On Sunday afternoon, I went to hear the Omega Ensemble in a free chamber recital at Christ & St. Stephen's Church on West 69th Street. On this occasion, the music first visited the Classical period with a rendition of a Beethoven sonata before moving on to twentieth century works by Stravinsky and Ravel.
Before the scheduled program began, there was a brief performance by a "Next Generation" musician, thirteen year old harpist Catherine Hanauer. It's to the Ensemble's credit that it encourages young musicians in their careers by providing them a forum at these recitals. The work played by Ms. Hanauer, and quite skillfully too, was the Fantaisie for Harp, Op. 95 (1893) by Camille Saint-Saëns.
The scheduled program then began with a performance of Beethoven's Violin Sonata in A Major, Op. 12, No. 2 (1797-1798) with violinist Alexi Kenney and pianist Jessica Osborn. It's worth noting that even though all ten works Beethoven composed in this genre are commonly referred to as violin sonatas, he himself termed them "for piano and violin," thus making it perfectly clear which instrument of the duo he considered of most importance. And in fact, these works can most easily be appreciated as piano sonatas with violin accompaniment. Of his first three works of this type, which collectively form the Op. 12 (dedicated, incidentally, to Antonio Salieri, at the time Vienna's most prominent composer), the No. 2 is the most lighthearted, and one can even discern within it a sense of tenderness. Though the composer is most often remembered today as a brooding and morose figure tortured to the point of suicide by his deafness, he could, at least in his early period when he was still seeking to establish his reputation in Vienna, be playful and charming. And that is precisely the mood of this piece. It may not be his greatest music, but it was certainly pleasant to hear.
The next work was Stravinsky's Suite italienne (1932-1933) featuring cellist Andrew Janss. This is actually one of two chamber arrangements (the other is for piano and violin) Stravinsky based on themes taken from his 1920 ballet Pulcinella which was itself an adaption of eighteenth century commedia del arte music at the time mistakenly attributed to Giovanni Pergolesi. Thus, ironically, we have the great champion of modernism, the composer of Le sacre du printemps, looking back and taking inspiration from antique musical forms. The result is that one hears Baroque music as filtered through a twentieth century sensibility. It's a fascinating combination and it's to Stravinsky's credit that he was able to fashion from it so engaging a work. In preparing the present arrangement, he collaborated with Gregor Piatigorsky whose mastery of the cello must have been of invaluable assistance.
After intermission, all three musicians returned onstage to perform Ravel's Piano Trio (1914). Although the work was written on the eve of World War I and immediately before Ravel enlisted in the French medical corps, there is no sense of impending doom in the trio. Instead, it concerns itself more with Basque folk music as the composer, who was himself of Basque descent on his mother's side, began work on it while also composing a piano concerto, later abandoned, also based on Basque themes. In the second movement, Ravel referenced a Malaysian form of poetry in which the second and fourth lines of a quatrain are repeated in the first and third lines of the following verse. In the third movement passacaglia, Ravel looked back to the musical forms of the Baroque period. For all its eclecticism, however, the work, written in the traditional four movement format, is thoroughly stamped with the composer's distinctive style.
The Omega Ensemble is an excellent musical group with top-notch musicians. Sunday's recital proved a very rewarding experience for its enthusiastic audience.
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