Oregon Music News

Photo by Jim Leisy

It may be simplistic to say that duo piano concert by Orion Weiss and Anna Polonsky was a match made in heaven, but that was the way their performance at Kaul Auditorium on Saturday evening (July 17) sounded. The newly wedded couple (they were married in June) gave an inspired performance of music by Mozart, Poulenc, Mendelssohn, and Shostakovich in a recital that was sponsored by Chamber Music Northwest. Whether they played pieces for four-hands at the same keyboard or for two separate ones, Weiss and Polonsky demonstrated that they have the chemistry to make this style of music-making really exciting.

From the audience perspective, the most entertaining numbers were the piano four-hands, because Weiss and Polonsky had to sit close to each other and negotiate the terrain of complex pieces over the expanse of 88 keys. By opening the recital with Mozart’s Andante and Variations in G Major for Piano, Four-Hands with Polonsky on the treble and Weiss on the bass, they showed right away that they could play as if they were one person, especially when they slowed down and executed pin-point sforzandos.

Mendelssohn’s Andante and Variations in B-Flat Major for Piano, Four-Hands (Op. 83a) was even more entertaining because they seemed to be crossing into each other territories – only this time Weiss had the treble and Polonsky the bass. From were I was sitting, I didn’t have a view of the keyboard, but it looked like the keyboard choreography was riveting, because the two virtuosos were leaning and listing with balletic grace. One of the best moments came when they delivered a dare-devlish staccato passage with panache. They seemed to be in sync with each other at all times and wonderfully slowed down towards the end of the piece before erupting in a joyous finale.

Weiss and Polonsky also gave a terrific interpretation of Poulenc’s Sonata for Two Pianos. They took us on a long journey over an intriguing landscape of sounds. Again, the two virtuosos were in a mind-meld, playing with rhythmic precision, evoking ponderous sonorities, executing sudden stops, creating beautiful lyric passages, and exploring sensuous themes. They also seamlessly changed tempos, including some quick-paced changes in the last movement, which made Poulenc’s music very engaging.

After intermission, Weiss and Polonsky performed Mozart’s Sonata in D Major for Two Pianos. Their playing was elegant but not snobbish. They gave the audience exquisite pianissimos, flawless grace notes, seamless exchanges of phrases (like a couple who completes each other’s sentences, and an unreal way of releasing keys at the same time.

For their last number, the young couple gave a jaunty and thrilling rendition of Shostakovich’s Concertino for two Pianos. The upbeat and optimistic nature of this piece reminded me at times of Shostakovich’s Festival Overture. Weiss and Polonsky tore into the music with relish, and its exciting ending got the audience out of its collective seat with forte applause. Beaming broadly, Weiss and Polonsky responded with a lovely encore, Schumann’s “Abendlied” (Evening Song).

Photo credit: Jim Leisy

Theodore Arm

Tuesday night, July 13th saw the Chamber Music Northwest summer festival turn toward some of the most beloved works from the baroque, or indeed from any era, with a presentation of J.S. Bach’s 1st and 6th Brandenburg Concertos, and Vivaldi’s “The Four Seasons”, a set of four violin concertos presented as one work. The list of performers in the ripieno (main orchestra) of each work are presented below.

Opening with Brandenburg Concerto No. 1 in F Major (BWV 1046)*, with its great hunting theme and iconic horn parts, was a surefire way to get the evening off to a rollicking start.  Theodore Arm was the violinist, accompanied by William Purvis and Eric Ruske on horns, and Allan Vogel, Martin Heber, and James Austin Smith on oboes to round out the concertino (soloist section).

It says something about the rapid strides and wide acceptance of the historically informed performance movement to note that I have seen these concertos performed live several times, and this was the first time I have not seen them performed entirely with period instruments and tuning. (Arm plays a 1652 Guarnieri, Jennifer Frautschi a 1722 Stradivarius, and some of the other string players may well use ancient instruments also, but as a whole this could not be called historically informed practice.)

While the sweeter consonances and jangly dissonances afforded by period tunings as well as the more authentic, sometimes even quirky timbre of early instruments do impart a unique character to these works, the fact that they work so well with modern instrumentation and performance practices speaks to the timeless quality of the composition and the skill of the performers, whose tempos, interpretations and ornamentation have benefited from the H.I.P. aesthetic even when not using the actual practices in this performance.

William Purvis

The tremendously difficult horn work during the opening Allegro was handled marvelously by Ruske and Purvis.  A couple of early entrances from the horns did not distract terribly; it’s rare to hear the fiendishly difficult Brandenburgs played without something going wrong; it’s almost part of the character of a live performance of these concerti. In the second movement the pair sounded haunting calls to one another with delicate, insightful support from the ripieno.

In the third movement, Arm delivered an heroic violin solo, leading to an argument between the soloists and orchestra that featured tasty rallentandos that suddenly sprang back to life at a brisk tempo primo. The fourth movement, which has the character of a nascent rondo form, was perhaps the most enjoyable–during the trio section bassoonist Julie Feves performed her dulcet, loquacious and ceaselessly wandering line with impeccable taste as the horns pa-pa-pa-pa’ed along with her, giving that section a humorous, conversational character. At one point the ritornello saw the tempo drag down almost to a crawl, but the group found its way back for a rousing finale.

