SOLI: On the road with Adams, serious fun from Carter
May 15, 2008A scant two dozen listeners were present for the SOLI Chamber Ensemble's superb assortment of 20th-century music May 13 in Ruth Taylor Recital Hall at Trinity University. The menu included works by John Adams, George Crumb, Elliott Carter and Paul Hindemith.
That sort of adventurous fare doesn't pack 'em in under the best of circumstances, but scheduling posed an additional burden. Although SOLI's Ruth Taylor concerts usually draw a good number of Trinity students, this was the night after final exams. I prefer not to speculate on the effect of the evening's competing artistic extravaganza, the season finale of "American Idol."
One of the blessed two dozen who showed up was SOLI director-clarinetist Stephanie Key's mother, but she counts anyway. Another, unrelated to any of the performers, probably should be counted twice, even though he couldn't stay for the whole evening: He'd been to the previous night's concert with the same program at Gallery Nord, and he'd been so stirred by the opening piece, Adams's "Road Movies" (1995) for violin and piano, that he had to hear it again.
The piece and the performance, by violinist Ertan Torgul and pianist Carolyn True, deserved the enthusiasm. The violin part weaves jazz, blues and swing riffs into Adams's characteristic patterns of rhythmically complex repetition and variation. Torgul, the San Antonio Symphony's concertmaster, delivered it all with big, rich tone, go-all-the-way phrasing and a fine feeling for style. In the smokin' finale, he seemed to be channeling the great Texas-swing fiddler Johnny Gimble. The piano plays a supporting role -- less free-wheeling, but very challenging nonetheless, and splendidly played by True.
George Crumb's Cello Sonata of 1955 predates the composer's mature voice and its shimmering, often austere beauty. The piece could be considered generically mainstream-modern, with some hard-to-identify folk-music echoes in the slow middle movement, but it is remarkably strong nonetheless -- or was in David Mollenauer's intense, deeply felt and gorgeously played performance. It was evident that he loved this piece, and made his listeners love it, too.
True was on her own in Carter's Two Diversions of 1999. The first is a particularly striking example of Carter's propensity to layer contrasting tempi, rhythms and affects -- in this case, a calm, gently flowing line against a spiky, nervously changeable one. As with just about every other Carter piece, the music is serious fun -- intellectually and technically challenging, but suffused with wit and delight. Carter was past 90 when he wrote it, and most composers half or a quarter his age would sell their souls to write anything as fresh, vigorous and youthful. True played it with full technical command and in the right spirit.
The finale was Hindemith's Quartet for violin, clarinet, cello and piano. It was composed in 1938, by which time Hindemith had fully worked out his signature harmonic system, which is tonal but ... well, not quite. For all the modern freshness of his harmonies and evasiveness of his melodies, this excellent performance brought out a Brahmsian character in the flow and counterpoint.
Mike
Greenberg
