Continuing its adventurous trend this Winter Festival, Seattle Chamber Music Society included in Friday’s concert several composers not heard in this milieu before: Baroque composers Couperin, Rameau, and Scarlatti, all of whom were on the recital program which began the evening’s performance. Telemann’s work appeared on the main concert. One more concert tonight, Saturday, ends this year’s festival, but it’s only six months until the summer festival starts June 29.
Whether the composers or the performer came first in the thinking of artistic director James Ehnes doesn’t matter. Canadian harpsichordist Luc Beauséjour introduced many who might have been unfamiliar with them to his instrument and the fine music of those composers.
It was a particular delight to hear some Rameau, a composer with a vivid sense of hearing the world around him as evidenced here in his Le Rappel des oiseaux (The Recall of the Birds), where you can feel the alarm and reaction of the birds, maybe at the advent of an eagle.
In the main concert, Beauséjour was joined by oboist Nathan Hughes and cellist Robert deMaine for Telemann’s Sonata in A Minor for these instruments. The oboe parts for the second and fourth movements are extremely fast, encompassed with ease and expressively by Hughes, while the cello acts as continuo intrument doubling the harpsichord’s lower line. Both modern cello and modern oboe are louder instruments than their Baroque counterparts and the harpsichord could sometimes only be heard by its timbral effect rather than the actual notes, but the three maintained excellent ensemble and the whole effect was delightful.
Hughes, formerly principal oboe with the Seattle Symphony and now principal oboe for the Metropolitan Opera orchestra, gave a stunning performance of Britten’s Metamorphoses after Ovid for solo oboe, programmed as part of the focus being given to Britten on his centenary.
In six parts, each named after a Roman mythical character, the composer has a great sense of what the oboe can do. Without being flashy the composer portrays parts of each myth, having prefaced the work with a brief sentence describing the action: “Pan plays upon Syrinx, his beloved,” or “Arethusa runing from Alpheus is turned into a fountain.” The work suited Hughes wonderfully, as he played each part as an expressive soliloquy with exquisite phrasing, whether carefree and jaunty, melancholy or rowdy.
The other two works were more in line with what SCMS programming has always been, well-deserved stalwarts of the classical or romantic repertory, Mozart’s Quintet for Horn and strings in E-flat major, and Schubert’s String Quartet in G Major.
Newcomer to the festival William VerMeulen, French horn, joined violinist Scott Yoo, violists Toby Appel, and Michael Klotz (another newcomer), and cellist Edward Arron for the Mozart. VerMeulen’s horn has a big sound and to some extent it felt out of balance with the strings, though it was not because he was playing loudly.
The Schubert was a pleasure to hear, with artistic director James Ehnes and Amy Schwartz Moretti, violins, Richard O’Neill, viola, and deMaine, cello. Close ensemble work and attention paid to the way Schubert would have heard this in 1826 gave the performance elegance and lightness in quieter parts which made fine contrasts to more intense sections. At the same time there was irresistible propulsion and plenty of vitality in what was a highly musical performance.