The next work was the Brandenburg Concerto No. 6 in B-Flat Major* (BWV 1051).  Its unusual scoring, with no violins, two violas, harpsichord, cello and two violas da gamba, yielded a rich, low sonority.  In this performance Paul Neubauer and Sam Quintal were violists, while R. Henderson Freivogel and Fred Sherry stood in with cellos in place of the gambas.  The unique warmth of the gamba was missed, but Freivogel, who played the most important gamba part on her cello, transcribed sensitively and managed a timbre quite in keeping with the overall feel of the piece. Neubauer and Quintal interwove smoothly, with so much single-minded focus of purpose that it truly sounded like both instruments were being played by the same person.

The second half consisted entirely of Vivaldi’s “Four Seasons” **(Op. 8).  Each of the four concertos featured a different violinist as the seasons progressed from Spring through Winter. This formed an interesting programmatic device, with it feeling like no accident that each soloist seemed to be (roughly) in the season of their life corresponding to the season of the concerto they were playing (with no disrespect intended to Philip Setzer in the Autumn Concerto or Theodore Arm in the Winter concerto; may they thrive and prosper for many years to come).

Rebecca Anderson

Portland’s own Rebecca Anderson was up first with the Spring concerto.  The first entrance of this piece, certainly one of the most well-loved and well-known lines in all of classical music, was suitably fresh and exuberant.  The orchestra did not allow the repetition of these themes to become redundant; rather each return was marked by something slightly different in character to set it apart from the others.  Anderson’s playing was mature and well-informed, remarkably so for such a young performer (she is 19).  Not only was she extremely precise from a technical standpoint in this difficult work, but her interpretation was moving and insightful; she knew how to infuse phrases with meaning and individual character, and the tone she elicited from her violin was completely fitting for the Spring concerto.

The second movement of this concerto was marred by Quintal’s odd decision to make his repetitve line on the viola stick out far too much for its importance in the harmonic texture, and for virtually the entire movement; this was a case when less would definitely have been more.

Jennifer Frautschi took up the bow for the Summer Concerto, perhaps the most challenging of them all from a technical standpoint. She was well-chosen to perform this work; she attacked with all the searing fury appropriate to Vivaldi’s summer storm, and despite one spectacular miss at the beginning of a phrase, she was perhaps the most well-suited of the violinists I’ve heard at this year’s CMNW to deliver the fireworks necessary for this work.

Setzer had the deliriously fun peasant dance to open the Autumn Concerto, and he played it to the hilt, delivering all the saucy swagger one could want.  His timbre in the somnambulent Adagio of the second movement was silvertine and inviting.  For the final concerto, Theodore Arm heralded the arrival of Old Man Winter with scything precision and fullness of tone; the interpretation on this work might be the trickiest, with its skittering, icy strings and rapidly changing moods, and Arm was certainly up to the task.

As a whole the violin concertino for “The Four Seasons” performed brilliantly, and the choice was well-made to feature four different soloists from the many fine musicians who are participating in this year’s CMNW.

*Ripieno for Brandenburgs: Violin–Summi Chang, Jennifer Frautschi, Viola–Sam Quintal**, Cello–R. Henderson Freivogel**, Fred Sherry, Ronald Thomas, Bassoon–Julie Feves, Double Bass–Aleksey Klyushnik**, Harpsichord–John Gibbons**.

**Ripieno for Four Seasons: Also: Violin–J Freivogel, Sae Niwa.

Photo by Jim Leisy

Sylvia McNair, the acclaimed operatic soprano with two Grammys to her credit, gave a light-hearted, upbeat, and uptempo concert on Saturday evening (July 10) at Kaul Auditorium. McNair’s appearance was sponsored by Chamber Music Northwest, which has stretched the boundaries of it summer festival offerings with a least one, atypical concert. Past appearances by Peter Schickele (aka PDQ Bach) and the Punch Brothers have shown how chamber music can be humorous and bluegrassy. McNair’s foray into the musical genre – with microphone in hand and an informal, cabaret style – broadened the concept of chamber music in the direction of Broadway.

I have to admit that I loved McNair’s voice with its clear beauty and impeccable intonation, but I wonder why she chose to do a program of light, mostly romantic numbers. A couple of slow and sad or at least melancholy pieces would have added some depth to the concert. Whatever the reason, McNair kept the energy of her performance inflated with buoyant selections, but they gave the concert a superficial tone.

Accompanied by the suave playing of Ted Taylor, McNair opened her show with Stephen Sondheim’s “Everybody Says Don’t” from Anyone Can Whistle and Leonard Bernstein’s “What a Day” from On the Town. McNair sang these tunes exquisitely and then took a few moments to tell the audience a little bit about her life and how much she had enjoyed her stay in Portland – minus the mosquitoes.

In the next set, McNair flawlessly wove fragments of operatic arias with landmark songs from musicals. She started with one of Cleopatra’s arias from Handel’s Julius Caesar and smoothly transitioned to Embraceable You. Then she traveled from the “Sempre libera” in Verdi’s La Traviata to Cole Porter’s “Don’t Fence Me In.” Minutes later, McNair glided from “O mio babbino caro” from Puccini’s Gianni Schicchi to “I’m in Love with a Wonderful Guy,” from Rodgers and Hammerstein’s South Pacific. She finished the set with the “Habernera” from Bizet’s Carmen to “Whatever Lola wants, Lola gets” from the Alder and Ross musical Damn Yankees.

McNair delved into her self-confessed penchant for romantic obsessions with Porter’s “In the Still of the Night,” Sondheim’s “Love is in the Air,” Loving you is not a choice,” and “The Boy From…” With these songs she showed how she could hold the last note a long time and feather it out until it faded away.

