REVIEW: Surprising SummerFest Concert Features International Selections and Women Composers

SummerFest’s Sunday matinee concert, Emergence, had more surprises emerge than originally planned. The July 27 program began with a single movement of a piano quartet written by famed symphony and song composer, Gustav Mahler, when he was a teenage student at the Vienna Conservatory. Although it was not filled with the drama and angst of his symphonies, it proved to be a well-crafted work with soulful themes, nicely executed by pianist Juho Pohjonen, violinist Jennifer Frautschi, violist Jonathan Vinocour and cellist Clive Greensmith.

The next two selections, originally listed as Chopin works and the Clarke Viola Sonata, to be performed by the Russian Pianist, Yulianna Avdeeva, 2010 first prize winner of the Chopin competition, required a substitute pianist. Avdeeva was not able to secure a visa to enter this country. Fortunately, however, the American pianist, Jeremy Denk, who performed a concert in Santa Barbara the night before, knew the Clarke Sonata and was able to drive down to San Diego to fill in for the missing Russian pianist.

Instead of the Chopin Nocturne and Mazurkas, he substituted four etudes by an unfamiliar woman composer, Helene de Montgeroult. They proved to be one of the major surprises of the afternoon. Although Montgeroult (1764-1836) lived during the French Revolution, her delightful etudes resembled later composers. The third etude sounded like a Mendelssohn Scherzo and the fourth one had the heft of a Beethoven sonata movement.

Montgeroult is said to have escaped the guillotine by improvising a variation of the “La Marseillaise” and she was the first woman to teach at the Paris Conservatory when it was established after the Revolution. With the Etudes of Montgeroult, and the Rebecca Clarke Sonata, two women composers were represented on the program.

The three movement Clarke Sonata was played with great passion and finesse by the violin/viola professor at USC’s Thornton School of Music, Yuri Lee. Denk did a fine job of collaborating in this dramatic work. It opened with a declamatory statement, followed by rhapsodic passages in the first movement. The Vivace second movement (order incorrectly stated on printed program) had an elf-like quality, while the final movement, an Adagio that then moved to an Allegro, came to a triumphant climax.

After intermission, Shostakovich’s Piano Quintet in G minor was beautifully played by pianist Steven Osborne, violinists Nathan Meltzer and Njioma Chinyere Previous, violist Matthew Lipman, and cellist Jonathan Swensen. The five-movement work opens with a Prelude, dominated by the piano. The second movement, Fugue, features muted strings entering one by one with a barely audible plaintive theme, mesmerizing as it weaves its fugal threads.

The third movement was a more raucous Scherzo followed by a melodious Intermezzo and ending with a Finale which draws to a quiet end. This piano quintet was written in 1940 and won the Stalin Prize. Although it has less of the acerbic qualities we often associate with Shostakovich’s music, it is most engaging, a favorite of audiences.

SummerFest continues through August 23. For more information on upcoming concerts and free rehearsals and coaching sessions, call: 858-459-3728 or go to their website: www.theconrad.org.