Tuesday, December 16, 2014

Jupiter Symphony Players Perform Schubert, Kancheli, Pärt and Kahn

For a change, yesterday afternoon's matinee performance by the Jupiter Symphony Players at Good Shepherd Church featured a pair of works by two living composers, Giya Kancheli and Arvo Pärt, in addition to compositions by Schubert and the now almost forgotten Robert Kahn.   

The piece that opened the program, Schubert's String Trio in B-flat major, D. 581 (1817), was written when the composer was only 20 years old and still employed as a schoolteacher.  It followed another attempt at a trio, the D. 471 also in B-flat major, written two years before.  As one would expect of such an early work, the D. 581 is primarily of historical interest.  There is little here of the genius Schubert would later display in his more mature style though there are scattered throughout occasional hints of what was to follow.  Still, the sound is unmistakably Schubert's no matter in how rudimentary a form and is worth hearing for that reason alone.  What's most curious is that the composer never again worked in the string trio genre after completing these two youthful works.  Perhaps he decided that the form did not offer as many possibilities for the expression of his ideas as did the string quartet.  

The Schubert was followed by Kancheli's euphoniously entitled Ninna Nanna Per Anna ("Lullaby for Anna") written in 2008 as the result of an East/West cultural exchange involving at this end the National Flute Association. which commissioned the present work, and the Seattle Chamber Players.  The co-founder of the latter group, flautist Peter Taub, had traveled extensively through Eastern Europe twenty years ago in search of "something in the repertoire that nobody else was playing."  During his journey, Taub was introduced to a number of Soviet composers whose music was then practically unknown to Western audiences.  It was among these artists that he first met Kancheli, a native of Georgia.  Taub later described the composer as "intense and brooding and serious."  He also unexpectedly noted of the man "He [Kancheli] hated one aspect of being in the United States, which was smoking restrictions... It seemed to be a really major problem for him."   As for the music itself, Taub aptly described Kancheli's work for flute and string quartet as "a lullaby that I think has some nightmarish moments."  For the most part, the work proceeds softly as if in accompaniment to a pleasant dream.  This gentle narrative is, however, at times abruptly interrupted by loud dissonant passages that appear to suggest the dreamer's sleep may have been a troubled one and not nearly as idyllic as it first seemed.

The next work was by Arvo Pärt, a long time associate of Kanchali and, according to The Bachtrack Stats, 2013's most often performed contemporary composer.  Listening to this 1978 piece originally written for piano and violin (for which a viola was substituted at this performance), one can easily understand why this should be the case.  This minimalist work serves perfectly as a showcase for Pärt's tintinnabular style whose slow meditative pace, derived from the composer's fascination with liturgical chants, here exerts an almost hypnotic power over the listener.  The title Spiegel im Spiegel ("Mirrors in a Mirror") refers to the infinity of reflections that can be seen when two mirrors are placed on a parallel plane.  

The final work on the program was by Robert Kahn, another of those unfortunate victims of Nazi persecution.   In 1934 he was forced to resign as a member of the Prussian Academy of Arts because of his Jewish ancestry.  His music was subsequently banned in Germany, and in 1938 he was forced to flee to England where he lived relatively unknown until his death in 1951.  There are other causes, though, for Kahn's present obscurity beyond the harassment he received late in his life.  Although a contemporary of Richard Strauss, Kahn deliberately turned his back on modernism in all its forms while still a young man and, in  joining the circle gathered around Brahms, instead enthusiastically embraced the romantic tradition.  There is, in fact, a famous story detailing Brahms's offer to give the young Kahn lessons in composition; the young student was simply too overawed by the master's reputation to accept.  It's not surprising then that Kahn's greatest success came at the end of the nineteenth century before the innovations that were to change the course of twentieth century music had been fully accepted.  It is from this early period that the 1899 Piano Quartet No. 2 in A minor, Op. 30 dates, and the influence of Brahms can clearly be heard throughout its four movements.

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