Chamberfest 2023 II
Trio INK (from l to r): cellist Wolfram Koessel, pianist Vadim Serebryany and violist Yosuke Kawasaki. The Trio was founded in 2005.
+ July 28. Canadian composer Jocelyn Morlock (b. 1969) died last March, at the age of 53. (NACO attendees will remember her for My Name is Amanda Todd, 2016.) Trio INK paid tribute to her with Asylum, inspired by the life of Robert Schumann. Pianist Vadim Serebryany read a long excerpt by the late composer explaining the connection. I felt the piece portrayed mental life in an asylum very well indeed, with its disturbances, exuberances and silences, ending in serenity. We have lost a great composer too early.
Next, replacing the scheduled 1921 Piano Trio by Rebecca Clarke (1886-1979), the Trio played Light and Matter (2014) by Finnish composer Kaja Saarioho (b. 1952) who died last month, at age 70. In contrast to Morlock’s, this piece seemed less inspired.
Trio INK’s final offering was Piano Trio No. 3 in F minor, Op. 65 , by Antonin Dvorak (1841-1904), composed in 1871. The second movement had great drive, clearly based on a folk melody. The slow third movement was especially beautiful. Go here for a detailed analysis of this work.
All by all, this was one of the best chamber music offerings of the Festival, at a very high standard of performance.
Ironwood Quartet members Jessica Linnebach, violin; Emily Kruspe, violin; Carissa Klopoushak, viola; Rachel Mercer, cello. Their home base is NACO.
Wu Style Tai Chi Chuan Academy members Evonne Tan, Jonathan Krehm and Dave Robert in Murray Shafer’s String Quartet No. 6, in a November 2021 performance in Toronto
+ In 1993, Murray Schafer (1933-2021) composed his String Quartet No. 6, named 'Parting Wild Horse's Mane.' It came with detailed instructions for accompanying Tai Chi movements. In 2018 Jonathan Krehm, who is also a clarinetist (i.e., knows music), was asked to create Tai Chi movements for the piece. As he repeatedly emphasized in the chat following the July 29 concert, Schafer’s instructions “do not work” and in fact go against the principles of Tai Chi. The movements he did come up with were repeated for us in an offering by the Ironwood Quartet. Preceding it were three new works, by Evan Mitchell, Alexina Louie (b. 1949) and Kevin Lau (b. 1982). Along with each of the sections of music Krehm, Evonne Tan and Dave Robert performed Tai Chi Chuan gestures, single, in pairs or all three — with a long spear, swords, or no accoutrements at all, just the fluid movements of the body and, especially, the hands. As explained during the chat, the composers were given four videos of Tai Chi movements and then left to their own devices. The results were stunningly beautiful and accorded with the music in almost mysterious ways. To me, the sections without spear or swords were the most impressive. (Most of this program — except Louie’s — can be seen on YouTube here in an earlier performance with two of the Quartet’s members different from whom we saw in Ottawa now.)(*)
Lafayette Quartet members Ann Elliott-Goldschmid and Sharon Stanis, violins, Joanna Hood, viola, and Pamela Highbaugh Aloni, cello
+ After 37 years together, with no change in personnel (two remarkable feats!), the Lafayette String Quartet is on its final tour of concerts. They delighted the Chamberfest audience on July 30 with Haydn’s String Quartet Op. 20 No. 2, performed at a somewhat leisurly pace, and, along with James Campbell, with Brahms’ Clarinet Quintet, Op. 115. In between, we heard a 2022 commissioned piece by Kelly-Marie Murphy (b. 1964), For Fragile Personalities in Anxious Times.
SHHH!! Ensemble: Zac Pulak and Edana Higham
+ SHHH!! Ensemble, an Ottawa-based piano & percussion duo, presented a most unusual and delightful concert in the foyer of the National Arts Centre (July 31). Eight pieces were performed, many of them written for SHHH!! and including two world premieres. Noteworthy were two excepts from Retrouvailles (2013) by Georges Aperghis (b. 1945) which involved no instruments but the performers’ hands and voices, facing each other akin to Inuit throat singing. The final piece was Jocelyn Morlock’s Spirit Gradient (2021) which is on their 2022 album.
+ On August 1, in what was dubbed as a Salon Concert by Chamberfest Artists-in-Residence, pianist Philip Chiu played the first two movements of Alice Ping Yee Ho’s (b. 1960) Hong Kong Nostalgia; had he included the third movement as well, it would have qualified as a world premiere. Instead of it, he played Jardins sous la pluie by Claude Debussy (1862-1918), showing once again how much Debussy was a pre-modernist: This piece fit right in with Ho’s!
The Allegro from Schubert’s String Trio in B flat Op. 25 (the only completed movement) was followed by Brahms’ Piano Quartet No. 1 Op. 25, performed by Chiu with Emily Kruspe, Nadia Sirota and Brian Cheng. The final movement (“Rondo alla Zingarese”) was surely reminiscent of his Hungarian Dances!
Viano Quartet members (l to r) Lucy Wang, violin, Tate Zawadiuk, cello, Hao Zhou, violin, and Aiden Kane, viola. The Quartet was founded in 2015 and has not yet recorded.
+ Chamberfest kept the best till (almost) last: The Viano Quartet — winner of the 2019 Banff SQ competition. What amazing musicianship! First came Introduccion del Angel by Astor Piazzolla (1921-1992), in which violins and viola joined the cello on stage, walking in from the back; remarkably, the viola played the melody while a violin joined from below. Then came The Evergreen by Caroline Shaw (b. 1982), inspired by a walk in the woods; the second movement showed Scelsi’s influence, as it was based largely on one note; the fourth movement displayed a beautiful cello lead. Third came String Quartet No. 5, The Train to Improbable Places (2023) by Kevin Lau (b. 1982), indeed replete with train references; it pushed the players to the limit of virtuosity and speed.
After intermission followed String Quartet No. 1 (From My Life) by Bedrich Smetana (1824-1884). The first movement began with a beautiful viola lead (again!) I was especially touched by the third movement, a Largo.
***
All by all, I attended 20 Chamberfest events. Of these, I would rate six as truly excellent, while another six were closer to duds (all but one not annotated here). In comparison, five of the 27 events I attended at Music & Beyond were top class, with ten not written up in this diary because they did not move me much. Both festivals were absolutely worth the price of admission!
Programming of this year’s Chamberfest was remarkably more innovative than it had been in previous years. I especially appreciated hearing, in almost every concert I attended, both contemporary and traditional pieces. It stems one hopeful for the future of chamber music!
(*) Recorded at the Arts & Letters Club of Toronto on November 1, 2021. Mitchell’s piece runs from 2:11 to 3:33. Kevin Lau’s String Quartet No. 4 starts at 3:36, with the second movement starting at 9:16, the third at 10:58 and the fourth at 16:12, ending at 19:05. Shafer’s SQ starts at 19:07 and runs to the end, at 38:49. Let’s hope we can relive Louie’s excellent piece soon as well! Its three movements involved two sword, no tools, and Krehm and Tan shadowfighting with swords respectively. Again, I was particularly impressed by “White Tiger Gazes at Moon,” the second movement.