Portland Press Herald
Thursday, August 26, 2004
Concert Review of Tuesday, August 24, 2004

Chamberfest does what it does best

Salt Bay packs them in at Round Top with a characteristically uncompromising program

After its founding 11 years ago by cellist Wilhelmina Smith, the Salt Bay Chamberfest is beginning to attract the audience it deserves. The opening concert Tuesday night at Round Top Center for the Arts was filled to the back of the hall despite one of Salt Bay’s characteristically uncompromising programs (or perhaps because of it.)

The pre-concert lecture was delivered by Bruce Adolphe, composer of the first work on the program, “Oh Gesualdo, Divine Tormentor,” played by the Brentano String Quartet. The work consists of transcriptions of five madrigals by Carlo Gesualdo, Prince of Verona (1560–1613), best known for having his wife and her lover killed in 1590. Contrary to the program notes, he didn’t do the job himself. He married Leonore d’Este, his second wife, four years later. Gesualdo’s style, with its extreme contrasts and use of dissonance, already sounds “modern,” even if Adolphe did not deliberately intensify the effects.

Adolphe’s “More of Less” section, an awful pun on the last madrigal, “Moro Lasso” has great fun dissolving the theme like one of Dali’s soft watches, and his final pastiche of the best bits from several compositions, “Momenti,” is more entertaining, if less soulful, than the songs themselves.

The Gesualdo remembrance was followed by the Quartet for Violin, Viola, Cello and Piano by Rockland’s own Walter Piston (1894–1976), played by Serena Canin, violin, Hsin-Yun Huang, viola, Wilhelmina Smith, cello, and Thomas Sauer, piano. “Uncompromising” is the only word to describe this work, refined to its essence, and using a contemporary idiom to convey the deepest of emotions.

After a magnificent opening movement, the sadness of its adagio, written shortly after World War II, is almost unbearable. It is countered by a sprightly third section that is a miracle of concision, including a marvelous 30 second waltz that Mahler could have turned into a symphony.

Also in accordance with its standard procedure, the Chamberfest included a crowd pleaser in the program – Schumann’s Quintet in E-Flat Major, Opus 44, played enthusiastically by Sauer and the Brentano Quartet.

Almost contemporary with the more famous Concerto in A Minor, the ground breaking quintet has the same feel, verve and inexhaustible invention. Its third movement, a scherzo, indulges in a little note-spinning for the benefit of the pianist, (maybe Clara?) with the strings merely accentuating its climaxes, but after a huge cadenza that seems meant to end the work on a virtuoso note, it gets back on track with an astonishing allegro. The quintet’s sparkling rendition of the final fugue brought a well-deserved standing ovation.

The next concert, at 8 p.m. Friday, will feature Schoenberg, George Crumb and Franz Schubert. Attendees can even buy a two-CD set of highlights from the last decade.

Christopher Hyde’s Classical Beat Column appears in the Maine Sunday Telegram.