On Wednesday evening, the ACJW Ensemble gave the last of its four annual recitals at Paul Hall with a program that featured the works of Louis Spohr and Beethoven. It was a rather poignant moment as this was also the last musical event to be given at Juilliard until the beginning of next season.
The program opened with Spohr's Septet in A Minor, Op. 147 (1853) performed by Michael James Smith, piano, Beomjae Kim, flute, Stanislav Chernyshev, clarinet, Michael Zuber, bassoon, Jenny Ney, horn, Elizabeth Fayette, violin, and Caleb van der Swaagh, cello. As the high opus number would indicate, Spohr was a prolific composer in the Romantic tradition and during his lifetime an important musical figure in Europe. He was a conductor at Vienna's Theater an der Wein, music director of the Frankfurt Opera (where he staged his own version of the Faust legend), and a friend of Beethoven. Though largely forgotten after his death, his works are currently enjoying a revival of interest in Europe. This particular piece, written when the composer was already 69 years old, was unusual in his canon in its inclusion of a piano. Although Spohr had written a number of chamber works over the course of his career, the majority of these had either been for strings, including 36 string quartets, or for strings and winds, including a Nonet in F major and an Octet in E major. That is not to say, however, that the composer did not experience difficulty, at least in this piece, in melding such disparate parts into a seamlessly integrated whole. At any rate, the present work was pleasant enough to hear if not particularly distinguished.
After intermission, the recital concluded with Beethoven's Piano Trio in B-flat Major, Op. 97 (1811) nicknamed the "Archduke" for its dedication to the composer's patron, Archduke Rudolph. This was the last and finest of Beethoven's piano trios and is almost symphonic in its breadth. Beyond that, its first performances were notable for having been the last occasions on which the composer appeared in public as a pianist. It's difficult to imagine how painful it must have been for Beethoven, who had once been the foremost virtuoso in Vienna, to have realized that his ability at the keyboard was irretrievably lost. Louis Spohr, who was present at the premiere, somewhat unkindly described the state in which Beethoven's encroaching deafness had left him:
"On account of his deafness there was scarcely anything left of the virtuosity of the artist which had formerly been so greatly admired. In forte passages the poor deaf man pounded on the keys until the strings jangled, and in piano he played so softly that whole groups of notes were omitted, so that the music was unintelligible unless one could look into the pianoforte part. I was deeply saddened at so hard a fate."
Though written toward the end of the composer's middle period, the trio already looked ahead to the masterpieces of the late period. This is most evident in the elaborate set of variations that make up the slow third movement, an andante cantabile. It sometimes seems Beethoven's entire career was determined by his deafness. Just as his despair at the loss of his hearing had marked the beginning of his middle period, so its advancement to the point he could no longer play the piano propelled him forward into his late period in which he appeared to have thought more in terms of pure music than of composing for individual instruments.
I thought it was fitting that the regular season in which I attended so many wonderful performances should end with a rendition of a work by the Beethoven, arguably the greatest of all composers. The ACJW muisicans - Shir Semmel, piano; Kobi Malkin, violin; and Andrea Casarrubios, cello - were all outstanding in their interpretation of this masterpiece of the chamber repertoire. In particular, Shir Semmel, whom I had heard perform in March the piano part on the Shostakovich Trio No. 2 in E minor, stood out here in her mastery of the difficult keyboard part.
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