mind, she quickly dispelled that assumption with four different styles of performance in these movements: a jaunty no. 2; a tortured, wandering no. 3; a whimsical no. 4 dotted with the little two-note motif she identified, quite convincingly, as a cuckoo's call.

The rest of the program was given over to Hewitt's recent fascination with 19th-century French music, which will be the subject of the disc she plans to record in August. She made Fauré's Thème et Variations in C-sharp minor, op. 73, a rather odd and rambling piece, into something delectable, especially the slow, delicate inner variations. Even better, because it is stronger music, was Ravel's Le Tombeau de Couperin, an evocation of the French Baroque to which Hewitt applied her whole bag of Baroque tricks. The Prélude was fleet, vanishing in a puff of sound, and she did nothing to exaggerate the delicious, extravagant harmonies of the odd Forlane, thinking first of the sense of the dance. A feisty Rigaudon and a cool, unemotional Minuet led to an athletic Toccata that nevertheless revealed a few unexpected slips in Hewitt's technique. One is so used to everything being just so and in place with Hewitt's playing, but she is not the sort of power player who can flash her way through a piece like this on nothing but adrenaline. (Lingering after-effects of her surgery could also be an issue.) With the encore, Debussy's omnipresent Clair de lune, from the Suite Bergamasque, we were back in the realm of the expertly carved miniature, which makes the prospect of a Hewitt Debussy disc, planned for release sometime in the fall, a palatable one.

Next season's series of concerts at Shriver Hall will feature the Brentano Quartet (October 14), Europa Galante and Fabio Biondi (November 4), pianists Piotr Anderszewski (December 2) and Marc-André Hamelin (January 27), mezzo-soprano Magdalena Kožená and pianist Yefim Bronfman (February 17), violinist Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg (March 3), violinist Alina Ibragimova with pianist Cédric Tiberghien (March 16), the Pavel Haas Quartet (April 7), and cellist Alban Gerhardt with pianist Cecile Licad (May 5).

Les Violons du Roy in Charm City

Mr. Corelli in London, M. Steger, English Concert, L. Cummings (2010) Handel, Water Music, Les Violons du Roy, B. Labadie (2008)

Our last chance to hear Les Violons du Roy in the area was in 2005, so we were not going to miss the chance to hear the Canadian early music group when they played on Sunday afternoon at Baltimore's Shriver Hall. The group plays on modern instruments, so they produce a plush sound, but with reproductions of 18th-century bows that changes the nature and precision of the attack, which produces a refined unity in spite of relatively small numbers of players. While music director Bernard Labadie does favor the crisp, fleet approach to Allegro movements, typical of historically informed performance (HIP) conductors, he also approaches the music with considerable liberty of phrasing, heard in the Largo introduction to Handel's B♭ major concerto grosso (op. 6/7, "Hornpipe"), a piece last heard from the Australian Chamber Orchestra in 2009. Placement of the archlutenist, Sylvain Bergeron, in the front row, helped his decorations of the exquisitely soft third movement come to the fore. Labadie guided the players through expertly pointed phrases in the the fast movements, especially the folksy vigor of the "Hornpipe" last movement, where harpsichordist Richard Paré, the instrument wisely placed at the back to reduce its tendency to dominate, shone in his inventive continuo realization.

Recorder player Maurice Steger lived up to his reputation as a daredevil virtuoso in a Telemann suite (A minor, TWV 55:a2), featuring alto recorder, that is well worth a listen. Steger was up to all of the composer's many virtuosic challenges, giving clean, precise articulation to the many cascading runs, ear-piercing clarity on the high notes, and astounding breath support and finger work. The only deficit, if it should even be called that, is the lack of a truly luxurious legato, heard in the somewhat impatiently rendered Largo movement. Much the same effect was produced by an inferior piece of music, Giuseppe Sammartini's F major concerto for soprano recorder. The soloist dazzled in many sparkling runs, and the archlute had another pleasing turn decorating empty spaces in the middle movement, but it was not a piece that warranted its resurrection.

