Baritone Timothy Jones.
Paul Lueders (oboe), Ryan Murphy (cello), and Evan Kory (harpsichord) played Vivaldi on Aug. 12.
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September 4, 2018
The spirited Olmos Ensemble began colonizing the barren wastes of August five years ago with a single concert, which later became two, and this year grew to three, constituting a mini-festival in Laurel Heights United Methodist Church.
The last of these concerts, on Aug. 26, was billed as a special event, for good reason. It brought the return of two long-time favorites of San Antonio audiences, baritone Timothy Jones and pianist Warren Jones. (They are related only in the sense that all of us are related to each other.) TJ burst onto the local scene in the mid-1990s, when he taught at UTSA; now he teaches at the University of Houston. WJ, based in New York, has been one of the world’s leading collaborative pianists for many years, but he also performed at least once a year with the Olmos Ensemble throughout the two-decade tenure of its founding artistic director (and friend of the pianist), Mark Ackerman, who retired in 2015. The two Joneses were joined by Ilya Shterenberg, an Olmos regular and principal clarinet of the San Antonio Symphony. The program ranged widely, and the performances were entirely copacetic.
Timothy Jones would seem to be in his salad days. His instrument proved to be remarkably versatile, equally at home in lyrical and dramatic material, free and unconstricted all the way from the depths to the heights, tinged with steel or honey as the occasion required. As always, he conveyed the meaning of the texts with clarity and directness, and his diction was impeccable in French, German and English – maybe a tad less so in Italian.
Some of his program was a little outside the main stream. Schubert was represented by two works in Italian rather than German, both of them rather operatic in character – the song “L’incanto degli occhi” and the recitative and aria “Il traditor delusa,” which pushes the dramatic pedal to the metal. The now-obscure Louis Spohr was a prolific composer who bridged the classical and romantic periods, and the three songs heard here suggest he is worthy of some exploration. Much more familiar was Ravel’s three-song cycle Don Quichotte a Dulcinée, which revealed the baritone’s stirring top in the “Chanson epique” and his huge personality in the concluding drinking song. A set of five English songs reached a zenith of loveliness in Vaughan Williams’ “Silent Noon.” Two African-American spirituals, “I Know the Lord Has Laid His Hands on Me” and “Deep River,” closed the concert memorably.
Mr. Shterenberg joined the Joneses in the Spohr songs and came elegantly into the foreground in Scriabin’s Seven Preludes for clarinet and piano. The preludes were all fairly brief and varied widely in character – dramatic, meditative, congenial, and ending with virtuosic fireworks.
In his ensemble work, Warren Jones was, as ever, an ideal balance of collegial support and self-assertion. On his own, he delivered a searching, deep, high-intensity account of Chopin’s Polonaise in C-sharp Minor. Of course, even as a soloist he was a collaborator – in this case, with Chopin.
An entirely different cast performed for the baroque concert that opened the August series on the 12th. Assorted permutations and combinations of Mark Teplitsky (flute), Paul Lueders (oboe) and Sara Silver Manzke (violin) took the obbligato roles in sonatas by Telemann, Vivaldi, Handel and CPE Bach. (Mr. Teplitsky also dashed off a virtuosic solo work, Marin Marais’ Les folies d’Espagne.) The imaginative keyboardist Evan Kory, who had anchored last summer’s baroque concert by the Olmos, returned to share continuo duties with cellist Ryan Murphy.
The performances were consistently taut, spirited and attentive to baroque performance style. Ms. Manzke’s work on violin was especially interesting for an almost non-vibrato technique sweetened with the merest hint of vibrato on strategic notes. Mr. Kory took time to explain the coloristic possibilities of the French-style double-manual harpsichord made by Gerald Self of San Antonio, and then he demonstrated those sounds winningly in Handel’s Trio Sonata for Oboe, Flute and Continuo in B Minor. The final movement of that work sounded remarkably modern, even jazzy, in this performance. CPE Bach’s Trio Sonata in D Minor served as a reminder of how advanced that son of JS Bach could be. The last of its three movements assigned an elaborate role to the cello, performed by Mr. Murphy with his customary grace and limpid sound.
The Aug. 19 concert moved into the modern era with music by Ernest Bloch, Henri Dutilleux, Andre Jolivet, Robert Muczynski, Witold Lutoslawski and Dmitri Shostakovich. Scott Cuellar, gold medalist in the most recent San Antonio International Piano Competition collaborated with Mr. Teplitsky and Mr. Shterenberg.
On the whole, the mood was congenial, even in Jolivet’s Sonatine for flute and clarinet, which Mr. Teplitsky characterized as “a French nightmare.” It might well seem that way from the performers’ point of view, but in the hearing of this fine performance the first movement’s deliberative conversation, the two instruments weaving around each other at close range, were pleasurable to eavesdrop upon, and the two succeeding movements’ intricate counterpoint and rhythmic layerings were bracing rather than frightful.
Bloch’s Concertino for flute, clarinet and piano was fully neoclassical, with some Renaissance harmonies in the mix, its three movements crisp, economical and sometimes witty. Dutilleux’s Sonatine for flute and piano was treated to especially authoritative playing from both Mr. Teplitsky and Mr. Cuellar; the spritzy, virtuosic finale unfolded with terrific energy and fluidity.
Muczynski’s six brief Duos for flute and clarinet partook of a distinctly American urban vibe – in the delightful finale, the two instruments seemed to be chasing each other around a tree. Lutoslawski’s Dance Preludes for clarinet and piano were by turns witty, wistful and clownish – and, as always in this Polish master’s music, rewarding to both the mind and the senses. The concert closed with a group of just-for-fun Shostakovich waltzes, arranged for flute, clarinet and piano, with especially robust contributions from Mr. Cuellar.
Mike Greenberg
Olmos Ensemble and friends
Two Joneses cap a mini-festival
Ilya Shterenberg (clarinet) and Warren Jones (piano)
played Scriabin on Aug. 26. Below: Mark Teplitsky (flute),
Ilya Shterenberg and Scott Cuellar (piano) played Bloch
on Aug. 19
incident light
music