Concert Review—

A Valentine From Vienna, Courtesy Of Walden Chamber Players

By Wendy Wipprecht

Newtown Friends of Music opened the second half of its concert year by presenting the Walden Chamber Players at Edmond Town Hall on February 13. For many of us in New England, the holidays are over, our New Year’s resolutions have been broken or forgotten, snow has lost all its charm, cabin fever is setting in, and spring is weeks, maybe even months, away. What could improve the mood more than an afternoon of chamber music from early 19th Century Vienna, especially if the program features Schubert’s “Trout” Quintet, one of those musical pieces that seem to embody spring?

Walden Chamber Players is a Boston-based ensemble of 12 members, each of whom somehow manages to combine solo appearances, teaching commitments, concerts with other ensembles, and performances with other members of WCP. The full ensemble contains four violins and one each of viola, cello, bass, flute, oboe, clarinet, bassoon, and piano. Members can form smaller wind, string, or piano ensembles, and the ensemble’s repertoire ranges from Bach to Penderecki. Performing at the Newtown concert were Curtis Macomber, violin; Christof Huebner, viola; Ashima Scripp, cello; Donald Palma, double bass; and Jonathan Bass, piano.

The first half of the Sunday afternoon program comprised two early and less well known works by Schubert and Beethoven; the second half was given over to the popular aforementioned Schubert quintet.

Schubert’s Adagio and Rondo Concertante in F major, D.487 is a work that is difficult to categorize. It is written for violin, viola, cello and piano — that much is clear — but is it a work for piano and string trio, a piano quartet, or a piano concerto with a drastically reduced orchestra? Certainly the piano is intended to be dominant; the term concertante, beginning in the 18th Century, was applied to works for two or more performers, including orchestral works, in which one or more of the performers is called upon for soloistic display.

A piano quartet would have to be balanced, and the combination of piano, violin, viola and cello is not conducive to it. Schubert got around this problem by deciding that the piano would be dominant — the concertante instrument — and went on from there.

This short piece begins with a very brief Adagio that opens with two piano chords, and for the rest of that section the piano seems to be playing against the violin and viola. Even this section was sufficient to demonstrate the supple playing of all the instrumentalists.

But the Rondo, which is much longer than the Adagio, seems to be the heart of the piece; it follows the Adagio without a break, but its change of mood and tempo, and the very melodic writing, which we immediately recognize as Schubertian, is delightful. The Rondo belongs to the piano even more than the Adagio did. Even in this early work, written three years before the “Trout,” we can hear the quintet’s beautiful, rippling piano part.

Its dramatic end is also designed to highlight the pianist, and Jonathan Bass more than rose to the occasion. He produced both the seamless flow and the virtuosic intensity this little work requires. This listener, at least, eagerly looked forward to hearing him in the “Trout.”

As if to correct for the piano’s dominance, the Walden Chamber Players chose Beethoven’s Serenade in D, Op. 8, as the next item on the program. It is a string trio — scored for violin, viola and cello — one of the two trios that Beethoven called “serenades,” which at the time was almost a synonym for “divertimento.” His choice of title declares the work’s lightness; the Serenade was written in l796, quite early in Beethoven’s career, when he was still writing in classical forms. The complexity of scope, richer harmonic textures, and greater emotional intensity that we associate with the late string quartets or the piano sonatas were still to come.

Curtis Macomber, Christof Huebner, and Ashima Scripp played this piece with the balance of elegance and intensity that early Beethoven demands, instead of playing it as merely early (and hence dismissable) work.

For many in the audience, all this was prelude to the “Trout Quintet,” Schubert’s Quintet in A major for Piano and Strings, Op. post. 114, D. 667. A work as well-known and as beloved as this one must be a challenge to perform. Can one meet the audience’s expectations, especially since many listeners will have a favorite performance in mind? This is, of course, in addition to the work’s own complexities and demands.

The Walden Chamber players took the stage following intermission, this time joined by Donald Palma on the double bass. As they launched into the familiar Allegro Vivace, I realized that I had never really noticed the double bass before; it grounds the quintet, it gives the cello a more interesting part, and it nicely balances against the violin’s and piano’s upper registers.

This movement is driven forward by piano arpeggios and triplets in the strings. It’s a long movement, about 13 minutes in length, and almost a third of the quintet’s total length, but it just flew by during that mid-winter afternoon performance.

Schubert’s elegant balancing of the string and piano parts was matched by the Walden Chamber Players’ performance. Every player was excellent, although their ensemble playing defies separating out individuals. Like the “Trout” Quintet itself, Walden Chamber Players have a beautiful, ever changing, shimmering quality that eludes analysis and compels admiration.