Other Reviews: Tim Smith, Les Violons du Roy, recorder soloist Maurice Steger light up Shriver Hall (Baltimore Sun, January 30) Susan Isaacs Nisbett, Maurice Steger, Violons du Roy offer thrilling baroque playing at Rackham (Ann Arbor.com, January 29)

Of greater interest on the second half were two pieces drawn from Steger's recent album, a blockbuster, of music by Arcangelo Corelli, adapted and made even more brilliant by his student, Francesco Geminiani, who packaged many of Corelli's works for English audiences during his time in London. Although Steger made that disc with a different ensemble, the English Concert, Les Violons du Roy took Geminiani's version of Corelli's famous variations on the Follia tune and ran with it, with lead violinist Nicole Trotier and the other musicians each getting virtuosic moments in the spotlight. The rhythmic verve of this performance was spirited and ferocious, especially in the fastest sections, taking on the spirit of dances like the fandango. Steger returned for a final solo turn in Geminiani's amped-up version of a Corelli recorder concerto (op. 5, no. 10), incorporating extremely ornate ornamentation dreamed up by leading recorder virtuosos in London at the time. Such written-out embellishments are an invaluable resource for HIP musicians, giving precious evidence of just how florid the process of ornamentation could be. As rewarding as the recording is to listen, to hear that level of virtuosity in live performance was an overwhelming experience.

The next Shriver Hall event is a free concert by 15-year-old pianist George Li, at the Baltimore Museum of Art (February 11, 3 pm).

Bronfman Performs Tchaikovsky Sonata

Yefim Bronfman: Prokofiev, Sonatas 2/3/5/9 Prokofiev, Concertos (inter alia)

Pianistic powerhouse Yefim Bronfman graced the stage of Shriver Hall on Sunday, offering a program of Beethoven, Schumann, Prokofiev, and Tchaikovsky. Bronfman had been originally scheduled to accompany soprano Magdalena Kožená, who canceled for personal reasons. The result was an intricately ambitious program emphasizing the artist’s strengths.

Beethoven’s Thirty-Two Variations in C Minor flowed past in a stream-of-consciousness process, with each brief variation coherently dovetailing with the next. A reharmonized theme occurred around the eighth variation, which led a pathway to further expressiveness in a work, perfectly chosen as an opener, ending simply with a succinct V-I cadence. It was a pleasure to hear Schumann’s Faschingsschwank aus Wien (“Carnival Jest from Vienna”), given Bronfman’s vivacious fluency in the extended outer Allegro and Finale movements, which left little room for safety, leading to a gripping performance. The inner Romanze, Scherzino, and Intermezzo movements were stylishly nuanced even if the Romanze was surprisingly doleful.

A highlight of Disney’s Fantasia 2000 was Bronfman’s performance of Shostakovich’s Piano Concerto No. 2 set to an animated version of Hans Christian Andersen’s The Steadfast Tin Soldier. Born in the former Soviet Union, Bronfman is indeed one of the top interpreters of Russian music and has recorded the complete sonatas and concertos of Prokofiev: the Second Sonata in D Minor was on the program. What one experiences when listening to Bronfman’s Prokofiev is a plethora of multi-dimensional, crystal clear contrapuntal lines interspersed with sporadic splashes, pops, and dazzles of color. The literal and almost mechanistic interpretive approach that is so effective for Bronfman in this and in Fantasia 2000 flies in the face of Rachmaninoff’s fluffy type of output that we find Charles so frequently maligning.