Saying that the show would move to the “ridiculous,” McNair figuratively put on her cowgirl boots and literally pulled out her fiddle to saw the dickens out of the “Orange Blossom Special.” She then executed a nifty rendition of Charlie Daniels “Devil Went Down to Georgia.” Her violin expertise was a surprise to some degree, even though McNair in one of her short monologues had told the audience how she studied violin many years before she pursued voice.

Photo by Jim Leisy

Another selection of tunes included love songs by Frank Loesser, Bernstein, and Andre Previn. McNair concluded the concert with Richard Roger’s “With a Song in My Heart,” which she sang with warmth and a genuine feeling that left a winsome smile on the faces of the audience.

Emerson Quartet with David Shifrin. Photo by Jim Leisy

Chamber Music Northwest brought the renowned Emerson Quartet to the Kaul Auditorium at Reed College on Saturday evening, July 3rd.  Playing a program consisting entirely of works by Mozart, Eugene Drucker and Philip Setzer on violin, and Lawrence Dutton (viola) and David Finckel (cello) opened the evening with a string quartet arrangement by the Viennese master of a number of Bach’s  four-part fugues from the second book of The Well-Tempered Clavier (Köchel No. 405).

This promising offering, however, yielded mixed results.  The first fugue sounded rather tame–hesitant at times, although when the second fugue got rolling the enunciation from the players gained confidence on an individual basis, allowing for a more clear identification of the entry points of subject and countersubject.

Just when that seemed to get rolling however, the group pulled back, and missed the opportunity to display the uniqueness of each voicing.  Much as a dry keyboard reading of the subject matter might do, the playing once again became too polite and failed to deliver a crisp deliberation in the various voices, which is the true delight of any fugue.

The string quartet to follow, No. 19 in C Major (K. 465, the “Dissonant,”)  was much more solid from top to bottom. The transition from the famously dark contrarience of the opening stanzas to the airy lightness to follow felt organic, like a  wholly natural expansion and contraction, allowing one to forget the tremendous amount of discipline and artistry that goes into an interpretation of this caliber. The Andante Cantabile presented itself in direct contrast to the dirge-like opening of the previous movement.  The sterling communication between the players during the blisteringly fast Allegro finale was something to behold, and Setzer gave a clear and consistent voice to the first violin

The group was joined by CMNW artistic director David Shifrin on the clarinet for the iconic Quintet in A Major for Clarinet and Strings (K. 581.)  While not done in the style of a concerto for clarinet, Shifrin represented a sort of ‘first among equals’ ideology, beginning with the famous exposition at the top of the first movement.

His mellifluous artistry allowed complex and yet easy dialogues to develop between and amongst himself and the string players: there were questions and answers, interjections, asides and declamations all around. Shifrin was confident enough in himself to understand when to take center stage and when to step back and provide the stable framework upon which the whole harmony hung, tootling up and down the scale in a throaty mezzo-staccato to finish in a delightful cadential trill.

Drucker took the first violin for this work, delivering a pointed, silvery tone in the gorgeous passages of the second movement.  There was a section in the final movement, the deliciously varied Allegretto con Variazioni, when Shifrin intoned a prayerful background for Dutton’s viola solo that seemed to sum up the group’s interpretation of Mozart: redolent with authenticity and sincerity.

Ani Kavafian

Chamber Music Northwest’s program entitled ‘From France to Moravia’ provided a delicious, well-rounded feast for the senses on Friday night, July 2nd at the Gerding Theater at the Armory. Featuring works from the late 19th and early 20th centuries by three well-loved masters, the evening worked forward from a mysterious and ethereal Debussy sonata to proto-Americana by Dvorák

The opening, Debussy’s well-loved Sonata for Flute, Viola and Harp (1915), was an extremely difficult exercise in touch and interpretation that came off marvelously. Tara Helen O’Connor played the flute, Nancy Allen was on the harp and the violist was Cynthia Phelps, who brought her experience as first chair viola with the New York Philharmonic to the table. Many difficult techniques were called for; one that the composer used several times had one instrument strike a note and another come in and take over the same pitch so that it sounded like there had been no break in sound. This was handled expertly, so that the attack of the harp handed off for a sustain and decay on the flute gave the impression that one was hearing some strange new instrument.

The bewildering forest of Debussy’s harmonics was handled deftly, and the array of textures and timbres called for was amazing–whether it was a mischievous spiccato on the viola, an angelic glissando on the harp or an aspirant, plaintive song from the flute, the group delivered whatever was required. In the third movement, Phelps played a series of phrases on the same two notes where everything that was fascinating was contained in the diminution of touch from a broad sawing to a spritely saltando to a dry, plinking pizzicato.  The end result was a performance containing everything that is best about Debussy, at times wistful, sighing, and ecstatically climactic, at others anxious, confused and Byzantine. There was nothing wanting from this performance.

Richard Strauss’ Sonata in E-Flat Major for Violin and Piano, Op. 19, rounded out the first half.  Violinist Ani Kavafian and pianist Anne-Marie McDermott joined forces for this exposition of virtuosic, over-the-top, high Romantic grandeur. Having the pleasure to hear Kavafian perform so many different styles of music has been one of the joys of this CMNW festival, and in the Strauss she was in fine form once again.

The synchronicity between the two players was quite something to behold; since this was not a sonata for violin with the piano serving principally in the context of providing harmonic depth, each had to know when to step aside and let the other assume primacy, and when to go forth in bold unison.  At times the work imparted something of the broad, heady feeling of the great Bruch G-Minor violin concerto, an impressive feat for a group of two. There was a section in the third movement when McDermott lay down a base of chords and Kavafian kept darting forward from the background in avian fashion, declaiming her short phrase and then pulling back time and again, just one of many difficult techniques that was representative of the wholeness of Kavafian’s musicianship.

