Intense yet inconsistent, ensemble delves into Dvorak
CAMBRIDGE -- At a time when most musical organizations have either gone on summer break or taken up residence outside the city, the Boston Chamber Music Society is still around, offering four generously filled Saturday evening concerts this month. The society is using the series to mark the centennial of the death of Antonin Dvorak, putting a work by the Czech master on each program. The packed audience at the Longy School of Music's Pickman Hall seemed grateful for the chance to hear such a rich, substantive program during the summer's dog days.
Dvorak's chamber music is usually represented by a few overly familiar works, so it was a treat to hear instead his rarely played Piano Trio No. 1 in B flat (Op. 21), which concluded the evening. This lengthy early piece, full of expansive melodies in the first two movements and buoyant dance rhythms in the last two, is one of the first to demonstrate the composer's maturity, showing him in full command of his compositional abilities.
Violinist Theodore Arm, cellist Allison Eldredge, and pianist Max Levinson gave a performance that was energetic but uneven. They were at their best in the finale, plunging through it at an almost recklessly fast tempo and producing the evening's most exciting moments. The scherzo's polka rhythms had a warm, genial lilt.
The trio's overall sound was rough, though, and there were balance problems. Part of the difficulty may have been the piano, which had a rather harsh sound that often covered Eldredge's cello. And for all the brio, the slow movement failed to jell, never capturing the music's pervasive melancholy.
The first half featured music of Mozart and Shostakovich. Eldredge and Levinson played Shostakovich's Cello Sonata (Op. 40), which, like many of his works, covers an exhaustive emotional gamut, from fury to romanticism to utter emptiness. Again the performers were at their best in the piece's most physically intense moments, especially the second movement's grotesque dances. The last movement had a nicely sarcastic edge, and Levinson made a dazzling show of some difficult runs. But the performance often felt stiff, as if the two were merely playing together rather than communicating musically. Eldredge encountered intonation problems, and again she had to struggle to be heard over the piano. And, as in the Dvorak, for all the surface fireworks the slow movement's desolation seemed to go unplumbed.
The concert opened with an account of Mozart's compact, lyrical Piano Trio in E (K. 542) that was gracious and well mannered, if somewhat routine.
The remaining summer concerts are at the Longy School on Aug. 21 and 28.
Boston Chamber Music Society
At: Longy School of Music, Cambridge, Saturday night
