The Washington Post
Monday, April 12, 2010;
by Joe Banno
Saturday's recital by the Miro Quartet at Dumbarton Church started off with a jolt of electricity. Beethoven's early C-Minor String Quartet, Op. 18, No. 4, certainly provides opportunities for drama. But the Miro players paid particular attention to the work's dark undercurrents, digging into its jabbing accents with a thrilling fervor and taking a full-blooded, freely rhapsodic approach to the score's more restrained passages.
Those same qualities resurfaced after intermission, in white-hot traversals of movements from Mendelssohn and Schubert string quartets. Those two movements were actually part of an "a la carte menu" ballot that audience members were asked to vote on to create the second half of the program. Needless to say, traditional composers trumped the likes of Charles Ives and a newly commissioned work by Kevin Puts in the voters' eyes. But the schmaltzy arrangement of Kern's "Smoke Gets in Your Eyes" was a guilty pleasure for "dessert."
The world premiere of Quartet No. 4, by 21-year-old Indiana University biochemistry student Tudor Dominik Maican -- a composing prodigy from the age of 5, with six symphonies and a raft of commissions under his belt -- was passionately performed by the Miro. Its patchwork of received ideas (think Tchaikovsky in sentimental mode, crossed with the overheated chromaticism of Schoenberg's "Verklarte Nacht") was hardly fresh-sounding. But the writing was unfailingly attractive, with well-turned melodic material and an engaging, all-pizzicato middle movement that would serve any quartet well as an encore piece.
-- Joe Banno
The Washington Post
Monday, April 7, 2008; Page C12
by Robert Battey
Vogler String Quartet
The announcement preceding the Vogler String Quartet's concert Saturday evening was a curious one: Two of the works on the program had been rehearsed only once, the previous evening. Dumbarton Concerts went into crisis mode last week to find a replacement for the Vogler's guest cellist, with whom the quartet had prepared a pair of two-cello works, the Arensky Quartet in A Minor and the sublime Schubert Quintet in C. They located Inbal Segev in New York and she was free to meet and rehearse with the quartet Friday evening, preceding an all-day travel ordeal to get here. Not knowing any of this, I would have described this as one of the best chamber music concerts I've heard all season. Under these circumstances, I'd have to proclaim it a near-miracle.
Formed in 1985 in Germany , the Vogler Quartet still plays with youthful elan, now tempered with deep experience and musical honesty. The players' interpretations bore in on the essential musical truths rather than passing allures. Most impressive is their intonation, which in the Haydn Op. 64 No. 6, and in the slower sections of the Schubert was well nigh perfect. The instruments sang in resonant concord in a way one seldom hears in a live concert.
The two violinists were rather sparing with vibrato, and the contrast with the more soloistic Segev was jarring at times. But those who missed this concert missed an evening of very special musicmaking.
The Washington Post
Monday, March 17, 2008; Page C05
by Stephen Brookes
Amelia Piano Trio
The musical boundaries between East and West have been bashed away at for so long it's hard to tell where they are anymore. From the orientalisme of early-20th-century France to the postmodern work of composers like Tan Dun and Zhou Long, the border has long been a breeding ground for new ideas, and on Saturday evening the gifted young Amelia Piano Trio (as part of the Dumbarton Concerts series in Georgetown) presented a program called "East Meets West" that explored this music with passion and a playful sense of adventure.
Long thought to be lost, Debussy's early Piano Trio in G was recently reconstructed from fragments, and has emerged as an engaging if frustrating work. Beautifully played by the Amelia, it showed traces of Asia here and there, but never really approached the near-perfect orientalism of later works like "Pagodes."
The next work was more of a stretch. Mozart was all of 8 years old when he wrote his Sonata in F, K. 7, and it won't ever rank as one of mankind's most glorious achievements -- even when arranged for violin, cello and the two-stringed Chinese violin called the erhu. Wang Guowei turned in a flavorful account of this odd little curiosity. A more organic blending took place in the world premiere of "Scenes Through a Window" by the Chinese American composer Lu Pei. Written for piano trio, erhu and the traditional lute called the pipa, it's an extremely smart, colorful and kinetic piece that builds on traditional Chinese music without ever descending into sentimentality. Utterly graceful playing on the pipa by Yihan Chen made it even more delectable.
The evening closed with a sweeping reading of Maurice Ravel's Piano Trio in A Minor, an early transcultural masterpiece which draws on a popular Basque folk dance, Malaysian verse forms and styles from the baroque. The Amelia brought it off with exceptional clarity and elegance.
The Washington Post
Monday, February 25, 2008; Page C05
by Joan Reinthaler
The recorder, violin, cello and harpsichord quartet, a purveyor of reconstructed (or perhaps deconstructed) baroque music, has put together a program called "Pirates of the Baroque," mostly its own arrangements (and spoofs) of music by such revered names as Bach, Telemann, Tartini, Corelli and Vivaldi (the original "Red Priest"). This the quartet romped through dressed in pirate-like garb and with heavy reliance on a small repertoire of sight gags.
