Smaller Brahms (but no less small)

I made it to the final Movado Hour of the season at the Baryshnikov Arts Center this past Tuesday. The first half featured the extraordinary Soprano Lucy Shelton in George Crumb’s Apparitions, set to poetry by Walt Whitman. Even more remarkable was the piano accompaniment by Pedja Muzijevic, the BAC’s Director of Music Programs and longtime associate of Mikhail Baryshnikov. Crumb revolutionized piano playing, requiring the performer to reach inside the instrument in order to pluck at the strings, tap the steel casing, and create other eerie, echoing sounds. The overall effect was terrifying, made more so by Shetlton’s dramatic delivery, which ranged from ferocious to nearly-silent. The audience near me were mixed in their reaction: some thought it was brilliant, while others were horrified. (I’ll let you guess which camp I ended up in…)

The latter were mostly likely there primarily for the second half of the program: the Brahms Piano Quintet Op. 34, featuring Muzijevic with the outstanding Brentano String Quartet. Together, they delivered a searing performance of this ponderous, propulsive masterpiece: as great as Brahms was at symphonic writing, he reached new heights in his chamber music, which rocks as much as anything ever written for these instruments. The room was stifling hot, but didn’t seem to impact the performers’ energy in the slightest, despite the white-hot lights trained on them. By the violent third movement, I couldn’t help but draw comparisons in my mind between the 15 year old Brentano and the elegant but less-visceral Emerson, currently holding court at Carnegie. Suffice to say, I’ll be interested to see where the Brentano is in another 15 years time.

After a wildly enthusiastic ovation, I got to catch up a bit with Mark Steinberg, the Brentano’s first violinist, whom I first met flying back from Frankfurt in January 2003, where he’d been performing with the quartet. He is a brilliant performer, but an even more passionate advocate for music and the cause of expanding its boundaries, often bringing the quartet to perform in cafes and other alternative venues. He has a busy summer traveling around to various festivals, but I look forward to catching up with him some more in the fall.