Music Review: Verão Clássico Festival Academica 2023, Concerto MasterFest

As part of the summer workshop for young musicians Verão Clássico, members of the international professional faculty present four concerts, this year all of them in the acoustically and visually beautiful Coach Museum Hall. The initial concert on July 18 apparently had to be reconfigured at the last moment because of the illness of the featured soprano soloist. Inserted instead were the early Mahler Piano Quartet and a Richard Strauss song for soprano Ana-Camelia Stefanescu. The benefit of this reconfiguration was ending the concert with the magnificent Schumann Piano Quintet, one of the best chamber pieces in the literature. Overall, the concert was beautifully performed and invigorating.

The Mahler Piano Quartet is a rarity, composed when he was only 15-16 and still finding his way. There are bits of Brahms and Liszt audible, and a couple passages reminiscent of the later symphonies, but mostly some nice undifferentiated romantic music by an avid student studying the masters for inspiration. The four players performed the piece with great commitment, treating the piece as a masterwork, not as a student effort. Strauss’ song “Morgen” was lushly performed and reminiscent of his Four Last Songs, but the wide vibrato of the soprano was a bit much for such a delicate song.

The rather strange Lachrymae, Reflections on a Song by John Dowland, written for viola and piano in 1950 by Benjamin Britten, was well titled. We hear a song by the Renaissance composer Dowland at the very end of the piece, performed in appropriately vibrato-less early music style by the fine violist Lars Anders Tomter. Before that ending, however, we hear Britten’s “reflections” on the piece..not really recognizable thematic variations, but a highly varied series of modernist short episodes, some in 12 tone style. It made for an intriguing if not compelling piece, and I breathed with satisfaction when we finally heard the composter’s inspiration at the end.

The highlight of the concert was the Schumann Piano Quintet (1842), superbly performed by pianist Filipe Pinto-Ribeiro, violins Viviane Hagner and Stephan Picard, viola Lars Anders Tomerand, and cello Pieter Wispelwey. This is one of Schumann’s best efforts, full of his wacky unlikely musical diversions, but always under control and well integrated, unlike some of his later works composed when his schizophrenia acted up. I kept smiling during this well-paced and interpreted performance, which always communicated a sense of invention and surprise, despite the piece’s familiarity. Unlike the later Brahms Piano Quintet, Schumann does not fall into the trap of overly thick textures in pairing a piano with a string quartet, and this ensemble conveyed the transparent counterpoint and inner voices really well. I especially enjoyed the rollicking scherzo and the wonderful fuge in the finale that integrates themes of the last and first movements. The audience, excited, called the performers back for three bows at the end of this excellent concert. Upcoming are concerts featuring Schubert, Mozart, and Dvořák.