Weill: ACJW Ensemble Performs Dvorak

The recital given Monday evening at Weill Recital Hall by the ACJW Ensemble must stand as one of the shortest on record at any major venue.  It was a very brief affair that contained only about  50 minutes of music; it consisted of only one full length piece and that only a half hour long.  One could joke that it took longer to read the program than it did to listen to it.

Luckily, the full length piece was one of the most rewarding in the chamber music repertoire.  If Antonin Dvorak is known today primarily for his symphonies, it is in his chamber music that his greatest achievement lies.  The String Quintet in G, Op. 77 (1875) is a masterpiece for string instruments written early in his career and well worth hearing whenever the opportunity presents itself.  The poco andante overwhelms the listener with its rich romanticism.  The program notes by Clara Lyon rightly remark on the movement's "sustained lyricism... reminiscent of a long forgotten lullaby."  This performance also restored the work's original second movement, the intermezzo nocturno, which Dvorak had cut while making revisions in 1888 and later published as the Nocturne in B, Op. 40.

The other two pieces on the program, not counting three minutes of fanfare, were each about ten minutes long.  When introducing the Four Madrigals (1603) by Claudio Monteverdi, the trumpet player Thomas Bergeron referred to them as "four of the most beautiful love songs ever written."  It probably never occurred to him that they would have sounded much more romantic if played on the instruments for which they had originally been written rather than in an arrangement for a brass quintet that included a trombone and a tuba.  The remaining piece, entitled Speaking Tree, was composed by Andy Akiho and commissioned by the ACJW.  Though written for a large ensemble - including a string quartet, a brass quintet and a bass - it was most notable for the percussive sound effects created through the use of a toy piano, a xylophone and a leafy branch dragged across the face of a drum.  Ian Sullivan was especially adept in handling the percussion.  The composer himself spoke briefly onstage and appeared a genuinely affable and down to earth person.