The second half of the concert was occupied solely by the mighty Quintet in E-flat Major for Strings, B. 180, Op 97, by the itinerant Czech composer Antonin Dvorák.  The players were Ida and Ani Kavafian on first and second violins respectively, Steven Tenenbom and Cynthia Phelps on violas, and Ronald Thomas as cellist. This work was composed during Dvorák’s legendary sojourn to the United States, when the composer spent the summer of 1893 in America’s heartland, ensconced with the immigrant Czech community in Spillville, Iowa.

This work was redolent with the feeling of folk-melodies of Central Europe and early hints at broad, homey tunes reminiscent of what would later come to be identified as an ‘American’ sound with the works of Copland.  The group grasped the folksy heart of this music and their interpretation was unpretentious, consisting of unforced ensemble playing that orated the musical ideas like a cool, refreshing drink of water, delivering a copious wall of sound showing exactly what they were–a small string orchestra.

There were times throughout that allowed individual players to shine however.  In the second movement, the Allegro vivo, Tenenbom sang gently over a pizzicato string choir, and in the third, the Larghetto, Thomas held center stage with a series  of heart-wrenching, mournful, Slavic idioms on top of a tense tremolando from the rest of the group.

In the finale, the Allegro giusto, one of the central ideas sounded almost like a Native American tune, and the group played it with fortitude and boldness, with the broad, full strokes it required. Although this quintet is not as well known as its sister composition, the ‘American’ Quartet, after listening to this group play it one was struck by the fact that perhaps it should be.

Victor Steinhardt

Composer Victor Steinhardt took the stage to open the latest installment of Chamber Music Northwest’s summer festival in the Kaul Auditorium at Reed College. Saturday night, June 26th, was as warm and perfect an evening as could be hoped for, and the music seemed uncannily suited to it.

The night opened with two tangos by Victor Steinhardt, with composer on hand to play the piano while his brother Arnold Steinhardt took up the violin. The first was simply called Tango, composed in 1996. Much of it moved along bi-tonally, in a strangely ordered dissonance like two people starting off with the same idea and then running with it, each heedless of the other. The bass-line at times resembled the famous Habañera from Carmen, and an hypnotic cacophony transformed into a dulcet cadence, ending with a glissando scritching up one string of the violin to fade away to nothing.

The second tango was a world premiere entitled Tango Fantasy, and the two brothers were accompanied by CMNW artistic director David Shifrin on the clarinet. It began with a very deliberate ostinato, and the work featured many imitative entrances that saw clarinet and violin chasing one another down falling decrescendi, coming together tonically after a wild ride.  One never lost the feeling of the dance however, no matter what permutations the composition underwent: the pumping heart of the tango was always there, even if subdued at times. The texture was often very spare and dry, so that small shifts took on an outsized significance.  The work ended with a joyous wailing on the clarinet and violin until the pianist crashed down with a thunderous, reverberating plunk to signal that it was all over.

Fritz Kreisler’s String Quartet in A Minor (1919) rounded out the first half. Arnold Steinhardt remained on first violin, accompanied by Ida Kavafian on 2nd violin, violist Steven Tenenbom and cellist Peter Wiley. The broad chordal movement that characterized virtually the entire work was novel and scintillating at first–one had to listen but for a moment to understand that harmonically this work was an inheritor of Debussy; indeed this lone string quartet by Kreisler was obviously a stylistic cousin to Debussy’s lone contribution to the genre.  However, Kreisler was no compositional genius as was Achille Claude–to slightly alter  the famous quote from Amadeus, ‘there is in fact only so much homophony the ear can hear in the course of an evening…’ The almost unvarying vertical structure of the work grew tiresome, the once luscious architecture became fetid. This was no fault of the players; rather the monolithic nature of the composition allowed the musicians to zero in on timbre and blend and phrasing. Kreisler’s composition is such that it felt smothering, making one want to beg for space, but instead one is pinned down and held until forced to see the light. The beauty and variation in this work lay in the interpretation more than the composition itself, and the players introduced this variety through dynamics and mood swings.

The evening ended with Mozart’s String Quintet in C Major, K. 515. For this work, Ani Kavafian took over the first violin, Ida Kavafian switched to second viola and the group was joined by Rebecca Anderson on second violin. The first movement was dominated by a repetitive eighth note figuration that was delivered with metronomic precision, allowing Ani Kavafian’s glorious singing tone the freedom to run wherever it needed. If there is anything more rapturous than a Mozart Andante played with true feeling and insight, I’ve yet to find it.  The duets between Ani Kavafian and Tenenbom were truly a seamless interweaving, and at times it was difficult to tell when one instrument stopped and the other picked up the reins.  A moment too to praise Peter Wiley’s playing on the cello.  He never fails to come up with just the right phrasing, at just the right dynamic and at the perfect time. There was a moment in the Andante as the phrase drew to a close when the cello began running up the scale to fulfill its cadential duties only to continue on its flight of fancy with no pause, showing complete disregard for whence it came.  Wiley’s delivery was impeccable–he truly made it possible to live completely in the moment, to allow music at its best to do what it does best–to make us forget everything but one shining, matchless moment in time, and that moment is the here and now.  Only with such superb playing does this phenomenon become possible.

Steven Stucky. Photo by Hoeberman Studios.

