Juilliard ChamberFest: Schnittke, Shostakovich and Tchaikovsky

Yesterday evening was the first opportunity I had to hear a recital in the week long festival of chamber music at Paul Hall.  The series is always well produced and provides an excellent showcase for these students' enormous talents.  This particular performance provided an opportunity to revisit masterpieces of the Russian repertoire.

The program began with Serenade (1968) by Alfred Schnittke.  Written for an unusual combination of instruments - clarinet, violin, piano, bass and percussion - this is a fairly early chamber work by the composer and anticipates his 1971 essay on polystylism in its evocation of popular music, beginning with the clarinet's opening reference to Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue that is actually more of a parody than a quotation.  As in much of Schnittke's work, there is an underlying sense of anger as the music struggles ever more forcefully to make its intentions clear.  There is certainly nothing "laid back" here.  One senses a great deal of frustration and self-consciousness on the composer's part as he attempts to create new forms of musical expression that will set his work apart.  Perhaps he felt some foreboding of the crippling strokes that would eventually curtail both his career and his life.  I've always found it ironic that a composer who tried so hard to leave behind the work of his predecessors should end up buried in the same cemetery as Shostakovich.

It was somehow fitting then that the second piece on the program should be the Piano Trio No. 2 in E minor, Op. 67 (1944) by Shostakovich himself.  My admiration for the composer's chamber works has grown steadily over the years.  This is in no small part due to a series of magnificent performances of these works I've heard in the past few months.  In this regard, special mention should be given to pianist Anne-Marie McDermott's recent work with the Chamber Music Society.  Hers are as close to definitive interpretations of the composer's chamber work as one is likely to hear.  Yesterday evening marked another excellent rendition as three Juilliard students played the Trio No. 2, one of the composer's most most notable pieces.  Written toward the end of World War II, the work fully reflects the composer's revulsion to the horrors of war.  The quotation of Jewish musical themes in the final movement serves almost as a memorial to the Holocaust.  I felt the students managed to capture very well the sense of despair that permeates the piece and finally overwhelms the listener.  The performance was coached by Lara Lev whom I heard in solo recital earlier this season.  Her deep understanding of Soviet music is unsurpassed and no doubt had a great deal to do with the success of this rendition.

The great surprise of the evening was Souvenir de Florence, Op. 70 (1892) by Tchaikovsky.  I have to admit that this sting sextet has never been a great favorite of mine, perhaps because I'd never before attended a performance so outstanding as that which I heard yesterday evening.  That the musicians who played the piece are still students seems incredible to me.  This was bravura music making and the students well deserved the standing ovation they received at the work's conclusion.  Credit must also be given to the coaching of Samuel Rhodes, who stepped down only in 2013 as violist of the Juilliard String Quartet after a run of almost 45 years.