Jupiter Symphony Players Perform Viotti, Liszt, Rubinstein, Enescu and Alkan

At yesterday's matinee at Good Shepherd Church, the Jupiter Symphony Players performed works by several composers - Viotti, Liszt, Rubinstein, Enescu and Alkan - who were counted among the most famous virtuosi of their time.

The program opened with Giovanni Battista Viotti's Flute Quartet in C minor, Op. 22, No. 2 (1803).  In his own day, Viotti was one of the best known violinists in Europe.  He also lived an adventurous life that included flight from the French Revolution, banishment from England and the establishment of wine business.  Along the way, he helped found the Royal Philharmonic Society in London and briefly served as director of the Paris Opera.  The one thing Viotti was not, however, was a flautist.  To the extent his music is remembered at all, it is for his violin concertos.  One source puts it thus:

"The 29 violin concertos remain Viotti's most significant contribution as a composer, and it is in these works that his true compositional prowess is revealed (the many chamber works and vocal arias being, by comparison, relatively uninspired)."

I found the present flute quartet pleasant but little more than that.  It seemed the sort of music one sometimes hears playing in the background as one eats dinner at an expensive restaurant.

Next was Franz Liszt's Concert Paraphrase on Verdi's Ernani (1847-1849).  Liszt is almost as well known for his piano transcriptions as for his original works, and while working in this genre strongly favored paraphrases of popular operas.  Next to Wagner, Verdi was the operatic composer whom Liszt most often chose to transcribe; his Paraphrase on Ernani represented his earliest attempt to capture the spirit of Verdi's music.

This was followed by Anton Rubinstein's String Quartet No. 2 in C minor, Op. 17 (1852).  The composer, elder brother of Nikolai, is best remembered today as the founder of the St. Petersburg Conservatory where he instructed Tchaikovsky in composition.  He was also a remarkable pianist who exerted a strong influence on, among others, Rachmaninoff.  But Rubinstein was also a prolific composer and over the course of his career wrote more than twenty operas as well as a large number of chamber works.  Although the present quartet clearly shows the influence of Mendelssohn, it also has a distinctly Russian flavor.  I was surprised at what an accomplished piece it proved to be.

After intermission, the program continued with George Enescu's Konzertstück for Viola and Piano (1906).  A child prodigy, Enescu is today considered one of the most important of twentieth century composers, but he was also famed for his skill as a violinist.  At the invitation of Gabriel Fauré, Enescu took part in several competitions held at the Paris Conservatoire in the early 1900's and the Konzertstück was one of the pieces he composed for these events.  A hybrid of Romanian folk traditions and West European musical styles, the work gives equal weight to both the piano and viola parts.  Cynthia Phelps joined with pianist Antonio Pompa-Baldi to render a truly amazing performance of this work.

The program concluded with Charles-Valentin Alkan's Piano Trio in G minor, Op. 30 (1841).  Alkan was yet another child prodigy.  A brilliant pianist, he was located in Paris where he participated in recitals with both Liszt and Chopin before becoming a recluse in 1848 after having been denied the chair of the Paris Conservatoire piano department.  The period preceding this debacle, during which the present trio was written, represents the high point in Alkan's career as a composer.  His biographer William Eddie writes of this work:

"this trio for piano, violin and violoncello in G minor op 30 is the most severely classical of all Alkan's chamber works.  It is influenced by the classical periodic phrase construction of Haydn yet as an early romantic work it nevertheless deserves to take its place in the repertoire alongside the more familiar trios of Mendelssohn which have similarly brilliant piano parts."

Alkan's music was unique and totally unlike that of any other composer I've heard.  It was also technically very demanding, especially in the piano part.