Camerata San Antonio
Cello quintets, forwards and backwards
May 31, 2011Camerata San Antonio closed its season with a pair of cello quintets -- one old, one young. But which was which?
The program opened with Finnish composer Einojuhani Rautavaara’s String Quintet “Unknown Heavens,” from 1997. Franz Schubert’s String Quintet in C, completed shortly before he died in 1828, was the closer. Both works call for two violins (Ertan Torgul and Matthew Zerweck), viola (Emily Freudigman), and two cellos (Kenneth Freudigman and David Mollenauer).
The two composers chose very different ways to use the second cello. In Schubert, it’s like an oarsman, pulling the music forward. In Rautavaara, it adds complexity to the harmonies and thickens the overall texture.
Schubert’s Quintet is one of the greatest works in the chamber music repertoire, and it’s often performed -- we heard an excellent account just a few months ago by the Cypress String Quartet and Israeli cellist Amit Peled, for the San Antonio Chamber Music Society. It remains fresh, and it was particularly so in Camerata’s high-intensity account. The style was right: The dance rhythms in the three quick movements were nicely pointed, and in the opening allegro the players exploited all the opportunities to massage the tempo while maintaining unanimity. The sublime slow movement floated on air, sometimes seeming almost motionless, but it didn’t drag. Some tuning problems -- unusual for this group -- may have been attributable to the weather.
Finland has long been an overachiever in the arts, and especially in music. This relatively new nation of some 5 million people has produced an astonishing number of internationally important singers, instrumentalists, conductors and composers, Rautavaara among them.
From the 1950s through the early ‘80s his music was notable for using 12-tone technique in a lyrical way, with tonal implications, and for a roiling energy. His late music was increasingly regressive, and “Unknown Heavens” too often sounds like warmed-over Debussy, Ravel and Richard Strauss. The contrapuntal density is interesting, and there’s a lovely elegiacal slow movement, but the music on the whole sounds generic and somewhat saccharine. The performance was excellent all around.
The concert was Camerata’s last in Travis Park United Methodist Church, the troupe’s home since its founding in 2003. The venue for next season is Christ Episcopal Church in Monte Vista, with easier parking and less noise from passing buses -- but also not quite the engagement with the larger community (including the homeless) that was the hallmark of the downtown Travis Park church.
Mike
Greenberg