Friday night, June 25, saw the continuation of Chamber Music Northwest’s summer festival at the Gerding Theater at the Armory with a concert labeled ‘Three Centuries of Masterworks,’ featuring works by Mozart and Schumann, as well as a world premiere by American composer Steven Stucky.  This concert marked the beginning of a downtown outreach for CMNW, whose recent summer festival concerts have been performed principally at Reed College and the Catlin Gabel School. Anne-Marie McDermott was the evening’s pianist, with familiar faces Ida and Ani Kavafian on violin, Steven Tenenbom on viola, and Peter Wiley as cellist.

The first offering was Mozart’s Piano Concerto in A Major, K.414 (K385p).  The orchestral reduction for string quartet was done by the composer himself as a way to make the work accessible for musicians playing in fashionable Vienna living rooms.  The introduction was honey-sweet and delightful to hear, as is Mozart’s wont, although the music seemed to suggest a more intimate instrument like a fortepiano as opposed to a modern concert grand.  McDermott’s playing was very well-rounded: meaningful dynamic shifts and a widely varying touch and timbre according to the needs of a particular passage were hallmarks throughout. Her cadenza was long and well-laid out while being impish and playful, exactly the way we might imagine a Mozart cadenza should be . But while the individual playing was good, there seemed to be tempo problems from an ensemble perspective, particularly from the strings. McDermott employed rubato rather freely during the solo passages, but when the strings came back in afterwards the group didn’t usually find its way back to a consistent tempo primo.  The entrances, especially when the strings stopped and gave the floor to the piano or vice versa, were often imprecise from a rhythmic standpoint, and so the pulse varied just enough to hinder the establishment of a real feeling of continuity.  This was less of a problem during the warm, hymnal Andante and the final Rondo, but it was distracting during the opening Allegro. Playing an orchestral redux like that can’t have been terribly exciting for the string players, and unfortunately that’s the way it sometimes came across.

The concerts on June 24 and 25 marked the world premiere of highly regarded composer Steven Stucky’s Piano Quintet, which was co-commissioned by CMNW and the Santa Fe Music Festival. The piece was presented as one long movement, atmospheric and spooky with radical mood shifts and wandering tempos.  It opened with spiky chords from the piano hammered out over a bed of strings that vacillated between pizzicato and arco, shifting to a tense, almost constant tremolo from the strings. The melodic motives were delightfully embedded in the stylistic  architecture of the work, featuring an eerie refrain handed off between cello and violin and stretches of ambiguous tonality that were occasionally interrupted by brief cloudbreaks of consonance,  appearing almost apologetically up from the murky texture like a child’s abandoned doll mourning its broken dreams in a burned-out house.  Scratchy harmonics added to the atmosphere; one segment contained a disjointed homophony in the strings that gave way to a muted pizzicato dueling it out with the sere staccato coming from the piano, and as the work faded a spectral arpeggiation from the keyboard wandered around behind the strings.  Stucky’s composition itself was magnificent: completely engaging emotionally and intellectually.  It demanded rapt concentration and superior musical intuition  from the performers, all of whom displayed both.

Closing out the evening was Robert Schumann’s Piano Quartet in E-Flat Major, Op. 47.  The piece stood as an emotional and temporal middleground between the Mozart and the Stucky. The opening movement was full of bombast and contrast, and the 2nd movement- Scherzo- was particularly good–there was a very difficult moto perpetuo theme with lightning-quick unisons between cello and piano that were executed flawlessly. The Andante Cantabile was perhaps the most beautiful moment of the evening–Wiley’s phrasing represented a keen understanding of the emotive import of the gorgeous, sighing cello melodies.

Chamber Music Northwest continues its summer festival through July 25th at several venues in Portland.

This Monday and Tuesday, Chamber Music Northwest presents a concert entitled “Music for all time.” The program features Mozart’s Duo in B-Flat for Violin and Viola, the world premiere of Sheridan Seyfried’s Sextet for Clarinet and Piano Quintet, Messiaen’s “Quartet for the End of Time.” The concert on Monday is at Kaul Auditorium and on Tuesday at the Catlin Gabel School.

Chamber Music Northwest put anniversaries on a high note, starting its 40th season with a concert that celebrated the 100th birthday of Samuel Barber and the 200th of Frédéric Chopin and Robert Schumann. This year also marked the 30th anniversary of the festival’s artistic director David Shifrin and executive director Linda Magee. In her prefatory remarks before the concert, Magee mentioned that they have put together 792 concerts over the years. It might be difficult to find another team anywhere else in the nation that has collaborated on as many chamber music concerts.

A very full house at Kaul Auditorium on Monday evening (June 21) greeted the first set of performers with enthusiasm. Festival veterans violinists Ida and Ani Kavafian, violist Steven Tenenbom, and cellist Peter Wiley opened the concert with an outstanding performance of Barber’s Quartet for Strings. The ensemble superbly mined the moods of this piece, contrasting the quiet and almost nocturnal passages with those that were agitated and filled with angst. The foursome put some real torque into the climatic part of the famous adagio section of the second movement, all of which arrived at a prayerful resting place by the end of the piece.

Next came the eminent pianist Vladimir Feltsman, who curiously chose to play Chopin’s Barcarolle in F-sharp Major in a loud, demonstrative fashion. That interpretation might have worked if Feltsman had found some pianissimos along the way. He was successful in building tension, but the passages in which the music is released to flow freely never arrived.

Feltsman had more success in his performance of Chopin’s Ballade No. 3 in A-flat Major. He found more natural tempos, played some passages fairly softly, and created dramatic moments that gave the piece more shape and appeal. He received thunderous applause from the audience which did not relent until he reappeared on the stage to take an extra bow.

