Omega Ensemble Performs Debussy, Shostakovich and Arensky

Yesterday afternoon's performance by the Omega Ensemble was a free chamber music recital at the Park Avenue Christian Church that featured music by Claude Debussy, Dmitri Shostakovich and Anton Arensky.  The talented performers, in order of appearance, were Euntaek Kim (piano), Siwoo Kim (violin), Brook Speltz (cello), Andrew Janss (cello) and Molly Carr (viola) who gamely played with a broken leg.  In addition, fourteen year old Gwyneth Campbell, performing as a "Next Generation Artist," played the prelude from Debussy's Pour le Piano to begin the proceedings.

This was the second time in the space of the week that I had the opportunity to hear Debussy's Violin Sonata.  I have already posted about having heard Miranda Cuckson, accompanied by Yegor Shevtsov, play the piece on Thursday evening at Mannes.  I found it very interesting to compare the two performances and in general thought the Omega musicians held their own very well against their more experienced counterparts.

The next piece on the program was Shostakovich's Cello Sonata in D minor which the composer had written in 1934 while experiencing official censure over his opera Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk.  As a result of this censure, Shostakovich was desperately seeking a new musical identity that would allow him to continue composing without interference from Soviet authorities.  The style of the sonata is accordingly more moderate than that of previous works.  In particular, the largo has a lyrical quality that contrasts strongly with the overwrought mood found in much of Shostakovich's other music, most especially in several of his symphonies.

The final piece was Arensky's String Quartet No. 2 in A minor.  The quartet was unusual in that it featured two cellos rather than two violins, thus giving the music a deeper and more sonorous tone.  The slow second movement, Variations on a Theme by Tchaikovsky, was one of Arensky's most popular works and was later adapted by the composer into an arrangement for string orchestra.  It was originally conceived as a tribute to the recently deceased Tchaikovsky and contains wonderfully melodic passages derived from one of that composer's Songs for Children, Op. 54.