What a difference an instrument can make, if you’re Mozart. He
wrote chamber music of all kinds, from violin sonatas to wind serenades, but
it’s often conceded that Mozart was at his best when simply adding a second
viola (his favorite string instrument) to the customary string quartet: pride
of place in his chamber-music output is given to his string quintets.
Publick Musick
seems to agree; for its concerts this weekend — one last night in Rochester,
the other tonight in Pittsford — the program consists only two of them: the
Quintet in E-flat Major and the Quintet in C Major. The five players are
Theresa Salomon and Boel Gidholm,
violins; Daniel Elyar and Alissa Smith, violas; and
Christopher Haritatos, cello.
In Mozart’s hands, the extra viola truly ups the composer’s
ante. The two violas not only give him many opportunities to show off his
contrapuntal skills, but they also act as a pivot for all kinds of instrumental
combinations: duets, threesomes, solos with a richly textured accompaniment,
and on and on. And because of the viola’s sweet, slightly veiled tone, the
second instrument adds a grace note of melancholy to even the most outgoing
moments in the music. In many ways, these two quintets show Mozart at his
Mozart-iest.
Mozart’s works in E-flat tend to be genial in mood, and his
quintet in that key (which opened this Publick Musick program) is a good-natured, tuneful, rather Haydn-esque work. The opening flourish for the violas could
easily be transferred to two horns, and the second movement is an engaging and
elaborate theme and variations that gives each instrumentalist a piece of the
action. In this work the relationships between the instruments are relatively simple:
much of the material is presented in a call-and-response between the two
violins and the two violas, with the cello as a solid underpinning. (I would
understand perfectly if cellists are perhaps not quite as enamored of
Mozart’s string quintets as violinists or violists are — apart from occasional
invitations to play with the little brothers, the cello is often relegated to
the bass line.)
The C Major quintet is almost 40 minutes long — as long as
any of Mozart’s symphonies or concertos — and in a word, it’s sublime. It is
ambitiously laid out and perfectly proportioned; Mozart’s interlacing of the
five instrumental parts is particularly engrossing in this work, especially in
the first movement. The Andante is mostly taken up with a wonderfully extended
operatic duet between the first violin (Theresa Salomon) and the first viola
(Alissa Smith, who switched seats with Daniel Elyar
from the E-flat Quintet), everyone else taking a back seat.
These Publick Musick
performances had some moments of dicey intonation and vinegary violin tone, and
what sounded like a missed note or two. But the performers also had the big
picture, laying out the structure of the music clearly. And in the many moments
where Mozart exploits the relatively low range of the ensemble, as in the trio
of the C Major Quintet’s minuet, the soft graininess of the period string
instruments was downright alluring.
Even more important, these five musicians demonstrated the
enlivening give-and-take essential to satisfying chamber music playing. For
example, violist Elyar was constantly glancing back
and forth at all his fellow musicians, whether taking up a tiny solo line or
accompanying them a simple pattern of repeated eighth-notes. A longstanding
cliché compares chamber music to lively and intelligent conversation, but like
most clichés, it’s true, and this relatively short but rich program is as
lively and intelligent as they come.
This article appears in Apr 25 – May 1, 2018.
