The Washington Post Two Cellists, Two Ways To Do the Bach Suites There is nowhere to hide -- for the 20-odd minutes it takes to go through a suite, one artist plays one instrument that has, for the most part, only one melodic line at any time. The concentration required is enormous. Finger slips are seismic disturbances; memory lapses are tantamount to sacrilege. Although he surely knows these works by heart -- the suites are the holy grail for cellists -- Brey opted to follow a score, while Teie played from memory. Without descending into some sort of "Dueling Cellos" game of "who was better," I do believe that the decision had some bearing on the performances: Teie's playing seemed freer, more spontaneous, more songful and, at times, somewhat less polished. There were moments, especially in the Sixth Suite, when I regretted the absence of the safety net a score can provide. Brey was assured, Apollonian, immaculate and perhaps a little cool. Listening to Brey, I marveled at Bach's spiritual elevation and mastery of form; listening to Teie, I smiled at Bach's good tunes. Neither approach is necessarily right or wrong; it is to the composer's eternal glory that he can come to life in so many different ways. The program, which was dedicated to the memory of Maryann S. Toedtman, was produced by Dumbarton Concerts, which offers a series of unusual distinction at the church throughout the year. It was a good place to have been in
The Washington Post Nordic Voices The Dumbarton Concert Series must hold a record for sponsoring remarkable vocal and instrumental ensembles season after season. One can generally expect stellar performances -- by established artists or those early in their careers -- that fit easily into the resonant acoustics and small dimensions of Georgetown's Dumbarton Church. Formed in Oslo seven years ago, the vocal sextet Nordic Voices (three sopranos plus tenor, baritone and bass) took the stage Saturday for a seemingly typical assortment of sacred choral music jetting through the centuries from the Dark Ages to today. But run-of-the-mill the concert wasn't. Opening with the only known Norwegian version of Gregorian chant and ending with a 20th-century motet of Messiaen, the group charged the evening with entirely unaccompanied singing no less than extraordinary -- even far beyond the basic yardstick measurements. Intonation? Impeccable. Ensemble? Unfailing precision in phrasing, dynamics, color -- everything finely tuned for a succession of works ever-changing in style and expressive meaning. Latin settings predominated -- the chant "Predicasti," motets by Victoria, Palestrina and Gisle Kverndokk. English came in a fiery evocation by Purcell, three Reger miniatures added German, and Norwegian arrived in two folksong arrangements of Bjarne Slogedal. Whatever language, it was the group's astounding range of sonic vocabulary -- vowels bent, stretched, opened, muted, vibrated, thinned this way and that, distinguishing the character of every work -- that thrilled the senses and sent an emotional message no listener could miss. The only minuses were a lack of information on composers Slogedal and Kverndokk, presumably the singers' countrymen, and too few settings in Norwegian for American audiences given little or no opportunity to hear Scandinavian languages. |