The musicians' technical virtuosity is impressive. Ensemble leader Piers Adams can play faster and with cleaner articulation than any recorder artist I've ever heard. Violinist David Greenberg plays with splendid agility. Cellist Angela East, who spent most of the evening unenviably assigned to cellistic snarling, showed her true colors in a relatively straightforward and lyrical account of the Prelude from Bach's First Cello Suite. And harpsichordist Howard Beach roared around the keyboard in a manner that, to baroque ears, would have sounded thunderous .
The Washington Post
Monday, February 4, 2008; Page C05
by Ronni Reich
Nordic Voices
If an audience member had asked the singers of Nordic Voices to tie their vocal cords in knots or chant in perfect accord while drinking glasses of water, they might have done it. At their Dumbarton Concerts performance Saturday night at Dumbarton United Methodist Church, no feat seemed impossible.
Just in from Oslo, the ensemble presented a combination of Renaissance and contemporary works on sacred texts, notably three settings of "O magnum mysterium." In the most exciting of these, written in 2006 by the Norwegian composer Henrik Odegaard, the group's three women and three men stretched voice and mind to their limits. They explored quarter tones and overtones, let out fierce, tribal-sounding calls, hummed, and saturated the room in glorious, full-voiced sound. At times, they sounded like an engine revving up; at others, like an angelic choir. They transitioned seamlessly from one style to another, and intonation was flawless. Their entrances and cutoffs were perfectly timed, as though a current of air were being switched on and off.
Though fascinating, such pyrotechnics were not the group's sole offering. Throughout the Renaissance works, the singers' tone was pure and rich, like an organ. Counterpoint and expression sounded clear and natural; as solo lines came to the surface and mingled, singers appeared to be lost in their own worlds, with unison endings emerging miraculously.
Such mesmerizing talent is rare. With so many musical offerings at the larger venues in Washington, it is easy to lose sight of how vast the music world is, and how much one may be missing. As Nordic Voices proves, looking past the Kennedy Center can be well worth the effort.
The Washington Post
Monday, December 16, 2007; Page C05
by Stephen Brookes
Christmas wouldn't be Christmas without the music, and only Grinches and music critics complain about the nonstop diet of carols and Handel's "Messiah" that dominates the season. But it's always welcome when musicians stray off the beaten Yuletide path a bit and explore some of the vast (and little-heard) repertoire of holiday music from unusual places.
That's what the Linn Barnes & Allison Hampton Celtic Consort have been doing this week with their annual "Celtic Christmas" program at Dumbarton United Methodist Church in Georgetown. Accompanied by flutist Joseph Cunliffe and percussionist Steve Bloom, Barnes and Hampton presented a lyrical, easy-on-the-ears program on Thursday night, featuring traditional songs from Ireland, France, Spain and England, familiar carols such as "Silent Night," and a few original pieces by Barnes himself.
And despite the vast array of exotic, unusual instruments -- from lutes and uilleann pipes to tambours and bodhrans -- this was no stiff, academic "early music" reconstruction. The consort plays as naturally as if the music were written just yesterday, and the lilting melodies and delicate, flavorful timbres went down as smoothly as a mug of hot cider, perfect music for a cold December night.
Robert Aubry Davis added much to the evening with evocative readings from John Betjeman's "Christmas" and Dylan Thomas's beloved "A Child's Christmas in Wales." Accompanied by Barnes (who played lutes and guitars) and Hampton (on the Celtic harp), Davis brought the poetry beautifully alive with poignancy and genuine feeling.
The program -- enjoyable for both children and adults -- will be repeated today at 4 and 8 p.m., at the church (3133 Dumbarton St. NW, in Georgetown).
The Washington Post
Monday, October 15, 2007; Page C05
by Joan Reinthaler
Cypress String Quartet
When a concert is interesting, sometimes it's the performance that grabs your attention. But sometimes it's the music that is revealed by the performance.
The Cypress String Quartet, in residence at San Jose State University, opened the 30th season of concerts at Dumbarton Concerts in Georgetown on Saturday with two 20th-century American pieces, Griffes's Two Sketches for String Quartet and Barber's String Quartet, that don't get performed all that often.
Textures were beautifully balanced (particularly evident in the glowing Barber second-movement Molto Adagio, which is high on many people's all-time-favorites list); sonorities were clean and rich. The ensemble, while not rigid, was comfortable.
But it was Dvorak's "American" String Quartet in F Minor, Op. 96, an old repertoire regular, that made the evening special. Tempos were chosen to bring out a more personal reading than most -- a slow tempo for the first movement's second theme that provided some leisurely space for reflection, and a hair-raising vivace for the finale.
There were opportunities for gorgeous cello and viola solos and, throughout, the music emerged as a conversation rather than a convention. Dvorak has rarely sounded so good.
Past Commentary on the Dumbarton experience:
"When the program is part of the Dumbarton Concert Series...the music is always excellent. "
Joseph McLellan, The Washington Post
"The atmosphere is intimate and friendly with the glow of candlelight, and a sense of warmth"
Joseph McLellan, The Washington Post
"The [Celtic Christmas] concert was a tender one, suggesting a wintry evening spent nestled in a living-room chair with a hot beverage in hand"
Bob Waters, The Washington Post |