After intermission, all five musicians delved into Schumann’s Quintet in E-flat Major for Piano and Strings. The piece started out of the gate with soaring lyricism and well-played passages that evoked the Sturm-und-Drang passion of the Romantic era. But in the second movement Feltsman overplayed his hand with too much volume.

A miscommunication between the players at the beginning of the third movement of the Schumann caused an automatic reset – a rarity among musicians of this caliber – but they redoubled their effort and played with conviction through the rest of the piece. In fact, their decrescendos while slowing down together in the first theme of the last movement were outstanding.

Sometimes even the best musicians can have an off-day. Ah, that’s part of the thrill of live music. I heartily recommend that you explore this summer’s offerings at the Chamber Music Northwest Festival. There are only 24 more concerts left!

For the past 30 years, David Shifrin has steadily built Chamber Music Northwest’s summer festival into a nationally-recognized brand, known for its top-tier artists, innovative programming, and the development of young artists. Shifrin, besides being Chamber Music Northwest’s artistic director, is a virtuoso clarinetist, who performs regularly at the festival and maintains a busy schedule throughout the year. (Interesting tidbit: Shifrin was the principal clarinetist of the Cleveland Orchestra when he was just 23 years old.)

This summer marks the 40th anniversary of Chamber Music Northwest’s summer festival, which runs from June 11 through July 25 with a cornucopia of performers, new venuse, and works, including several brand new pieces. Last week, I talked with Shifrin about how he plans the festival with its diversity of artists and musical works, and keeps his sanity.

Putting together a schedule that involves so many different artists and ensembles over a period of five weeks is a massive undertaking. How do you accomplish this feat?

Shifrin: Figuring out the festival happens on a number of levels. I have a core group of musicians, and I check with their schedules and try to work around them. We have to work a couple of years ahead of time for some artists. It’s hard to find slots in the schedule of André Watts, Vladimir Feltsman, Slyvia McNair, and the Emerson String Quartet. Most musicians are very busy during the summer, because of all of the festivals.

There’s also a balance that we have to find between the musicians that we want at our festival and the repertoire that we have planned. Sometimes I start with programs that I feel that I’d like to do and see who can play them. Sometimes I start with the musicians that I want at the festival and see what they are willing a capable of playing. I also try to have an overview of several years cycle of the cannon of chamber music that should be repeated. I’m also looking at interesting, new pieces to do, and overlooked works, and pieces that will feature certain artists, and then I try to weave all of these considerations each year into a season that is interesting for the audience on different levels. So the selection of pieces and artists is a bit of a puzzle that is ongoing.

By the first of each calendar year, I have to absolutely decide what is going to be on the five-weeks and 25-plus programs of each summer festival.

Do you use an Excel spreadsheet that helps you figure this out? Or a big white board? Or multiple sheets of paper in a dog-eared notebook?

Shifrin: I don’t use Excel very much, but people on our staff at Chamber Music Northwest do. I work very closely with Elizabeth Harcombe and with Linda Magee, and they help me to collate all the information. We have to take our budget into consideration each year. There are artists fees, travel, and housing to take into account as well.

I am very proud of the fact that Linda Magee and I have worked together for 30 years and brought in every season under budget – sometimes very close! You never know what airfares are going to be from year to year, and it’s a challenge to anticipate artists fees and housing costs, but we’ve done very well to keep it within our boundaries and still make the festival interesting and rewarding.

If you look at a season and decide that each concerts needs an average of nine musicians, then I can determine that one concert can be a trio concert, another

Within the repertoire that we work with, we have thousands and thousands of pieces to choose from. They reach back four hundred years to brand new pieces – some of which have just been completed. A couple of weeks ago, we just received the score for the new Sheridan Seyfried piece, which looks wonderful. A few weeks before that, we got the music for Steven Stucky’s Piano Quintet.

When we commission a new work for a world premiere, we are always familiar with the style of the composer and the performers who will play it. But it’s real exciting to hear where chamber music is going.

When I started planning the festival 30 years ago, I had various pieces and performers written on scraps of paper that I could move around. On adjustment in a piece or a player could change of whole Rubik’s cube for the festival. I still work on paper in the monthly calendar format. To see it all on paper helps to organize my thoughts.

The first concert kicks off the festival with a celebration of the 200^th birthdays of Schumann and Chopin, and the hundredth birthday of Barber.

Shifrin: Yes, I wanted a framework that would celebrate those birthdays, have some familiar works like the Brandenburg concerti, Vivaldi’s Four Seasons, plus some pieces that would show off a variety of instrumental offerings; so I looked for pieces that would feature winds, strings, and keyboard. One of the structural concerts of the festival will be the two-piano concert on July 17^th with Anna Polonksy and Orion Weiss. That’s a special anniversary too, because it will be the one-month anniversary of their wedding. These two virtuosos are getting married in June.

That’s great!

Shifrin: I also try to have some vocal music. The human instrument is the most natural thing to do with chamber music, and this year we will have one of the most extraordinary human voices on the planet in Sylvia McNair in concert on July 10th. She loves the music from the American Songbook – the music of Jerome Kern, Irving Berlin, George Gershwin, and others – that is so accessible. She has a real flair for this music, and she’s the same Sylvia McNair, whose Mozart opera arias I play for my clarinet students as a lesson in how to make a portamento, how to make phrase, how to make a beautiful sound, and how to connect two notes. Sylvia McNair’s concert is another cornerstone of the season.

