Music Reviews

Jul 14, 1999 - UNR Chamber Music Series Closes Brilliantly

By By Jack Neal

The Biggest Little Summer Night Chamber Music series ended Wednesday (7/14/99) just as it opened - brilliantly. Variety of programming and consistently exceptional playing and singing were the spices that made the series so richly flavored and sumptuous to experience.

Hindemithís ìDie Serenaden,î Op. 35, Little Cantata After Romantic Texts for Soprano (Jenny Tibben-Lembke), Oboe (Andrea Lenz), Viola (Soo Kyong Kim) and Cello (Peter Lenz) opened Wednesdayís program.The work embraces poems of love and darkness, drenching them with Hindemithís intriguingly at-odds seeming sonorities and textures. The players were splendid at providing an expressive flow to the music while not cluttering the composerís notions for fitting the workís diverse instruments and complex lines into a seamless unity. Hindemith is an extraordinarily logical composer, something thatís not easily discernible when hearing something of his for the first time.

Neither are the derring-do of Hindemithís harmonic idiosyncrasies and vocal lines easily singable.

Soprano Jenny Tibben-Lembke was more than up to the challenge. She has a lovely, pure soprano sound and sang the six songs that make up ìDas Serenadenî with assurance and very musically. The songs, which sometimes float on an instrumental cloud and sometimes work intricately within the meeting of instrumental lines, seemed to move from the sublime to the more sardonic; ìSea Serpent,î for example, sung with three instruments, and then back again to the more sublime for the cantataís final ìGood Night,î sung to the somber flow of the viola. Tibben-Lembkeís singing was not just carefully balanced and colored, it was - on appropriate occasions - radiant. And how deflty the other players fit their playing to the mood and detail of her singing for an ongoing dialogue of real substance.

Mendelssohnís youthful and vigorous Quintet for Two violins (Philip Ruder and Ruth Lenz), Two Violas (Soo Kyong Kim and Richard Woehrle) and Cello (John Lenz) was given a dashing performance. With vibrant tight-nit execution all around, the playing moved from plush, full-throated ensemble textures to uniformly strong individual moments. The elegance and lightness of presentation for the Quintetís ìA Midsummer Nightís Dreamî like Andante Scherzando movement was especially impressive.

As wonderful as the Hindemith and the Mendelssohn were, it was the eveningís middle work that epitomized the sublime eloquence this chamber music series can rise to from its humbler, yet still splendid middle ground (thereís been nothing less than splendid middle ground this summer). Dohnanyiís rhapsodic Sonata for Cello and Piano, Op. 8, was given a fluid, virtuosic, thoroughly elegant, thrilling performance. Pianist James Winn and cellist John Lenz each gave inspired readings, but with an unanimity of instinctiveness, technical prowess and musicality that made what either of them did individually mesh perfectly into a performance that has to be what Dohnanyi must had in mind for his sonata, when he was fantasizing over what it could sound like in its most heavenly realization.

Bravo for the Dohnanyi.

And so ended four translucent evenings of chamber music, featuring 14 exceptional musicians, playing 12 gorgeous musical master works.

Bravissimo for it all.

For information regarding future University of Nevada, Reno, performing arts events scheduled for this coming season call 775 784 4046. For tickets call 775 784 6847.