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Central, South, and North Americas
Too rarely heard music
Saturday, October 1, 2005
By Paul M. SomersNew Brunswick Chamber Orchestra, Mark Trautman (conductor) with NBCO String Quartet: Kevin Tsai, Michael Szeles (violins), Hui-Fang Hsu (viola), Ole Eirik Ree (cello). Chávez: Sarabanda para cuerdas from La hija de Colquide; Villa-Lobos: String Quartet no. 3; Copland: Appalachian Spring ("Ballet for Martha"). Kirkpatrick Chapel, Old Queens Campus, Rutgers, New Brunswick.
Conductor Mark Trautman clearly does not feel that certain concert conventions must be maintained. He was, for instance, quite willing to step off the podium, giving way to a string quartet; and he asked the listeners to go without an intermission (the whole concert was shorter than Act I of almost any Wagner opera) all in the interests of creating a fascinating theme concert. And this theme - music from Central America (Mexican Carlos Chávez), South America (Heitor Villa-Lobos) and North America (Aaron Copland) - is only the beginning of a larger plan to present the music of our nation's diversity as reflected in classical music.
The work which grabbed most listeners and wouldn't let go was Villa-Lobos' String Quartet no. 3, first performed in 1917 when the composer was 30. Though all three composers knew each other, the Brazilian was by far the senior.
The Quartet no. 3 is unfamiliar to most North American audiences, quite probably because it is not European. None of the four instrumentalists had ever played it or even heard of it. Speaking before they began, first violinist Kevin Tsai said, "We had such fun learning this piece!"
Placed in the context of its time, it is in a language familiar to most listeners as that of early Bartók, though to call it derivative is to discount the musical ethos, the Zeitgeist in which both Villa Lobos and Bartók produced their music.
Most striking within the first movement was a passage in which all players produced *harmonics for quite awhile before returning to the flowing mood which prevailed. The second movement placed the quartet in the guise of a mad guitarist with *pizzicato surrounding longish bowed motives. At the conclusion there were out-loud chuckles from the audience and at least one "Whew!"
As if to show that pizzicato can be very different in meaning and even technique, the Adagio at one point used pizzicato harmonics. To allow the string to sound, the stopping left hand finger must be released the tiniest fraction of a second after the right hand plucks. The effect is that of wooden bells or cowbells, giving a pastoral feel to the already lush movement. All four players made the most of their solos in the Adagio.
The finale was a breakneck return to the first movement's language. At its conclusion there was a big pause while the audience caught its breath, then a woman across the Kirkpatrick aisle from me said "Wow!", and only then did the applause begin. The players bowed then sat down in the front row, waiting for the stage to be reset for Copland. But the applause continued unabated, indeed, if anything increasing. Young players all, they finally figured out that they should take another bow.
Just as little-known was Carlos Chavez' "Sarabanda para cuerdas" from his ballet La hija de Colquide. The string orchestra work is a pastorale which grows in harmonic and textural tension until we hear parallel lines spaced apart by that most dissonant interval of all, the *minor ninth. Unlike many other works which use an increase in tension, this one places that crucial point in the middle. The gradual return to a relaxed pastorale mood is not at all anticlimactic but logical, ending on a gratifying major triad. In this respect it proved to be a model of the full concert, which used the same plan writ large.
Mr. Trautman answered any questions about his ability to lead a strictly instrumental ensemble in this first work of the evening. His beat was clear and communicative. His pacing to and from the central climax was seamless and taut. The proof was in the players' eyes looking eagerly toward the podium and in the clean performance of the rarely heard music.
At the other extreme of familiarity was Aaron Copland's iconic Appalachian Spring. Even people who don't know it, actually know at least part of it from ads and other background uses. The flute, clarinet, bassoon, and piano added to the double quartet and bass added up to the chamber orchestra version. The wind playing was exemplary (except for a flute glitch which soon sorted itself out). The flute and clarinet actually sounded like birds through the use of slightly detached playing instead of the usual super-legato.
Trautman moved the piece along, allowing Adagios to be slow but never, never dragging them. The variations on "Simple Gifts" drove ahead, capturing the energy of not only the Shakers but of rural religion in general. The final transparent tones of the ballet were allowed to linger in the resonant air of Kirkpatrick Chapel for quite a while before Trautman relaxed and the applause began.