Other Articles: Tim Smith, Yefim Bronfman gives brilliant performance of demanding program at Shriver Hall (Baltimore Sun, February 22) ---, Q&A with pianist Yefim Bronfman (Baltimore Sun, February 19) Jane Norris, At piano, Bronfman continues creativity (The Daily Progress, February 19) Lark Turner, Yefim Bronfman earns $50,000 prize, comes to Bienen School of Music to teach (The Daily Northwestern, February 12)

Tchaikovsky’s Sonata for Piano in G Major comprised the second half of the program. It is a lesser-known work that is conservatively Classical in demeanor, but the sonata exudes a wideness of pianistic heft and slowly evolving build-ups and releases that would be highly suitable for orchestra. At times it sounded as perfectly balanced as the Schumann selection; at others it traversed Lisztian harmonic boundaries, though never quite going over the top. At all times, Bronfman, with technique to spare, led the piece forward, leaving the audience wishing for more, which they received in a momentary encore, a movement possibly by C.P.E. Bach or Scarlatti.

For those to our south, Yefim Bronfman will repeat this recital program this evening (February 23, 8 pm), on the Tuesday Evening Concert Series at the University of Virginia's Cabell Hall in Charlottesville.

Ian Bostridge at Shriver Hall

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

Charles T. Downey, Tenor Brings Schubert to Life
Washington Post, April 7, 2009

Ian Bostridge (tenor) and Julius Drake (piano)
Shriver Hall (Baltimore, Md.)

Program (all songs by Schubert):
Im Frühling, D.882 | Über Wildemann, D.884 | Der liebliche Stern, D.861 | Tiefes Leid, D.876 | Auf der Bruck, D.853 | Aus "Heliopolis" I, D.753 | Aus "Heliopolis" II, D.754 | Abendbilder, D.650 | Ins stille Land, D.403 | Totengräbers Heimweh, D.842 | Auf der Riesenkoppe, D.611 | Sei mir gegrüsst, D.741 | Dass sie hier gewesen, D.775 | Die Forelle, D.550 | Des Fischers Liebesglück, D.933 | Fischerweise, D.881 | Atys, D.585 | Nachtviolen, D.752 | Geheimnis (An Franz Schubert), D.491 | Im Walde (Waldesnacht), D.708

Encores:
Normans Gesang, D.846 | An die Laute, D.905

Ian Bostridge is on the board of the new British conservative intellectual magazine Standpoint and writes a (mostly) monthly column for it on music. If you want to catch up on the columns you missed, follow these links:

• A Passion for Bach (June 2008)
  
• Mozart and the Mob (July 2008)
  
• There's No Place Like Home for a Singer (August 2008)
  
• The Subtle Subversive (October 2008 -- on pop music and the "Death of Classical Music")
  
• Suffer the Children (November 2008)
  
• Serious Music for Serious Times (December 2008)
  
• Timing Is Everything (January 2009)
  
• Enough to Make You Spit (February 2009)
  
• Love in the Time of Cholera (March 2009)

Schubert, Winterreise, Ian Bostridge, Julius Drake, dir. David Alden

Brentano Quartet and Serkin Astonish

Brentano String Quartet -- (L to R) Mark Steinberg, Serena Canin, Misha Amory, Nina Lee (photo by Christian Steiner)

On Sunday afternoon, the stellar Shriver Hall Concert Series presented the Brentano String Quartet joined by pianist Peter Serkin and baritone Thomas Meglioranza. The Brentano Quartet maintained their reputation as coherent programmers in a program of Haydn, their 2008 piano quintet commission by Charles Wuorinen (b. 1938), Schoenberg (Wuorinen’s musical idol), and Beethoven.

Haydn’s Quartet in D Minor, op. 76, no. 2 (“Quinten”) provided charm, perfect intonation, and motivic fun based upon the interval of the fifth. Performing in a burstingly energetic way while never being ragged, the Brentano’s virtuosity in all genres was remarkable, even more so considering that all are equal partners in terms of intensity and musical leadership. The Brentano’s hesitation before upbeats in the second movement (Andante), depth of affect in the third movement (“Witches’ Minuet”), and the perfect intricacy of the final movement’s Vivace make this ensemble one worth traveling a distance to experience in concert.

