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Monday, 2 March 1998
By Ken Keuffel Jr.
THE ARIZONA DAILY STAR
The Tucson Winter Chamber Music Festival zealously promotes rarely heard repertory. In practice, that means countering the dominance of string quartets with, say, a string quintet by Dvorák or a 20th-century work for harp and soprano.
But yesterday's festival-opening concert at the Leo Rich Theatre honored familiar gems as much as unusual fare.
Even so, the variety was impressive. When was the last time one concert offered Beethoven's A-Major Violin Sonata, Bartók's String Quartet No. 2, Ravel's ``Five Popular Greek Songs'' (for harp and soprano), and Brahms' C-Minor Piano Quartet?
And get this: Only two of these pieces shared performers in common, ensuring a wealth of different musical thinking.
This season, the festival's core ensembles are the Los Angeles Piano Quartet, in which festival director Peter Rejto plays cello, and the Chicago String Quartet, a recently formed ensemble featuring violinist Joseph Genualdi, one of several festival veterans.
The Los Angeles got the nod in the Brahms. This performance, which was recorded, should end up on the next festival CD.
The musicians took full advantage of some of Brahms' finest solo passages. Rejto, in particular, offered a hauntingly beautiful account of the third movement's opening rhapsody.
This solo - and another by violinist Ayako Yoshida in the fourth movement - received glowing pianistic support by James Bonn. The group's great violist is Katherine Murdock.
In the Bartók quartet, the Chicago scored with thoughtful, eloquent playing that made constantly changing disparate ideas cohere. It also showcased a unanimity of ensemble that makes, say, sudden and fleeting unison lines such a joy to hear.
Before the Brahms, harpist Katerina Englichová teamed up with soprano Jennifer Foster to perform the one seldom-heard work, Ravel's arrangements of ``Five Popular Greek Songs.'' (The harp parts were originally written for piano.)
None of these songs last for more than a few minutes. According to program notes, Ravel's version of them originated in 1904 when Pierre Aubry, a journalist, asked the composer to provide accompaniments for them.
Foster drew on a warm and expressive tone, Englichová on considerable technique, to make these ditties charming and lively comments on folk tunes.
Yoshida and Bonn opened the concert with Beethoven's ``Kreutzer'' sonata. In it, extremely musical personalities overrode momentary technical lapses.
The Arizona Friends of Chamber Music's Tucson Winter Chamber Music Festival opened yesterday at the Tucson Convention Center Leo Rich Theatre. The Festival continues Wednesday at 8 p.m., Friday at 8 p.m. and Sunday at 3 p.m.