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Even as the Curtis Institute of Music launches its own record label, the venerable conservatory has not neglected its long-running Curtis on Tour chamber music project. Seven fine Curtis student musicians and two noted professionals joined forces at 92Y in New York City on Dec. 3, performing music by 20th-century composers Erwin Schulhoff and Ernst von Dohnányi as well as Mozart and Sibelius. The music was a lively mix of periods and styles, and a testament to the high quality of Curtis’s programs.
A Magic Flute
The concert began with Mozart’s Flute Quartet No. 1 in D Major. Always a crowd-pleaser, this familiar work established a good mood. It benefited greatly from the charismatic physicality of teenage flutist Julin Cheung. Cheung’s nimble, fluid passagework, fine phrasing and strong, clear tone already bear many of the hallmarks of a star soloist. Violinist Erin Keefe, who is the Minnesota Orchestra’s concertmaster and a member of the Curtis staff, along with violist Soyoung Cho and cellist Hun Choi were more than able collaborators, projecting confident understanding across the generations.
In the ensemble’s rich attack on the first movement’s contrasting minor-key section, to take one example, the musicians, teacher and students alike, showed a thorough absorption of Mozart’s music. This was also clear in their fine handling of the sense of space in the airy, dreamlike Adagio, where the strings accompany in pizzicato the flute’s angular melody. Subsequently they displayed superb synchrony and sturdiness in the Rondo finale with its indelible main theme.
21st-Century Talent Meets 20th-Century Music
Cheung was to return in Erwin Schulhoff’s Concertino for Flute, Viola, and Double Bass. This interesting combination of instruments spans the gamut of tonality – the flutist even switches to piccolo in places – leaving plenty of room for each voice to step forward.
The four movements are based on folk rhythms and dances. Through them the musicians conveyed a variety of flavors of excitement and motility. Double bassist Dimitrios Mattas, whose teachers have included Edgar Meyer, bowed and projected with cool assurance, while violist Soyoung Cho, the only musician reporting for duty in every piece on the program, gracefully filled out the middle.
Dohnányi’s Serenade for String Trio in C Major, Op. 10 was somewhat less successful, marred at times, notably in the first movement, by imperfect intonation. Cho’s soulful soloing in the Romanza was a highlight; another was the scampering Scherzo, with violin and viola and later cello trading lines cat-and-mouse style, then flowing into clever counterpoint. Cho, violinist Jinyoung Yoon, and cellist Choi (playing with finesse and precision as he did in the Mozart) gelled nicely in the Theme and Variations – the most interesting movement – and the Rondo finale.
Sibelius’s intriguing En Saga in a chamber arrangement by Jaakko Kuusisto rounded out the program. Bassoonist Asha Kline; French horn player Christine Ott; and in the clarinetist’s chair Osmo Vänskä, the noted conductor, who has a deep history with this music, joined the string players. To me, in this version, this deeply intriguing abstract piece evoked scenes of nature. It’s very open to interpretation, but however you heard it, it wrapped up the well-conceived program with the evening’s largest ensemble achieving a rich, tightly integrated sound.
For more information on the Curtis Institute’s Curtis on Tour performances visit the website.
