ACJW Ensemble Performs Harbison, Ravel and Dvorak

This article was originally published on April 18, 2013

The best concerts are those which introduce the listener to an unfamiliar piece or, equally important, present a familiar w0rk in a new light that provides greater understanding of the composer's intentions.  The ACJW Ensemble's recital at Weill Recital Hall yesterday evening succeeded on both counts.

In the first half, the Ensemble began with John Harbison's Wind Quintet, a piece that explored what seemed every possible combination of the wind instruments available and had a lot of fun doing so.  All through the rendition, the listener sensed the composer's enthusiasm for combining the properties of each of the winds with one another to create new sounds and textures.  For this work, the Ensemble were joined by guest musician Martha Cargo, an exceptionally talented flautist.

The Harbison was followed by Ravel's Sonata for Violin and Cello performed by Michelle Ross and Alice Yoo.  This is an extremely spare piece whose references to earlier French classical music paradoxically causes it to sound much more "modern" than many of the composer's better known orchestral works.  Conceived as a tribute to Debussy, with whom he had shared an ambivalent friendship, this was Ravel's first major composition after having served in World War I.  As he himself noted:

"The music is stripped down to the bone.  The allure of harmony is rejected and increasingly there is a return to emphasis on melody."

In the second half, the Ensemble performed Dvorak's Piano Quintet in A, Op. 81.  As pianist Alexandria Le noted in her opening remarks, the string quintet was a fairly new innovation in nineteenth century music.  The earliest grouping was by Schumann in 1842 in his quintet in E flat, after which the form became something of a staple in the Romantic repertoire.  What's interesting in listening to such an arrangement is the manner in which a particular composer integrates the piano with the string quartet format.  In Dvorak's work, the piano is made the backbone of the piece and engages throughout in a full dialog with the strings.  Dvorak's lyrical study of Czech folk music here results in one of his most successful and enjoyable compositions.