Contemporary music specialist Peter Serkin joined the team for Charles Wuorinen’s Piano Quintet No. 2, commissioned and premiered in 2008 by the Brentano Quartet. Given that it is now the 21st century and despite an impeccable performance, Wuorinen’s vigilant neo-serialism was seemingly dated and stuck in academia. Its lack of color and inventiveness left one’s mind to wander. It was only after a substantial amount of time that any of the five musicians played lines together. Endless abrupt attacks were later balanced by a semblance of lushness. One is still keen to hear Wuorinen’s operatic adaptation of Annie Proulx’s short story Brokeback Mountain, planned for New York City Opera but now with its fate uncertain since the resignation of Gerard Mortier.

Other Reviews: Tim Smith, Brentano Quartet, Serkin in bold program at Shriver Hall (Clef Notes, March 10)

The dynamic baritone Thomas Meglioranza joined the piano quintet in Schoenberg’s setting of Byron’s poem Ode to Napoleon Buonaparte, op. 41. Schoenberg calls for an emotionally nuanced Sprechstimme that is directed rhythmically. With tone rows that harbor tonal potential, Schoenberg created a wildly alive composition that furthered the poem’s anti-imperial fervor, ending by mentioning George Washington as the way forward. Was this work programmed to contrast Schoenberg’s serialism to Wuorinen’s or as a political snicker at our most recent former President? The work ends with an E-flat major chord, a nod to Beethoven’s Eroica Symphony, famously dedicated to Napoleon for a period before Beethoven reconsidered. The program concluded with Beethoven’s Grosse Fuge performed in a rather harried way; it might have been stronger with more poise and less effort. In fairness, gentler sections and dynamic swells were a very effective contrast to a very loud opening.

The next concert at Shriver Hall is not to be missed, an evening of Schubert songs performed by tenor Ian Bostridge and pianist Julius Drake (April 5, 5:30 pm).

Radu Lupu at Shriver Hall

There was a rare sighting of Radu Lupu at Shriver Hall on Sunday evening. The elusive Romanian pianist had not been there in three decades, and his last concert in the area was at the NIH a decade ago (he canceled on the BSO at the last minute in 2005, and Jens last reviewed him, with Mitsuko Uchida and the New York Philharmonic, in 2007). With the 60-something Lupu's crown of hair now whitened and his bushy gray beard, one could easily mistake his profile at the piano for that of the older Johannes Brahms. Seated fully on his trademarked high-backed office chair, with his eyes often closed, Lupu alternately caressed and walloped the keyboard in a recital that was extraordinary for its interpretative long shots more than for the surmounting of technical challenges.

Radu Lupu Plays Schubert Beethoven Concertos, Sonatas

Opening with three Beethoven sonatas played to Lupu's past strengths, although the pair of op. 14 sonatas, hardly considered among the most difficult of the Beethoven cycle, as they were intended for the Baroness von Braun to play rather than the composer. That said, they were the best part of the first half, suited to Lupu's enigmatic approach, with a gentle, almost lost first movement in no. 9, an extremely slow middle movement, and a last movement that seemed overly fast for Allegro comodo. All in all, Lupu made something mysterious out of what is on the page just a light little sonata. That he actually skipped a small section at the end of the third movement (measures 108-21), an omission that is hardly noticeable because measures 108 and 121 are almost identical, is probably due to the fact that he relies more on his memory than the score. No. 10 was pushed to the edge of Lupu's speed, the murmurando performance of the first movement making a blur of the 32nd notes, very fast but also ultra-light. A similar approach made the last movement an understated but impish romp.

The least pleasing Beethoven was the most familiar, the "Pathétique" (op. 13, C minor), the least technically polished (the hand crossings in the first movement, the triplets in the third) and with the fast sections not as propulsive. It was certainly good but not the revelatory performance one wants to hear from Lupu (compared to my current favorite Beethoven set, by Paul Lewis, for example). The second movement was sumptuous and slow, although here, too, Lupu has recomposed the score in his memory, adding a section of music before the A-flat minor section at measure 37.

