Dick Ainsworth
Pianist Jeffrey Sykes with soprano Emily Birsan, who will perform June 22-24.
The Bach Dancing & Dynamite Society kicked off its 27th season on June 8, and I was able to catch the program at Taliesin’s Hillside Theater on June 10.
The newest music was a pair of works by Théodore Dubois (1827-1924), a French Late Romantic. First there was his set of three Poèmes Virgiliens, evoking three different characters from ancient mythology, scored for flute and piano. The other was a Terzettino for flute, viola and piano. These were pleasing and melodic affairs, if perhaps more extended than their substance might justify. Flutist Stephanie Jutt was the defining performer in these, plus pianist Jason Kutz and violist Sally Chisholm.
The opening work was Mozart’s Violin Sonata No. 27 in G, K.379, constructed in three unusual movements. With BDDS founder Jeffrey Sykes on piano, this was a nice introduction for a newcomer, violinist Yura Lee, who dealt well with the flashy material, but seemed most at home in some beautifully delicate playing.
The two major works were arrangements. Johan Peter Salomon’s chamber adaptations of Haydn Symphonies are welcome grist for the BDDS mill, and Symphony No. 82 in C Major, Hob.I:82 (“The Bear”) was certainly a winning choice. (I forbear to comment on the extra in bear costume.)
The other, the concluding work, was an arrangement made for violin, cello and piano by a younger contemporary of Brahms of the composer’s String Sextet No. 1 in B flat Major, Op. 18. Despite the composer’s approval of this adaptation, I found it problematic. Arranger Theodor Kirchner was able to successfully redistribute the notes of the original six parts to the trio of players. But the result did not really sound like an idiomatic piano trio that Brahms might have composed himself. The piano part especially, busily picking up string notes, hardly sounded Brahmsian in its own terms. Still, it was interesting to hear this rare arrangement of such great music.
The four concert programs in the next two weekends — at the Overture Center’s Playhouse and Taliesin — promise works by Telemann, Martinu, Schumann, Pierné, Poulenc (Le bal masqué), Ravel, Prokofiev, Mozart (Piano Concerto No. 27), Strauss and Barber, as well as the great L’histoire du soldat by Stravinsky. And among the excellent performers to come is Madison diva soprano Emily Birsan.
