MUSIC REVIEW--NEW YORK PHILHARMONIC ENSEMBLES AT MERKIN HALL--January 16, 2011

Reviewed by Bill Breakstone

This recital was the third in a series of five featuring leading instrumentalists of The Philharmonic. I am finding these programs to be a delightful source for the discovery of unfamiliar chamber works, performed by artists of the highest accomplishment. All three compositions on yesterday’s program were new to me, and some also new to the performing artists, one of whom I interviewed after the recital.

The opening work was the Trio for Violin, Cello and Piano, in G Major by Claude Debussy. Written in 1880, when the composer was 18 years old, this work was discovered in 1980 and is seldom performed. It is easy to see why. Debussy had yet to acquire his own, unique style, and the piece is more or less a piece of puff pastry, as my Austrian professor used to refer to music of little import but genial in nature. Of the three movements, only the finale, marked Appassionato, shows any seriousness, and contains some soaring melodies much in the vein of Faure.

The recital continued with the String Quartet No. 1, Op. 25, by Benjamin Britten, another youthful composition, but one bearing the stamp of a unique musical mind determined to create an individualistic style of his own. The first movement, marked Andante sostenuto—Allegro vivo, opens with the violins playing an eerie, high pitched dissonant melody, and then moves to an energetically pulsed allegro in the violins and viola, with the cello punctuating in pizzicato. The two themes play off against each other and the movement ends with a presto pizzicato coda. The Allegretto second movement is a strident march with the cello carrying the lyrical theme. The slow third movement Andante is in a minor mode and exhibits a wonderful development of the thematic material. The Quartet concludes with a molto vivace rondo in a major key, with the four instruments imitating each others theme, as in a “round.” There’s lots of humor, driving rhythms, an adagio interlude, then back to the main theme. This is a very interesting quartet, one which deserves a place in the performing repertoire.

After intermission, Frank Bridge’s String Quartet No. 1 in E minor was presented. Bridge, who lived from 1879 to 1941, was one of Britten’s composition teachers, was an accomplished violist, chamber musician, conductor, and composer. His works are seldom performed and are infused with a Brahmsian quality. Some hear shades of Faure within his music; I detected elements of Grieg. The first movement Adagio—Allegro is in sonata form and suffused with melody. The second movement Adagio molto is in a minor mode and astonishingly lyrical, with a most elegant second theme. The third movement, marked Allegretto grazioso, is a scherzo with a dance-like trio section. The work concludes with an Allegro Agitato—moderato molto in rondo form. Contrary to its markings, it begins with an adagietto theme, and then moves to the agitato section, alternating these two sections for the balance of the movement, ending with the cello repeating the main theme from the opening movement in a molto adagio pianissimo. This is a surprisingly beautiful quartet, a real find for musicians, and audiences, who are eager to try something new and fresh.

The playing by the Philharmonic instrumentalists throughout was masterful. Special note should go to violinist Fiona Simon, a Brit by birth, who lead both the Britten and Bridge Quartets from her first violinist chair.