Other Reviews: Tim Smith, Radu Lupu offers stunning recital at Shriver Hall (Clef Notes, February 9) Lawrence A. Johnson, A remarkable Schubert journey with Radu Lupu (South Florida Classical Review, February 3) Vivien Schweitzer, A Swirling Symphony From the Vault (New York Times, January 30)

Thanks to a friend's suggestion, we heard the second half -- Schubert's B-flat sonata (D. 960) -- from the balcony, where the sound from the piano goes much more directly and clearly to the ear than on the floor. After spending some time listening to Artur Schnabel's recording of this sonata, Lupu's performance seemed extraordinarily delicate, the rumbling bass trills like whispers, the voicings crystalline. The slow movement was so slow, so serene, that breathing seemed to suspend itself, a mood that lifted briefly in the playful third movement, where the downbeats hesitated, a wrong-footed quality that continued in the trio with the off-beat bass emphasized just a bit. It would have been hard to top Alfred Brendel's last performance of this sonata, at his farewell recital last year, but this was a memorable performance, capped by a guileless rendition of Schubert's G-flat impromptu (op. 90, no. 3, D. 899).

The next concert at Shriver Hall will feature the Brentano Quartet with pianist Peter Serkin (March 8, 5:30 pm). The program includes Schoenberg's Ode to Napoleon , with baritone Richard Lalli, and a new piano quintet by Charles Wuorinen.

Leon Fleisher Celebrates 80th Birthday with Friends

The Shriver Hall Concert Series opened its 2008-2009 season with a birthday celebration concert for the venerable Leon Fleisher, who shared the stage with his distinguished students Jonathan Biss, Yefim Bronfman and Katherine Jacobson Fleisher. The screening of Nathaniel Kahn’s brief documentary Two Hands introduced the audience to Fleisher’s remarkable career as perhaps the most highly regarded and quotable piano teacher of our time. Better yet, the HBO-produced, Academy Award-nominated documentary was full of insight into a person now better known for his mind and teaching than as a performer, having taught at Peabody and Curtis for decades. A favorite quote directed to a student: “There is no reason to play faster just because you can!”

Two Hands frames Fleisher’s 40+-year battle against focal dystonia in his right hand – a neurological disorder that instructs the fingers to cramp inward or spasm outward due to chronic misuse – which halted his performing career. Fleisher, along with other musicians afflicted with the condition including Gary Graffman (there are murmurings that Glenn Gould stopped performing because of the condition), tried basically every therapy possible, included hypnosis, to release the muscles. Fleisher eventually grew a beard, enjoyed some scotch, and focused more on teaching, conducting, and performing left-handed repertoire. And what a pedagogue Fleisher became, since he could no longer “push students off the bench” to show them how it should be done. (Note to music students: if your teacher cannot help you feel good when you play, find a teacher who can and be prepared for retraining, as pain is not to be ignored.)

Now 80 and with considerable hindsight, Fleisher is not sure he would change the path of his life. The “pain” has been countered by “commensurate ecstasy.” Recent Botox treatments have allowed Fleisher to return to the stage with two hands, and Two Hands ends noting that in 2005 he performed 48 concerts in 31 cities. However, Fleisher has never been cured of dystonia and his return has been tricky, especially considering Peter Dobrin’s Philadelphia Inquirer review of his 2003 performance of Beethoven’s Emperor Concerto with the Curtis Symphony titled, “The Sound of a Faltering Icon is Melancholy, Indeed,” with the rather unfortunate single-word synopsis of his performance as “sad.” These ears have not heard Fleisher since that 2003 performance.

