October 13, 2024
Peachtree Christian Church
Atlanta, GA – USA
Todd Skitch, flute; Jesse McCandless, clarinet; Helen Hwaya Kim, violin; Brad Ritchie, cello; Elizabeth Pridgen, piano.
Nino ROTA: Trio for Flute, Violin and Piano
Marco-Adrián RAMOS: Entre azul y buenas noches
Adam SCHOENBERG: Ahava
Peter SCHICKELE: Quartet for Clarinet, Violin, cello and Piano
Mark Gresham | 17 OCT 2024
The Atlanta Chamber Players, showcased a varied and engaging program at Peachtree Christian Church on October 13, featuring works by Nino Rota, Marco-Adrián Ramos, Adam Schoenberg, and Peter Schickele. The season-opening concert offered a diverse mix of tonal palettes and modern compositions without once touching the over-repeated standards of the chamber music canon.
The performance opened with Nino Rota’s Trio for Flute, Violin, and Piano, performed by flutist Todd Skitch, violinist Helen Hwaya Kim, and pianist Elizabeth Pridgen.
Rota was a versatile Italian composer renowned for his prolific film scores, including those for The Godfather series and the films of Federico Fellini. Beyond cinema, Rota composed operas, ballets, and chamber music, including his Trio for Flute, Violin, and Piano, written in 1958 for the Klemm-Cervera-Wolfensberger Trio.
The piece opened with a lively “Allegro non troppo,” where piano rhythms anchored a playful dialogue between flute and violin. An “Andante sostenuto” followed, offering a dreamlike shift in mood, deftly navigated by the performers, and the work concluded with an energetic “Allegro vivace con spirito,” where rhythmic drive dominated until the instruments united in a final flourish.
The world of contemporary Latin American music was explored next with the regional premiere of Marco-Adrián Ramos’ Entre azul y buenas noches (“Between blue and good nights”), scored for a “Pierrot” quintet — (flute, clarinet, violin, cello, and piano. Clarinetist Jesse McCandless and cellist Brad Ritchie joined Skitch, Kim, and Pridgen in performing this piece, which won the 2023 Black, Latinx, and Indigenous Commission from the Cross-Country Chamber Consortium, which was founded in 2020 to amplify under-represented voices in chamber music repertoire.
l-r: Elizabeth Pridgen, Todd Skitch, Helen Hwaya Kim, Jesse McCandless, and Brad Ritchie. (credit: Chris Helton)
Ramos’ Entre azul y buenas noches draws its title from a Mexican Spanish idiom describing an ambiguous, twilight-like state of being. The composition reflected this theme of uncertainty through two contrasting sections. The first featured an ostinato that evolves into asymmetrical rhythms, creating a sense of movement without clear direction. The second section presented nostalgic “sunset” music that gradually becomes fragmented and disembodied. Despite the contrasts, the piece is loosely connected by a recurring five-note motif, allowing the contrasts to coexist without resolution.
Entre azul y buenas noches was premiered on September 28 in Houston, Texas, by Musiqa, one of the Consortium’s co-founders, and is scheduled to be performed again on November 18 by the Picosa Ensemble in Chicago.
Following an intermission, the group presented another work for “Pierrot” quintet, Adam Schoenberg’s Ahava (“אַהֲבָה”), a work centered on the theme of love, innocence, and joy, commissioned by the Atlanta Chamber Players and premiered by them on November 9, 2014,
Known for his accessible and emotionally resonant music, Ahava is the first work Schoenberg had ever written “in the key of C” and was inspired by the birth of his son. The piece captures the emotions of living in the present, blending atmospheric elements with rhythmic vitality, which the performers conveyed well. It concluded with a chorale-like lullaby in the piano part, evoking a sense of prayerful calm.
The concert concluded with a lively performance of Peter Schickele’s Quartet for Clarinet, Violin, Cello, and Piano (1982). Famed for his satirical works under the pseudonym P.D.Q. Bach, Schickele, who passed away in January of this year, also wrote a considerable amount of serious music that stands on its own merit, typically permeated with wit and charm.
When I interviewed Schikele in April 1990, he admitted he had a peculiar problem due to the success of P.D.Q. Bach:
[“What’s So Funny About a Chorus?” Chorus! magazine, April 1990, reprinted in the 1997 collection, Choral Conversations.]
The musicians — McCandless, Kim, Ritchie, and Pridgen — embraced the work’s playful spirit, offering a technically precise yet joyful interpretation. The lighthearted quartet provided an energetic close to the evening, leaving the audience with a sense of buoyant satisfaction.
The Atlanta Chamber Players once again proved their versatility and commitment to exploring a wide range of repertoire. Their nuanced performances and engaging, off-the-beaten-path program selection made for a memorable evening of chamber music. ■
EXTERNAL LINKS:
- Atlanta Chamber Players: atlantachamberplayers.com
Read more by Mark Gresham.
RECENT POSTS
Ageless Jordi Savall and company thrills in Chicago’s Orchestra Hall, celebrates Monteverdi • 18 Oct 2024
