John Harbison
The 26th annual season of the Token Creek Chamber Music Festival opened on Aug. 22 at the rustic barn outside of DeForest that serves as the renowned festival’s concert venue.
This first program was titled “Founder’s Recital: Beginnings Revisited.” The festival’s founding parents, John and Rose Mary Harbison, performed a program of chamber music by Haydn and Mozart. They played two trios for violin, cello and piano by Haydn and two sonatas by Mozart for violin and piano. Except for the E-minor sonata, all these pieces come from late in the composers’ careers.
It is a fitting pairing. Mozart and Haydn shared an unusually cordial and productive friendship, despite the great differences in their ages — the grand old master Haydn, and the precocious young genius Mozart. They admired and influenced each other, and Mozart’s premature death, 18 years before the older master, was a terrible blow to Haydn. It is satisfying and heartwarming to experience a combination of chamber works by this remarkable pair.
Rose Mary Harbison
John Harbison offered spoken commentary before each half of the program. He is full of wisdom and insights, providing a valuable dimension to the proceedings. Harbison not only ranks among today’s distinguished American composers, but he is also an active performing musician, skillfully playing the piano throughout the concert. He and his wife, violinist Rose Mary Harbison, are comfortable partners of long experience and close sympathies. Joining them on the cello was Karl Lavine, a musician of sterling reliability. My one regret is that John Harbison, a trained violist, did not pull out his string instrument and play one of Mozart’s miraculous two duos for violin and viola with his wife. Maybe another year.
The program order was somewhat modified, allowing the famous “Hungarian Rondo” finale of the “Gypsy” Trio in G to provide a rousing, bumptiously folksy conclusion to the proceedings, much to the audience’s delight.
The Token Creek Chamber Music Festival continues through Aug. 30. The offerings include a tribute to nature in poetry and music (Aug. 26), a concert by the Lydian String Quartet (Lee Hyla, John Harbison, Felix Mendelssohn) on Aug. 27 and a menu of concertos by Handel, Corelli and Bach (the Brandenburg No. 1), with other oddments, on Aug. 29 and 30.
Susan Wilson
Lydian String Quartet