Other Reviews: Daniel Ginsberg, Leon Fleisher (Washington Post, October 7) Tim Smith, Leon Fleisher and friends deliver memorable marathon (Clef Notes, October 6) Kevin Lowenthal, Concert celebrates Fleisher's many gifts (Boston Globe, October 6) Harry Rolnick, The Sounds of Eight Hands Playing (ConcertoNet.com, October 2)

Fleisher opened the pianistic part of the evening with the words: “In these times of turmoil with strong opinions and emotions, I think it is somehow salutary to begin the evening with a AAA-rated piece.” The arrangement of Bach’s Sheep May Safely Graze was poetically voiced. Yefim Bronfman’s performance of Robert Schumann’s Arabesque contained a similar gentleness to Fleisher’s playing with every voice phrased to compliment the other, and a brief quotation of Schumann's The Poet Speaks, op. 15. One quickly recognized Fleisher’s musical DNA in Bronfman in terms of posture, etched tone, and genuineness. In yet another plaintive work, Jonathan Biss (primo) joined Fleisher in Schubert’s fascinating Fantasy in F minor, which might have been undermined by too reserved a tempo and Biss’s bizarre cheek shaking. The first half of the program ended with Bronfman (primo) and Fleisher performing Dvořák’s Slavonic Dances, nos. 6, 8, and 10, with incredible expression and style.

The second half of the program included Katherine Jacobson Fleisher (Leon’s wife) performing Mozart’s Rondo in A minor, K. 511; Biss in an impeccably detailed, layered performance of Beethoven’s Sonata No. 27 in E minor without distracting mannerisms; and both Fleishers in Ravel’s La valse filled with fun four-handed glissandi. Happy Birthday, Mr. Fleisher!

The first concert in Shriver Hall's regular season will feature the unclassifiable contralto Ewa Podleś in a recital with pianist Garrick Ohlsson (October 19, 5:30 pm).

Aimard's Contrapuntal Passion

J. S. Bach, The Art of Fugue, Pierre-Laurent Aimard, piano (released March 11, 2008) Deutsche Grammophon 477 7345

Of all of the remarkable piano recitals we have heard this week -- Lang Lang, Yundi Li, and even last night's farewell concert by Alfred Brendel (review tomorrow) -- the Palm Sunday concert by Pierre-Laurent Aimard at Shriver Hall was the most revelatory. It began with the first eleven Contrapunctus movements of Bach's encyclopedic statement on counterpoint, Die Kunst der Fuge, BWV 1080. Aimard has just released a complete recording of the work, played from a slightly different version of the printed score, edited by Christoph Wolff. As Jens has written recently about hearing Aimard play the entire Art of Fugue live in Munich, Aimard's Baltimore program, mixing Bach's contrapuntal masterpiece with contrapuntal works by Beethoven and Schoenberg, was actually more palatable.

In suitably monastic attire (glasses and simple black), Aimard launched into the Art of Fugue selections in a gentle tempo, voicing each entry of the subject with care. The fugue represents the crux between the medieval and Renaissance conception of music, as overlapping horizontal lines, and the common practice conception of harmony dominated by a single melody, and Bach's late masterpiece represents a sort of pivot at the end of the Baroque period. Bach's collection begins with four simple fugues, the second of which introduces a countersubject in notes inégales, taken by Aimard at a more driven tempo. The third and fourth movements use the inverted form of the subject, which Aimard set against a sinuous reading of the highly chromatic countersubject of III and a severe interpretation of the constant stream of notes in IV.

Pierre-Laurent Aimard, pianist

After a long pause, Aimard's voicing of the counterfugues helped the ear pick out the subject and its inversion from the thicket of overlapping parts. Picking up on the second use of notes inégales in VI, Aimard lent it the feeling of a gigue, with the subject closely layered upon itself. In VII, he managed to make the longer notes of the augmented forms of the subject ring alongside the other bustling statements. The final section presented here, the double and triple fugues, was as stunning an achievement as it is in the recording, especially the percolating IX and intense X. A few notes fell in the cracks here and there, but the effect was much gentler and varied in tone than the recording, where a harshness of attack and sameness of color may be a result of the close capture of sound.

