Two nights of strings

Over the last few nights I attended two concerts, both featuring strings. The first was the the Boulder Chamber Orchestra under the leadership of Bahman Saless. Mozart's Sinfonia Concertante for Violin and Viola was well played by Annamaria Karacason and Geraldine Walther. Karacason is the wife of Karoly Schranz, second violin for the famous Takács String Quartet and Walther is their violist. It's interesting the see a famous quartet member playing outside her normal role.

The piece that intrigued me the most was Verdi's Symphony for Strings in E minor, a transcription of his only string quartet. At the beginning of the piece Saless commented that according to legend, Verdi composed this quickly to fill some time while waiting for a stop in the rehearsals for Aida. Saless said it seemed to him that the movements were about a murder. First the actual mysterious murder, then the arrival on the scene of the detective, an unknown third movement (to Saless) and finally the resolution with the detective pointing out the guilty. It was an amusing premise that got my imagination going during the performance. When the third movement began it was clear to me that this was the time when all the parties were stewing about worrying if the detective suspected them. There is a beautiful flowing cello section that reminded me of a soprano solo early in Verdi's Simon Boccanegra. Clearly this was the innocent virgin satisfied in her knowledge that she most certainly did not commit the murder. How did Bahman not pick this out?

The Verdi quartet is an interesting piece with some luscious song like lines which clearly remind you that Verdi is an opera composer. It was performed here a few years ago by either the Takács or the Vinca quartet. On our supposedly all classical FM radio station, essentially off the air in Boulder, the quartet was broadcast 5 times in 2006, 3 times in 2007, 1 time in 2008 and not yet this year. Opera isn't broadcast much save for the Saturday Metropolitan broadcasts, and Verdi's limited broadcast repertoire seems to be snippets of a few of the old favorites. So much for the educational role of public radio.

Last night I went to what would normally be a performance by the Takács String Quartet. Instead, a visiting group, the Albers Trio, performed. Three attractive sisters did a yeoman's job on Mozart's long Divertimento in E-flat, K563, but to me the highlight was a wonderful Serenade for String Trio by Ernst von Dohnányi. I wonder what their early family life was like, with 3 talented musicians? Competion? Pressure? The program notes said they performed as young girls down on the Pearl Street mall in Boulder, so they must have once been somewhat local. They offered an nteresting evening.