Camerata San Antonio
Violinist Jiang returns, contributing
to a gutsy 'Ghost'
January 12, 2009Camerata San Antonio’s concert on Jan. 11 in Travis Park United Methodist Church brought a welcome return visit by violinist Quan Jiang. One of the local ensemble’s founding members and brightest lights in 2003, Jiang moved to Houston to play with that city’s symphony orchestra the following year.
Jiang’s assertive rhetoric, impeccable technique and sweet, substantial tone were ideally matched by cellist Kenneth Freudigman and pianist Melinda Lee Masur in the concert’s apex, Beethoven’s “Ghost” Trio. The fast outer movements were gushers of irrepressible music, played big and overflowing with extrovert charm, but always in control. The chilling slow movement was full of drama.
Jiang seemed a shade less sympathetic to the Russian Romanticism of Anton Arensky’s Piano Trio No. 1 in D Minor, but Masur led the way with stylish, flexible phrasing, a luxurious touch and a strong sense of direction. Her smooth execution of the finale’s quicksilver runs was especially agreeable. Freudigman, of course, was the very soul of Romanticism.
The concert opened with an oddity, Antonin Dvorak’s five Bagatelles for strings and harmonium (Vivienne Spy). A harmonium, for the benefit of younger readers who might never have encountered one, is a reed organ with a bellows that must be constantly attended to -- in this case, a pedal-operated bellows that made considerable noise. The instrument sounds a little like an anemic bagpipe, and even so fine a craftsman as Dvorak, who played the harmonium and wrote the part for himself, could not make it contribute much to the proceedings other than to muddy the texture. The string writing, however, is highly felicitous, and it was rendered with polish and precision by Jiang, violinist Chizu Kataoka and Freudigman.
Mike
Greenberg