We also have André Watts coming on July 19^th and 20^th to play some of his favorite chamber music. We have Milan Turkovic, the greatest bassoon player in the world coming in from Vienna, Austria to play in concerts during the week of July 19^th through the 25^th.

Arnold Steinhardt, who is now a free agent after a career of 46 years with the Guarneri String Quartet, has a concert on June 26^th. That performance will also feature his brother Victor as a composer and pianist.

Receiving its Northwest premiere is a piece for violin and piano by Paul Schoenfield on July 23^rd and 24^th.  Cho-Liang Lin and Jon Kimura Parker will play that work. Schoenfield was a pianist at Chamber Music Northwest when I started playing here in the 1970s, and he has gone on to become one of leading composers in the world.

How did you discover Sheridan Seyfried? He’s a pretty young composer.

Shifrin: I learned about Sheridan through Ida Kavafian, who teaches at the Curtis Institute where Sheridan studied. Just two years ago, Chamber Music Northwest did a special program on the 4^th of July, and we wanted to include something different. Ida told me that Sheridan could write an interesting, fun piece for that concert. And indeed he did. He integrated retrograde versions of the Star Spangled Banner and American tunes into a contemporary yet accessible piece for a piano quartet. It was such an enormous hit that Alice and Michael Powell, who are both on our board of directors and wonderful sponsors of the festival, were knocked out by Seyfried’s music. Afterwards Alice came to me that this year would be a special birthday for Michael, and she would like to celebrate it with a new piece by Sheridan. So that’s how the commission came about. Sheridan and I spoke about the instrumentation, and we wanted to feature the Opus One Piano Quartet with Ida, Steven Tennebom, Peter Wiley, and Anne-Marie McDermott. But Sheridan wanted to add a clarinet because he had that sound in his head. Then Sheridan came back later and said that the piece needs another violin part; so we added Ani to the piece. So Opus One plus two will perform this new piece, called the Sextet for Clarinet, Piano and String Quartet which will be played on June 28^th and 29^th. It looks like a terrific work with some driving, rhythmic, jazzy outer movements and a slow, beautiful inner movement.

Sharing the program with Seyfried’s new piece is Mozart’s miniature masterpiece, the Duo in B-Flat Major for Violin and Viola, which will feature Ida and Steve. Then we will finish with Messiaen’s “Quartet for the End of Time,” which has become a staple of chamber music repertoire. It’s a unique piece of music with its intriguing color and rhythm and Messiaen’s unshakeable Catholic mysticism and faith and his interest in bird calls. So that concert works well in terms of playing time: two performers for the Mozart, all six musicians for the Seyfried, and four (minus the two in the Mozart) for the Messiaen.

I like the trio concert on July 19^th and 20^th, going from Bach to Brahms.

Shifrin: Yes, it shows off three centuries of the trio form. It’ll begin with the Bach’s Sonata in E Major for Flute and Continuo. In this case, it’s a wind sonata in which the bassoon will double and ornament the bass line and with the harpsichord and flute it becomes a precursor of the piano trio. In Mozart trio, the parts are explicit, and then later Brahms moving the form ahead. For three masters, it doesn’t get much better than Bach, Mozart, and Brahms.

There’s usually a story or thread behind each program, and we have pre-concert talks that gives a lot of background on the program.

Can you tell us more about the Protégés concerts?

Shifrin: I really like working with young artists. I started to play in Chamber Music Northwest concerts when I was still in my twenties, and I think that Ida was even younger. She was just out of school. We know what a tremendous opportunity playing at the festival was for us. Most of the players teach at conservatories and at universities with great music programs. We like to mentor young artists. They are the future. It’s great to have them debut alongside the veterans.

So the young artists will be featured in concerts at alternative venues like the Someday Lounge, the Mississippi Studios, and The Woods. Becky Anderson, who is a native of Portland, is one of the young artists in the protégés project. I’ve worked and performed with her several times, and I know the other young artists very well, also.

The Protégés Showcase concert on July 22^nd will feature the young artists and some of the festival veterans. We will play some gems by Matyas Seiber and Charles Loeffler. Richard Strauss’s Sextet for Strings is chamber work extracted from his opera Capriccio. Schubert’s great Trout Quintet is a festival favorite, and the young artists will play it with André Watts and Fred Sherry.

It’s an exciting time for the festival. We are really going to have a lot of fun.

Chamber Music Northwest presents two members of the Emerson Quartet, David Finckel and Philip Setzer, and pianist Wu Han in a concert of music by Franz Schubert at 7:30 pm on Thursday at Kaul Auditorium (Reed College).  Finckel, Setzer, and Han will play Schubert’s Trio in B-Flat Major (Op. 99) and his Trio in E-flat major (Op. 100).  This should be an excellent concert by top-tier musicians of some terrific gems.

Chamber Music Northwest has just announced its 40th summer festival with five weeks of concerts anchored by top-tier musicians from Lincoln Center. CMNW’s artistic director David Shifrin has lined up a promising series that extends from Monday, June 21 to July 25th. One of the artists I’m looking forward to hearing is soprano Sylvia McNair (see Week 3 below).

