2019 marks the twentieth anniversary of the Music in the Mishkan chamber music series presented by Music Director and violinist Randall Weiss. Performances feature Weiss and regularly appearing colleagues, all performing under the collective name The Bridge Players. In addition, since 2014 (unless I am mistaken) The Bridge Players have shared concert programming with Sharon Bernstein, Cantor of Congregation Sha’ar Zahav, whose building provides the venue for the concert series. Every season since then Bernstein has had a slot on one of the Music in the Mishkan programs at which she accompanies herself at the piano to present a fascinating selection of works from the repertoire of Yiddish song.
For as long as I have been following it, Music in the Mishkan has offered three concerts each season except for last year when only two concerts were presented. This year will see the return to the three-concert format. Program details are as follows:
February 3: This will be a trio recital with Weiss performing with pianist Marilyn Thompson and cellist Victoria Ehrlich. The program will be framed by two piano trios. It will open with Joaquín Turina’s Opus 76 (second) trio in B minor and conclude with Felix Mendelssohn’s Opus 49 (first) trio in D minor. Between these two selections there will be three duo performances, one of each of the ways to pair up the three performers. Two of these will be movements from Turina’s Opus 93 collection Las musas de Andalucía, with one movement for each of the nine Muses of Greek mythology. “Euterpe” is a duo for violin and piano, while “Polimnia” is scored for cello and piano. The final duo will be Zoltán Kodály’s three-movement Opus 7, scored for violin and cello.
March 24: This will be the program that features Bernstein. The title for her contribution this season will be Doubly Suppressed, Doubly Forgotten: Yiddish Songs from the Archives, and she will probably augment her performance with explanatory commentary. This offering will also be framed by two piano trios. In this case, however, the pianist will be Amy Zanrosso. The program will begin with Antonín Dvořák’s Opus 90 (fourth) trio in E minor, known as the “Dumky,” since all six movements are in the “dumka” form. The concluding selection will be Ludwig van Beethoven’s Opus 97 (“Archduke”) trio in B-flat major.
May 26: Thompson will return as pianist for a program that will consist almost entirely of piano trios. The concluding work will be Mendelssohn’s other piano trio, his Opus 66 in C minor. This will be preceded by one of the two compositions that Sergei Rachmaninoff entitled “Trio élégiaque.” My guess is that the trio will perform the earlier of the two, composed in the key of G minor in 1892 when Rachmaninoff was nineteen years old and never assigned an opus number. The logic behind my guess is that this is a single-movement composition, in contrast to the second trio in D minor, composed the following year but published as Opus 9. The program will begin with the four-movement Trio Miniatures suite by Paul Juon, all of whose movements were trio arrangements taken from either his Opus 18 solo piano suite or his four-hand Opus 24. Juon’s suite will be followed by Maurice Ravel’s sonata for violin and cello.
All three of these concerts will take place on a Sunday afternoon at 4 p.m. Congregation Sha’ar Zahav is located at 290 Dolores Street at the northwest corner of 16th Street. Tickets for the general public are $25, but members of Congregation Sha’ar Zahav will be admitted for $20. There is also a discounted rate for the three-concert series of $65 for general admission and $50 for members of the congregation. Tickets may be purchased in advance with a credit card by calling Congregation Sha’ar Zahav at 415-861-6932. [added 1/8, 9:10 a.m.: A Constant Contact Web page has now been created, which supports online purchase of both single tickets and subscriptions with payment by credit card or through PayPal. This Web page also allows for additional donations to Sha'ar Zahav.] A wine and cheese reception will follow each performance.
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