Portrait of the Chevalier de Saint-Georges (1781 painting by Alexandre-Auguste Robineau, from Wikimedia Commons, public domain)
Last night in Herbst Theater the PIVOT Festival, presented by San Francisco Performances and curated by the Catalyst Quartet, got under way. The theme of the festival is a continuation of the Uncovered series, which Catalyst curated last season. The members of the quartet are violinists Karla Donehew Perez and Abi Fayette (alternating in leading from first chair), violist Paul Laraia, and cellist Karlos Rodriguez. As was the case in last season’s Uncovered series, the Festival will also feature guest artists.
The first of those guest artists, pianist Anne-Marie McDermott, appeared in last night’s opening Festival offering. The program concluded with a performance of Amy Beach’s Opus 67 piano quintet in F-sharp minor, a composition I first got to know through performances at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music (SFCM). Beach completed her quintet in 1908, and it was given its first performance in Boston on February 20 of that year. However, I seem to recall an exhibit at the San Francisco Public Library, which documented her performance of the quintet here in San Francisco at a time when she was living off Alamo Square. Perez took first chair for last night’s performance; and I was pleasantly reminded of the quintet’s vast spectrum of dispositions, which I had first encountered at SFCM.
McDermott also appeared at the end of the first half of the program. She joined with Fayette and Rodriguez in a performance of Samuel Coleridge-Taylor’s piano trio in E minor. Coleridge-Taylor was featured in the first volume of Catalyst’s UNCOVERED series on Azica Records, released almost exactly two years ago. That album included his Opus 1, a piano quintet in G minor (with Steward Goodyear joining the Catalyst musicians). The trio predates that quintet and is one of Coleridge-Taylor’s earliest compositions. It consists of three short movements, resulting in less than ten minutes of music. One may say that the composer’s juices were just beginning to flow; but last night’s performance made it clear that this was no mere beginner’s effort.
The “spinal cord” for the entire Festival will be the six quartetto concertans composed by Joseph Bologne, Chevalier de Saint-Georges. These were given the title “Au gout du jour” (in contemporary taste). The first two began last night’s program.
Rodriguez suggested that Saint-George was the second composer of string quartets (after Joseph Haydn). Saint-George was definitely inspired by Haydn, but it would probably be fairer to say that he was the first composer whose quartets were first published in France. However, Saint-George’s quartets are all structured as two contrasting movements, rather than following Haydn’s four-movement architecture. Last night’s quartets were in the keys of B-flat major and G minor, respectively; and, while the selections were brief, they were thoroughly engaging to the attentive listener.
The second half of the program included a second trio offering, composed by Rebecca Clarke. Since Clarke was a violist, the instrumentation was for violin, viola, and piano, rather than that of the Coleridge-Taylor trio. Perez was the violinist for Clarke’s relatively short (but highly expressive) “Dumka.” This is a form of contrasting episodes that is usually associated with Antonín Dvořák, and Clarke was clearly inspired by that Czech composer.
Clarke’s selection was preceded by “Quarteto virreinal” (colonial quartet) by the Mexican composer Miguel Bernal Jimenez, who died of a heart attack at the age of 46 in 1956. Perez introduced this piece, observing that she associated some of the thematic material with her childhood. Where my own listening experiences are concerned, this was definitely the major “journey of discovery” over the course of the entire program. Hopefully, Jimenez will find his way into the UNCOVERED recording series. I could certainly do with further listening experiences!
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