Chamber Music Northwest’s website contains the details. Here are some of the highlights:

Week 1:
Opens celebrating the 100th anniversary of Samuel Barber (with his famous Adagio for Strings) and the bicentennials of Schumann and Chopin. We mark CMNW’s own 40th year with a special commission by the Pulitzer-winning Steven Stucky, then shine the spotlight on the Steinhardt brothers and the Kavafian sisters, with members of Opus One.
Week 2:
Explores the intimate and powerful worlds of chamber music, from Messiaen’s revelatory Quartet for the End of Time to Debussy and Dvořák. We welcome back harpist Nancy Allen, offer a second world première by Sheridan Seyfried, and conclude with the incomparable Emerson Quartet joined by David Shifrin, in an evening to honor the timelessness of Mozart.
Week 3:
Experience an enormous range of music and ensembles, from the Romantic era to the 20th century. Brahms’ evocative Horn Trio offers contrast to Prokofiev’s colorful Overture on Hebrew Themes and Shostakovich’s early string octet. Then immerse yourself in one of the great voices of our time with an intimate evening with soprano Sylvia McNair.
Week 4:
Winds, strings and keyboards join together to revel in a Baroque extravaganza, including four of Bach’s monumental Brandenburg Concertos and Vivaldi’s masterpiece, “The Four Seasons.” Enjoy the delightful chemistry of two CMNW favorite pianists (and newlyweds!) Anna Polonsky and Orion Weiss, in great music for piano four-hands.
Week 5:
Ends with a full week of favorites, from Schubert’s sublime “Trout” Quintet, timeless trios from Brahms and Mozart, to an appealing new duo by Paul Schoenfield. Join us on Sunday for a special musical buffet to conclude our 40th year, and our anniversary cycle of all six of Bach’s Brandenburg Concertos!

The Imani Winds, a Grammy-nominated wind ensemble, will join KQAC All-Classical host Robert McBride for a live-audience recording Mississippi Studios (3939 N. Mississippi, Portland) at 8 pm. Sponsored by Chamber Music Northwest, this special concert will become part of the Club Mod program that McBride has pioneered in order to explore contemporary music. On Thursday evening, the Imani Winds will perform music that have been composed for them by jazz greats like Paquito D’Rivera, Jason Moran and Wayne Shorter – all of which are featured on the ensemble’s latest CD. Tickets are $15.

FYI: The Imani Winds have four releases on Koch International Classics, including their 2006 Grammy Award nominated recording entitled The Classical Underground.

The Tallis Scholars gave a magnificent, jaw-dropping concert of Renaissance music on Monday evening (December 7) at St Mary’s Cathedral in a concert that was sponsored by Chamber Music Northwest. Judging from the standing room only crowd at the church (all possible seats on the floor and in the balcony were sold out), sacred music written a few hundred years ago with Latin text has a firm foothold in secular Portland whenever this world-renowned vocal ensemble is in town. From the opening note of Josquin des Prez’s “Missa de Beata Virgine” to the final chord of William Byrd’s “Vigilate Kyrie,” the Tallis Scholars (seven men and three women directed by Peter Phillips) stunned the audience with immaculate, urgent, and gorgeous singing without any accompaniment whatsoever.

The impressive concert started with a pitch given by Patrick Craig, who sings the alto line with Caroline Trevor. Craig didn’t use a pitch pipe or a tuning fork and that means that he has perfect pitch. For the beginning of each piece, Phillips would signal to Craig and he would concentrate and give a straight, pure tone with no vibrato.

Speaking of vibrato, these singers used very little vibrato, even when they were singing quite loudly, yet the sound was always warm and radiant. They also performed the “Missa de Beata Virgine” – almost singing continuously for an hour – without drinking any water. Indeed, they did have bottles of water available at their feet, but never touched them at any point in the concert.

The music on the program is treacherous enough to cause all sorts of harmonic collisions if the tone ever sagged, but the ensemble never suffered a lapse in intonation or do any slight adjustment. In the “Magnificat” by John Nesbett, three of the tenors chanted phrases in complete unison to such a degree that it sounded like one person. Even the pauses to take a breath were completely in unison.

The two sopranos, Janet Coxwell and Amy Haworth, created soaring lines and pure tones that were to die for. The basses, Donald Greig and Robert Macdonald, sang robustly, added plenty of depth whenever needed, but could pull back on the throttle effortlessly as well. The tenors, Christopher Watson, Simon Wall, George Pooley and William Balkwill, were astounding in range, power, and grace. The altos, Patrick Craig and Caroline Trevor, were especially fun to hear as individuals. Craig’s voice was always pure and sometimes fluty while Trevor’s voice had more color and more depth.

The ensemble’s completely unified vowels and perfect diction made each piece stand out, including the “Tunes for Archbishop Parker’s Psalter” by Thomas Tallis, and Byrd’s “Ye Sacred Muses” and “Tribulationes civitatum.” Peter Phillips, who founded the ensemble in 1973, directed the concert with a minimum of gestures, encouraging the singers with a wiggle of his head and slight movement of his hands. The results were absolutely gorgeous. I don’t know when the Tallis Scholars will be in town next time but you have to hear them. They are phenomenal.

The Tallis Scholars, one of the world’s best vocal ensembles in Renaissance music, will present a concert at St. Mary’s Cathedral, and it’s almost sold out. That’s the word from Linda Magee, executive director of Chamber Music Northwest, which is sponsoring this concert as part of its Encore Series. The Tallis Scholars program will include the following works:

• “Missa de Beata Virgine” by Josquin des Prez

• “Magnificat” by John Nesbett

• “The Tunes for Archbishop Parker’s Psalter” by Thomas Tallis

• “Ye sacred muses,” “Tribulationes civitatum,” and “Vigilate” by William Byrd

The concert takes place at St. Mary’s Cathedral (NW Davis St. in Portland) this Monday evening (December 7) at 8 pm.