September 21, 2003 2:00 pm
Davis Hall, GBPAC, Cedar Falls
with WCFSO members Therese Fetter & Mary Grey, violins, Julia Trahan, viola, Jonathan Chenoweth, cello, Sean Botkin, piano
Brahms – Clarinet Trio
Brahms – Klavierstücke Op.119
Brahms – Clarinet Quintet
Chamber concert takes advantage of harmonies
By George F. Day
Waterloo-Cedar Falls Courier
September 30, 2003
On a recent Sunday, a very fine chamber music concert took place in Davis Hall at the Gallagher-Bluedorn Performing Arts Center Players were Jonathan Chenoweth, cello; Jason Weinberger, clarinet; Sean Botkin, piano; Therese Fetter and Mary Grey, violin; and Julia Trahan, viola. The concert was sponsored by the Waterloo-Cedar Falls Symphony Orchestra, and all of the players are either associated with the orchestra or on the University of Northern Iowa faculty. Weinberger is the WCFSO music director.
Each of the three works were from the pen – and final years – of Johannes Brahms. First came Brahms’ Trio for Clarinet, Piano and Cello in A minor, Op. 114. In it the mood was quickly set by the very poetic nature of the three instruments playing together, especially the harmonious blending of cello and clarinet. Chenoweth and Weinberger took full advantage of the many possibilities for beautiful effect. The second movement, Adagio, was extraordinarily lovely – an extended melody, mainly melancholy in nature.
The crown jewel in the chamber part of the program was Brahms’ Quintet for Clarinet and String Quartet in B minor, Op. 115, with Fetter and Grey on violin and Trahan, viola, joining Weinberger and Chenoweth. The full glory of the clarinet is heard in the Quintet. It sings to us with the eloquence of breath and sound: gently, softly, wistfully, sweetly. Intense and diverse were the emotions created by the strings playing with splendid precision plus Weinberger’s full, clear and rich tone.
Brahms was an accomplished composer for keyboard – and player as well. And so it was appropriate to include a work for solo piano, Klavierstücke, Opus 119. It is a little collection of three intermezzi and one rhapsody, gathered together, two in a minor key and two in major. The pieces progress in mood from passive to energetic, dreamlike to robust. And so did the excellent, even exciting, reading of the score by Sean Botkin.
Note: All reviews are edited for length and spelling.