Joel Larson
Cellist Beth Rapier.
The Bach Dancing & Dynamite Society just wrapped up the final weekend of its ambitious 2019 series with three weekends of programming in Madison, Spring Green and Stoughton, involving a total of 18 performers.
I caught the June 28 performance in the charming Stoughton Opera House. The program was unusual in design, in part because it was built around two visiting cellists, Anthony Ross and Beth Rapier. The unusual combination of two cellists facilitated the ensemble playing two pieces scored for double cello, along with making use of the cellists for two larger ensemble pieces.
Of the two-cello items, the first, credited to Handel, deviated from its original form. This was the Trio Sonata in G minor, transcribed for two cellos and piano from a work written for two violins and continuo. In this form, it pretty much lost any Handelian sound, but it became a lively vehicle for the pair. Jeffrey Sykes played piano, as he did for the other work of this scoring, a work by Gian Carlo Menotti. Menotti’s name is not much associated with chamber music, but his Suite for Two Cellos and Piano allows us to hear an unusual dimension of his talents. Cast in four movements, it contains a lot of lively musical ideas in his energetic, challenging and often boisterous writing.
The two cellists became part of two different ensemble pieces. One was the Quintet in B-flat Major by Luigi Boccherini. He was a cellist who pioneered writing string quintets involving two cellos. For this performance, the ensemble also dropped one violin and replaced it with a flute, played by Bach Dancing & Dynamite cofounder, Stephanie Jutt. Violinist Carmit Zori and violist Toby Appel completed the group. Here the textures were built, not around the usual violin dominance, but by the challenging ranges and tones of the flute and first cello.
The largest piece in the program, in terms of both scope and texture, was the wonderful String Sextet No. 2 Op. 36, by Johannes Brahms. Violinist Leanne Kelso League and violist Katrin Talbot filled out the numbers. The six-player web of interactions and complexities was quite different from that of any other chamber music form, and these performers beautifully delivered the special qualities I find particularly fascinating.
