On Sunday and Monday, July 14 and 15, the Meeting House Chamber Music Festival will featured a quartet of superb musicians and several works that are among the finest in the entire repertoire of chamber music. Sunday’s concert was held at 7 pm at 1717 Meetinghouse in West Barnstable and Monday’s concert began at 7:30 pm at Church of the Holy Spirit in Orleans. More information about the festival can be found at http://meetinghousemusic.org.
One of the most brilliant lights amidst the program’s gems was the sublimely melodious A Major Piano Quartet from Johannes Brahms, which was premiered in Vienna in 1863 with Brahms himself at the piano. Also featured was Haydn’s Trio No.13 in A Major, whose piano part is particularly complex and exciting. The glorious “Summer” concerto from Vivaldi’s The Four Season, which was written in the very year construction began on the historic 1717 Meetinghouse, is a brilliant evocation of the season. In the Finale from the important Romantic composer Carl Maria von Weber’s Piano Quartet, one could hear the influence of Mozart, as well as the freer forms and lyrical quality of Weber’s later Romantic-style works.
And in true Donald Enos form, there were some surprises—glittering works that are lesser known but no less moving, such as Praeludiumby the Swedish Romantic composer Jakob Adolf Hägg. Rounding out the program was a charming piece called ABird Came Down the Walkfrom the largely self-taught, highly innovative Twentieth-Century Japanese composer Tōru Takemitsu. With a poem by Emily Dickinson as its jumping-off point, Takemitsu’s music mirrors the poet’s open-mindedness, economy of language, and inspiration from nature.
The outstanding musicians performing in this concert were Heather Goodchild Wade, violin; Laura Manko Sahin, viola; Bo Ericsson, cello; and Donald Enos, piano. Biographies and additional information about the festival can be found at http://www.meetinghousemusic.org.
The festival continues with performances on Mondays through the end of July (July 22 and 29) at Church of the Holy Spirit, 204 Monument Road, Orleans, MA. On Sunday, July 14, the festival travels to 1717 Meetinghouse, 2049 Meetinghouse Way, West Barnstable, MA (same program as July 15).