The second concert in the OPUS IV series, which took place on Tuesday evening at the Arts and Letters Club, had a similar structure to Sunday evening.  The concert was anchored around a major, well known, work.  In this case Beethoven’s Kreutzer Sonata with the rest of the programme featuring less familiar material.  It was given by the same five instrumentalists as Sunday; Stella Chen and Isabella Perron – violins, Matthew Lipman – viola, Brannon Cho – cello and Kevin Ahfat – piano.

Isabella Perron got us started with John Corigliano’s Stomp.  It’s a crazy mad piece requiring great virtuosity while stomping on a board. For extra madness points the violin is tuned unusually with the G string on E and the E on E flat.  So, the sum total is enormous physical energy, weird dissonance and stomping.  It’s a sort of apocalyptic hoedown.  Next up was Brannon Cho with Alexander Tcherepnin’s Suite for Solo Cello.  It’s another virtuosic piece written in a pentatonic scale.  Beautifully played with great lyricism.

Gideon Klein’s String Trio is a remarkably upbeat piece.  The second movement is a cheerful Moravian folksong and the third, marked “molto vivace” and based on a Czech folk dance is especially uplifting.  What makes it remarkable is that it was written in Theresienstadt just ten days before Klein’s final journey to Auschwitz.  Does that affect how we hear the music?  I don’t think it did for me last night and I’m pretty susceptible to that kind of thing.

Emmy Wegener’s Suite for String Trio is really quite unusual.  It’s in five movements but doesn’t last much longer than five minutes overall.  Despite that each movement has a distinct character with a fugue and a scherzo instantly recognisable.

And so we come to the Beethoven.  This is a much longer piece.  Watching it played, as opposed to listening to a recording makes one extra aware that it is physically demanding.  One could see the physical and emotional intensity that Stella Chen, in particular, was putting into the first movement.  There was tremendous “attack” to the playing.  I couldn’t see Kevin Ahfat as clearly but one could hear the energy in the playing.

Then the mood changes.  The middle movements have a delicacy and a lyricism that is a huge contrast with the “Sturm und Drang” of the opening.  Chen responded to this with playing of great subtlety.  She’s not afraid to play very quietly.  So quietly that the audience is drawn in just to listen.  It’s very compelling.  And then it’s back for the complex finale which has elements of all the earlier movements so requiring the players t run through a gamut of moods in a sort span.  Truly impressive.

So that capped two evenings of very fine music making.  As an afternote, Brannon Cho, Matthew Lipman and Stella Chen now form a string trio which is looking for a name.  I’m happy to pass on suggestions!  Trio Souris Aveugles apparently won’t do.

Photo credit: Carl Lyons