The chromatic excesses of Contrapunctus XI, during which one often wonders what key Bach will land in, led Aimard directly to his next selection after intermission, Schoenberg's Fünf Klavierstücke, op. 23. While there is much to admire about Aimard's pianism, it is his shrewd programming that is his real virtuosity, as in the intellectually spectacular recital and chamber music program he gave at La Maison Française last year. While the Art of Fugue is Aimard's first Bach recording, he is much better known for his modern repertory, like Ligeti or the Concord Sonata. Aimard brought the same sense of contrapuntal layering to the Schoenberg pieces, which are an exercise in organization that likely would have fascinated Bach. For all their atonal innovation, the composers of the Second Viennese School are extraordinarily formalist, so connected to musical traditions other than tonality. There are few more convincing champions of this kind of music (perhaps Maurizio Pollini), and Aimard made as much as he could of connections between Schoenberg and his predecessors, casting the Langsam movement as a sort of intermezzo and the Walzer as a dance of graceful pirouettes, finally twisting out of sight.

Other Articles: Tim Smith, Pianist's musical world extends well beyond the classical (Baltimore Sun, March 16) ---, Shriver Hall: Tuning up for fine 2008-2009 season (Baltimore Sun, March 18)

The pleasant buzz of conversation after the Schoenberg was cut short by the final work, Beethoven's penultimate piano sonata (A-flat major, op. 110). It was the only piece that Aimard played from memory, featuring a gossamer touch in the first movement, with filigreed arpeggiation. The sunny melody was contrasted with a tinkling-glass minor theme section, disturbed by a quiet restlessness. In the stormy scherzo of the second movement, Aimard delighted in the metric shifts toward the offbeat. Somber chords and dreamy recitative opened the final movement, introducing the aria section where each note was supercharged with weight and dissonance was savored.

Aimard's reason for choosing this sonata was the demanding fugue, interrupted briefly by the tragic return of the slow aria, which meshed in one's mind with Schoenberg's and Bach's counterpoint, making Beethoven's use of the process even greater in the context. Introducing his encores, Aimard noted with understatement that it had been a very polyphonic program. "We have heard the fugue in the 18th century, the 19th century, the 20th century," he added, "but what about the 21st century?" To represent our own age, Aimard selected Caténaires by soon-to-be centenarian Elliott Carter, brilliantly played with booming jabs of sound in upper and lower ranges over a moto perpetuo of repeated notes. By way of also taking us backward to the age of Palestrina, Aimard also offered the inversus half of Contrapunctus XVIII from Art of Fugue, one of the most austere and theoretically weighty movements, a four-part mirror fugue, meaning that you can turn the score upside down and play it as a real piece of music. No matter how complex Schoenberg or Carter may be, Bach is even more so.

The final concert in the Shriver Hall series will feature the Choir of King's College, Cambridge (April 13, 5:30 pm), at the Cathedral of Mary Our Queen in Baltimore. Shriver Hall's next season will include an 80th birthday concert by Leon Fleisher (playing four-hands piano with Katherine Jacobson, Yefim Bronfman, and Jonathan Biss), as well as concerts by pianist Radu Lupu, contralto Ewa Podles, pianist Ingrid Fliter, flutist Emmanuel Pahud, harpsichordist Richard Egarr (playing the Well-Tempered Clavier), and tenor Ian Bostridge.

Alban Berg Quartet, Adieu

We had to miss the Washington stop of the Alban Berg Quartet's farewell tour, at the Library of Congress on Friday night. It was more than a consolation to be able to hear the Takács Quartet at the Corcoran instead that night, as well as to know that on Sunday evening the Alban Berg Quartet would be appearing at Shriver Hall in Baltimore (after an absence of almost 30 years). While this solution did mean not having to choose between the two quartets, the programs offered by the Alban Berg Quartet in the two venues were not identical: there was Haydn and Berg in both places, but different pieces, and the group played Beethoven at the LOC and Schubert at Shriver Hall.

