Monday , March 18 2024
The three musicians did right by Brahms as they played some of the composer's most beautiful and dynamic music for violin, cello, and piano in Brooklyn's floating waterfront concert hall.

Concert Review: Mark Peskanov, Julian Schwarz, Marika Bournaki – Brahms at Bargemusic (Brooklyn, 8/27/2016)

Julian Schwarz cello
Julian Schwarz

Bargemusic‘s Masterworks Series presented a stunning program of chamber music by Brahms over the weekend, featuring three gifted musicians at the top of their games.

Violinist Mark Peskanov is the Artistic Director of Bargemusic, the floating concert venue moored off the historic Fulton Ferry Landing in Brooklyn. On stage he’s a force of nature to rival the wind and water that rocked the barge during the early part of the concert. The program opened with the “Sonatensatz” Scherzo in C minor from the F.A.E. Sonata for violin and piano (WoO posth. 2). Peskanov’s warm, singing tone fused with glittering clarity from the hands of pianist Marika Bournaki (subject of the award-winning documentary I Am Not a Rock Star), lighting up the fiery march rhythms and melancholy trio section of the brief showpiece.

After that bracing appetizer, Peskanov yielded the floor to cellist Julian Schwarz, whose remarkable outward serenity belies his young age and, I suspect, helped him convincingly convey the first movement’s complex, charged emotions. In this quintessentially Brahmsian masterpiece of melody, Schwarz and Bournaki’s long association became apparent. The two musicians flowed, rose, moderated, almost breathed as one, Schwarz’s 1743 Gagliano cello soaring richly in the midrange, piping sweetly in the upper.

The gypsy-ish minuet-like second movement with its spirited dance rhythms and sparkling trio section was a light-hearted delight, perfectly setting up the soaring finale with its insistent three-against-two patterns and forceful yet graceful unison passages. Locked together in unexaggerated rubatos, the duo made it all look easy.

After an intermission, Peskanov joined Schwarz and Bournaki for Brahms’s Piano Trio in B Major, Op. 8. The unabashed romanticism of the first movement demands both perfect balance among the musicians and sonic space for their individual personalities to shine. The three achieved all this with apparent ease through the many rhythmic changes of the development, the racing triplet figures, and the ineffably beautiful main theme, while bringing a full, almost electric ensemble sound to the agitated passages.

The Scherzo movement grounds a sense of play in a sober bed, and the musicians joined forces here in what felt like a grand game of high stakes, while also getting the childlike spirit of the slow section just right. Then they took us on a haunting journey through the third movement’s somber, sometimes eerie mood, peaceful cadences, and gently swelling harmonies.

Finally the rolling arpeggios of the rhythmic finale sent an energized audience back out to the waterfront full of summertime gladness.

About Jon Sobel

Jon Sobel is Publisher and Executive Editor of Blogcritics as well as lead editor of the Culture & Society section. As a writer he contributes most often to Music, where he covers classical music (old and new) and other genres, and Culture, where he reviews NYC theater. Through Oren Hope Marketing and Copywriting at http://www.orenhope.com/ you can hire him to write or edit whatever marketing or journalistic materials your heart desires. Jon also writes the blog Park Odyssey at http://parkodyssey.blogspot.com/ where he is on a mission to visit every park in New York City. He has also been a part-time working musician, including as lead singer, songwriter, and bass player for Whisperado.

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