With You in Mind: Some Romantic-Period ‘Directed’, Uncommissioned Chamber Works

W   e should get used to the idea that tones have lives of their own, more independent of the artist’s pen in their vitality than one would dare to believe.”
  —  Heinrich Schenker, 1906.

E njoyed New England Conservatory faculty members’ first ‘First Monday’ concert of the season last night…

• Dvořák: Terzetto in C major, Op. 74, B.148 ... Miriam Fried, Lucy Chapman, violins; Paul Biss, viola
  
• Arensky: Trio ... Masuko Ushioda, violin; Laurence Lesser, cello; Sergey Schepkin, piano
  
• Brahms: Quintet in G Major, Op. 111 ... Borromeo String Quartet; Kim Kashkashian, viola

T he Terzetto—with the two upper-register voices and the alto voice (viola)—is an interesting texture that leaves us wondering what the tenor/baritone voice (cello) would do had a part been written. Why did Dvořák choose this unusual orchestration—“string quartet minus one”? Well, said Laurence Lesser in his pre-concert remarks, it was because Dvořák wished to honor a violinist friend and the friend’s violin teacher, both of whom lived in the same boarding house where Dvořák himself lived at the time. Simple. Good enough reason as any!

B esides this Terzetto, there is Dvořák’s String Trio in B-flat, Op. 75a, Kodály’s Szerenád for 2 violins and viola, Op. 12, Sergei Taneyev’s Trio, Op. 21, and Frank Bridge’s Rhapsody Trio, H.176. Probably there are more, but I am traveling and not close to a conservatory library to do a decent job of looking them up. In any case, the literature in this space is not large. This repertoire for 2 violins plus viola is not performed nearly as much as it should be. (And, for that matter, the diversity-enhancing decision to compose for non-standard ensembles is not taken nearly as often as it should be either.)

T he viola’s role as an ‘outer’ (bass) voice in the Terzetto sheds light on differences (compared to violin) in viola bow-arm technic: not some violin-style (with hand, wrist, and arm predominantly above the level of the bowstick), the hand and forearm are lower and the upper arm doesn’t move so much. I sat up close, on one side of Jordan Hall to the right of center-stage, far enough to the right where Biss’s movements were not obscured by the music stand. The viola fingering in the Terzetto also presents more than the usual range of challenges, it seems to me. It was wonderful to be able to observe his technic, see his decisions, hear the results.

T he Arensky trio, written in memory of cellist Karl Davydov, was really good. Unusual timbres and textures… the Adagio (Elegia) third movement … the strings’ mutes on throughout. The ‘accessory’ thematic elements to a memorial piece lend depth and verisimilitude—a sort of ‘I remember when’. Ushioda’s touching remembrances, answered by Lesser’s (Davydov’s) inspired and atmospheric replies, modulated by Schepkin’s brilliant and sensitive arbitration/counsel. These are dramatic meditations on the death of a beloved person and, like all elegies, are poetical—with language and cadence governed by impulses of memory. The elegy form tolls departure and loss, irrevocable going-going-goneness… rapturously, ecstatically... often with more of a pastoral or more serene or idealized or sanitized aspect than the person remembered may have had in real life… which is okay and as it should be. We were touched; we are touched; we will continue to be touched.

T he Brahms piece is not elegiac except for the Adagio. It’s instead optimistic and lighthearted, but it is memoristic nonetheless, inspired by Brahms’s walks in the Vienna Prater. By rights, it’s a viola quintet, full of rich alto sonorities. The first movement, Allegro non troppo ma con brio, is in 9/8. Opens with a cello solo in G major, transitions to G minor, with excursions through various other keys before returning to G major. The second movement, the Adagio, begins with a viola solo. The main theme goes through a sort of ‘versioning’ or software refactoring—reimplementing it on different ‘platforms’ and architectures—pondering and recasting the material and, through each refactoring, discovering new dimensions in it and reaching different conclusions. The third movement, Un poco Allegretto, a cheerful minuet and trio form in 3/4, ends with a short coda. And the fourth movement, Vivace ma non troppo presto, is tremendously buoyant and vivacious. Brahms’s pen—and tones—and the Borromeos plus Ms. Kashkashian—had more vitality than one dares to believe…

• New England Conservatory website
  
• Cox A. Embodying music: Principles of the mimetic hypothesis. MTO 2011;17(2).
  
• Harrison D. Harmonic Function in Chromatic Music. Univ Chicago, 1994, esp. pp. 49-55.
  
• Levitin D. This Is Your Brain on Music: The Science of a Human Obsession. Penguin, 2007.
  
• Mannes E. The Power of Music: Pioneering Discoveries in the New Science of Song. Walker, 2011.
  
• Nagel T. What is it like to be a bat? Phil Rev 1974;83:435–50.
  
• Patel A. Music, Language, and the Brain. Oxford Univ, 2010.
  
• Rothfarb L. 'Energetics,' in Cambridge History of Western Music Theory, ed. T. Christensen. Cambridge Univ, 2006, 927-55.
  
• Samarotto F. Sublimating sharp ^4: An exercise in Schenkerian energetics. MTO 2004;10(3).
  
• Schenker H. Harmony, ed. O Jonas, tr. E. Borgese. Univ Chicago, 1980.
  
• Thompson W. Music, Thought, and Feeling: Understanding the Psychology of Music. Oxford Univ, 2008.
  
• Tilmouth M, Smallman B. 'String Trio.' In The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, 2e, ed. S. Sadie, J. Tyrrell. Macmillan, 2004.