The 2025 version of Summer” La Jolla Music Society’s ambitious and vast Summer Festival, takes interesting interdisciplinary opportunities:’ Tasting Notes’, an edible mashup of food and music (August 14); Jazz singer Cecile McLorin Savant’s synergies with baroque instruments (August 16); And tap and percussive dance melted with banjo and violin (August 17).
And on Wednesday evening Summerfest proved that it can take such risks and yet supplies its chamber music bread and butter with style.
The anchor of the evening at The Conrad What Brahms’ Cello Sonate in E Mineurperformed by the celebrated cellist Alisa Weilerstein and Summerfest Music Director Everywhere. Despite 230-plus recordings, including benchmarks by Rostropovich, Du Pré, Yo-Yo Ma and Casals, the interpretation of Weilerstein and Barnatan 2022 became the best, by industry, Gramophone Magazine, in a live “Frisson” in the industry, in the industry, in the industry, in the industry, in the industry, in the industry, in the industry, in the industry, in the industry, in the industry, in the industry, in the industry, in the industry.
All three were present in the performance of Wednesday but with the frisson of a live performance in the acoustically lively Baker-Baum Hall. Although Brahms treated the two instruments as equals, the lower register music of the cello is sometimes overwhelmed by the piano. Barnatan wisely took a more supporting tack in the first two movements, which resonates Weilerstein’s rich, earthy, painful tone. In the third part, Barnatan cut loose and he played with so much fire that he and Weilerstein surpassed their recording in intensity.
As teacher Michael Gerdes explained in the pre -concert, Barnatan’s “looking back, looking” theme for the three works from the evening to Brahms’ quote from Bach’s Art of the Fuga In the Cello Sonate: Koechlin’s modeling of the instrumentation of him Four -small parts on Brahms’ Horn trioAnd Glazunov is inspiration by Schubert’s Two-Cello String quintet in C major (Summerfest version will be on August 20) for his own quintet. Regarding “looking ahead”, none of these pieces is mainly groundbreaking, but they all deserved a lively hearing.
Like Koechlin’s Four -small parts It seemed the least musical, it is undoubtedly well manufactured, effective as a palette cleaner, and gave Stefan Dohr, the most important horn of the Berlin Philharmonic, the chance to arouse appetite for his performance by British from British of British Serenade for tenor, horn and strings. Even in the relatively undisputed horn part of Koechlin, Dohr showed his beauty of Toon and his versatility, especially in the almost trumpet-like Timbre that he reached in the last Scherzando.
Once praised as “One day is the leader of our nationalist composers”, the reputation of Alexander Glazunov (1865-1936) today one of the un-realized promise. Even Tchaikovsky encouraged him: “You have genius, but something prevents your width and depth.” (When Glazunov pressed for more information, Tchaikovsky replied: “A certain length and absence of pauses.”)
Although Glazunov was only 26 when he wrote it, his Quintet shows compositioning skills, melodic inspiration, rhythmic interest and an ear for contrasts in mood and color. Yet it needed that the energy and elite music seal Summerfest brought to impress.
The five musicians of the Quintet consisted of concertmasters, clients, Grammy nominees, winners of the career fair and/or festival artistic directors. Undoubtedly first under the same time, Tessa Lark, the animated and manoeuvrable first violin, who let the first and third movements sing. Powered by Elliott, with the Cello section with a higher register, and Li (the first violinist of the Chicago Symphony), the ‘Russian folk’ established fourth movement (Allegro Moderato) virtually fluctuated.
Placing the last half of Wednesday’s program in such convincing hands was the ultimate counter for those who prefer that neglected music remains unheard of.
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