Dick Ainsworth
Carmit Zori, Jeffrey Sykes, Joseph Johnson and Sally Chisholm performing Brahms' Piano Quartet No. 2 in A Major, op. 26.
It’s striking to realize that the Bach Dancing and Dynamite Society has been around for more than a quarter-century. The impressive opening concert for the group’s summer season, at Overture’s Playhouse on June 10, helped demonstrate why the group has thrived.
There were three works on the program. The first was the chamber reduction of Haydn’s “London” Symphony, No. 104. This is one of the arrangements made of symphonies that Haydn composed for his concerts in London. The adaptations were made by Johann Peter Salomon, the musician and impresario who brought Haydn to England, using a small instrumental ensemble for convenient domestic performances.
The BDDS folks have made a point of drawing upon these charming arrangements over the years, and the eight players dug into this one with a palpable sense of personal enjoyment. My only regret was that the use of a modern grand piano, instead of a harpsichord or fortepiano, made the keyboard part much too heavy.
Veteran cellist Joseph Johnson joined pianist Jeffrey Sykes in Benjamin Britten’s Cello Sonata, Op. 65. This five-movement work dating from 1961 was the fruit of an intense artistic and personal friendship that the composer developed with the famous Russian cellist, Mstislav Rostropovich. It is one of those terribly clever pieces in which the super-talented Britten delighted. But it also is obviously full of inside jokes and allusions shared by the two musicians. It is a true duo for the two instruments, and at times it is easy to think that the very aggressive piano parts (written for Britten himself to play) were meant to unbalance their competition. I was interested to observe how much the BDDS audience enjoyed it, for all its quirkiness.
After the intermission, and the usual phase of clowning (best left experienced than described), the real masterpiece was offered, in the form of Tchaikovsky’s extraordinary string sextet titled Souvenir de Florence.
A string sextet is not at all like a string quartet or an orchestral string section. Its balances and colors are completely altered by the inclusion of the extra viola and cello to make three pairs of instruments. Tchaikovsky fully understood this, and exploited its possibilities to the hilt. Begun during a stay the composer made in Italy, it is as much an expression of Tchaikovsky’s homesickness for Russia as it is evocative of Italian culture. It is a brilliant work, one of the supreme examples of its kind.
The six BDDS players (including our own Pro Arte Quartet violist Sally Chisholm) dug into this score with fervent intensity for a truly exhilarating performance. In the process, they set a really high standard for the remaining two weeks of this year’s BDDS season.