The quartet lost its founding violist, Thomas Kakuska, to cancer in 2005. Kakuska had hoped that the quartet would continue after his death, even nominating a student, Isabel Charisius, to succeed him. Regrettably, the loss has ultimately led to the unraveling of the group, which cellist Valentin Erben has described as "a big rupture in our hearts." This is a loss for listeners who loved the subtlety, warmth, and lyricism of their style of playing, but their legacy will be preserved in an extraordinary range of excellent recordings. Still, fans of chamber music were obliged to turn out in force to hear their final series of concerts, and if attending both of them in Washington and Baltimore had been possible, I would have done it.

The solemn Introduzione to Haydn's op. 51, Die sieben letzten Worte unseres Erlösers am Kreuze, was a model of true intonation and clarity of ensemble attack from the first note, with no period of settling into the room's acoustic. Haydn composed the score for a Good Friday service in the church of Santa Cueva in Cádiz, Spain, later adapting the orchestral version for string quartet, adding the introductory movement heard here and a conclusion. Here it introduced not the suffering and death of Jesus but, incongruously, Alban Berg's gorgeous Lyrische Suite, which we have heard from the Quatuor Diotima in 2006 and a Musicians from Marlboro concert in 2005. Instead of Christ's seven last words, it was Berg's six "latent opera" scenes on his adulterous affair with Hanna Fuchs-Robettin. The quartet gave a masterful performance of their namesake's work, ranging from the multiparty chattering of the first movement to the subtle quotation from Tristan und Isolde in the last movement.

Other Articles: Tim Smith, Austria's Alban Berg Quartet bids a fond farewell (Baltimore Sun, February 26) Anne Midgette, Alban Berg Quartet's Passionate and Bittersweet Farewell (Washington Post, February 25) Andrew Clements, Alban Berg Quartet (The Guardian, February 16) Hugo Shirley, Alban Berg Quartet (Musical Criticism, February 15) Emma Pomfret, The stormy, intimate life of the string quartet (The Times, February 8)

The Berg highlighted the distinguishing quality of the quartet's Viennese sound, an all-around sweetness of tone eschewing the stridency one sometimes hears, dramatically, from American quartets. The hushed intimacy of the second movement, with the singing first violin of Günter Pichler and the tender duet of second violin and viola, gave way to the eerie sul ponticello effects and insectoid pizzicati of the third movement, again more atmospheric than drawing attention to themselves. Full dynamics were not really sustained until the feverish fourth movement and jabbing, angular sounds of the furious fifth movement.

The Shriver audience got the better end of the deal in terms of Berg, hearing the suite instead of the op. 3 string quartet. While the LOC patrons heard Beethoven's Heiliger Dankgesang quartet, it was another twilight piece, Schubert's final string quartet (D major, D. 887), that concluded the Shriver concert. Clearly, thoughts of illness and death hang heavily over the group's final concerts. The anguish of the first movement's opposition of major and minor chords (used so memorably by Woody Allen in his movie Crimes and Misdemeanors) was played as if under the surface, with the first theme hushed over a neurotically suppresed tremolo.

The second movement's cello solo playing by Valentin Erben was suave and introspective, perhaps evoking the sleeping Schubert awakened by terrors of his impending death. The Schubert, most of all, revealed some of the cracks in the technical polish of the veteran quartet, with some intonation issues, especially in the first violin, and less than flawless accuracy of execution. While fatigue must also be playing a part in the decision to retire, the Alban Berg Quartet's final performance in Baltimore, all in all, ends their career at an impressive height of accomplishment.

The next concert at Shriver Hall promises to be one of the best of the season, a recital by pioneering French pianist Pierre-Laurent Aimard (March 16, 5:30 pm). The program is announced as selections from Bach's Art of Fugue (Contrapunctus I-XI), Schoenberg's Five Piano Pieces, op. 23, and Beethoven's op. 110 sonata. We would not miss it for the world.