John Alexander’s "Serenade to Music" at the Segerstrom

John Alexander conducts the Pacific Chorale and Pacific Symphony Orchestra in his "final, final" concert with them.

REVIEW

Pacific Chorale, Renée and Henry Segerstrom Concert Hall, Costa Mesa

DAVID J BROWN

“Never say never again” could have been the subtitle to this concert. When he retired in 2017 after 45 years as Artistic Director and Conductor of the Pacific Chorale, Prof. John Alexander stated firmly that his final appearance of that 2016-2017 season, in which he conducted Vaughan Williams’ A Sea Symphony, would be his last on the Segerstrom Concert Hall’s podium. However… nearly a decade later, the Chorale’s present Music Director Dr. Robert Istad suggested that he could return once more to conduct their final concert of the 2025-2026 season and he agreed.

The program was to be entirely his choice, and how and why he came to make the selections he did (after acknowledging that his first preference, which would have been for Berlioz’s Grande Messe des Morts, was not possible on logistical grounds!) he explained in a fascinating conversation with his successor, fortunately preserved on YouTube.

It’s probably true to say that a choral/orchestral work has a smaller chance of being performed if it does not fill half, most, or all of an evening, as opposed to the many overtures, suites, and average-length concertos frequently played in purely orchestral concerts ahead of the big program-climaxing symphony. Alexander noted, however, that smaller choral works had always formed an essential part of his programming and here he had devised a sequence entirely of such pieces, with the overall aim of affirming how essential music is in life, coupled with poetry that expresses this.

Ralph Vaughan Williams, 1938.

His selection ranged over four centuries, but he began in 20th century England with the work whose title adumbrates this idea. Unsurprisingly, his account of Vaughan Williams’ Serenade to Music immediately confirmed his affinity with that composer—indeed, it made me sorry that I had not been around to hear that previous valedictory performance of the Sea Symphony, and indeed was now exceedingly unlikely to hear live any others of RVW’s choral masterworks (what price Sancta Civitas or the Five Tudor Portraits?).

His pliant shaping of the Serenade to Music’s substantial 30-measure orchestral introduction was rewarded with beautifully sensitive playing from the Pacific Symphony Orchestra—its string sections reduced by a desk or two as seems to be standard when performing with the Pacific Chorale—and radiant tone from Concertmaster Dennis Kim in the important solo violin part.

Vaughan Williams wrote his Serenade to Music in 1938 to celebrate the 50th anniversary of Sir Henry Wood’s London Promenade Concerts, scoring it for orchestra and 16 named soloists (4S-4A-4T-4B), with whom he recorded it. However, realizing that this was not the most practicable form for the piece in future performance, he made several arrangements: for chamber orchestra, for violin and orchestra, for choir and piano, and for choir (with or without SATB soloists) and orchestra. It was the latter which Maestro Alexander included, and it introduced the evening’s featured soloist, the soprano Elissa Johnston (right).

For a complete change of color and pace Alexander’s program moved to a pairing of his two Austrian favorites, Mozart from the 18th century and Bruckner from the 19th. If the Vaughan Williams had demonstrated the Pacific Chorale’s homogeneity and richness of tone, the last of Mozart’s three settings of Regina Coeli, K.276 (1779) showed that this large chorus could be just as unanimous and pungent in fast, dance-like music, swinging with jubilant relish into Mozart’s near quotes from Handel’s Hallelujah chorus. The work’s brief solo parts also gave moments in the sun for four Pacific Chorale members: Chelsea Chaves (soprano), I-Chin Betty Feinblatt (mezzo-soprano), Jason Francisco (tenor), and Michael Fagerstedt (bass).

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, 1777.

Then we throttled right down for the fifth, Laudate Dominum, movement from Mozart’s Solemn Vespers, K.339 (1780), in which Ms. Johnston scaled back her ample vocal powers to match the exquisite intimacy of the setting, accompanied by reduced strings which expanded to full strength for the choral second half of the piece.

More often than not recordings of Anton Bruckner’s unaccompanied choral works are made by relatively small choirs, and the Pacific Chorale’s account of his Ave Maria, WAB 6 (1861)—the only one of his three settings of the Ave Maria that is a cappella—was a welcome reminder of the increased breadth of dynamic and timbre that you can only get from a really substantial body of voices.

Anton Bruckner, 1894.

Then their full power was unleashed in Bruckner’s setting of Psalm 150, WAB 38 (1892), his last completed work but one, and as compact as it is granitic and intricately detailed. Indeed in this performance I felt that a little more rehearsal would have helped to nail its complex interactions between chorus and orchestra.

However, it was a joy to hear this rarely-performed masterpiece, not only for the massive impact of chorus and orchestra but also the delicious interplay between solo violin and soprano in the central section—played and sung by Mr. Kim and Ms. Johnston respectively with consummate artistry—and the only possible regret at the end of this first half was that more was not heard of Christoph Bull’s featured organ role, confined as it was to accompanying the two Mozart pieces. Bruckner’s Te Deum instead of Psalm 150 would have filled that particular bill, but sadly would have bulked out the program to an unacceptable degree.

The second half opened with John Alexander being honored (above) by Pacific Chorale Board Chair Julie Virjee with the title of Artistic Director Laureate, after which he took to the podium again to direct his next choice, Brahms’ Schicksalslied (Song of Destiny), Op.54 (1868-71).

Johannes Brahms, 1869.

Here the chorus and orchestra were as dreamily concordant in the first section—Brahms’ Langsam und sehnsuehtsvoll (Slow and wistful) evocation of Hölderlin’s vision of the “blessed spirits”’ celestial calm—as they were trenchant in the succeeding turbulent depiction of human suffering: nothing here of the slight uncertainty of ensemble that to my ears had been present in Psalm 150. The composer’s inspired orchestra-only postlude, recapitulating the work’s opening, was perfectly paced by the Pacific Symphony under Maestro Alexander.

John Alexander grouped the last three items of his "Serenade to Music" program together as the finale to what he had characterized in his conversation with Dr. Istad as a kind of “meta-symphony,” and indeed asked the audience to refrain from applause between each (would that more conductors would make that request for multi-movement works in any genre!).

Lili Boulanger, Rome, 1914.

At first sight the pairing of Lili Boulanger’s Soir sur la plaine (Evening on the plain)—with which in 1913 she became the first woman to win the Prix de Rome—with works composed nearly a century later by Frank Ticheli (b.1958) and Jake Heggie (b.1961), might have seemed a stretch, but the connection between them lay in performance history by the Pacific Chorale and Alexander as he had, in 2000, conducted the first performance of the newly edited original choral/orchestral version of the piece, as well as many by the two Americans.

The present account of Soir sur la plaine reaffirmed—if that were needed given the extent to which her genius has at last been recognized—that Boulanger’s ear for instrumental and vocal color, and harmonic richness and subtlety, was quite equal to that of her great French compatriots Debussy and Ravel. What she might have achieved had she lived beyond the age of 24 beggars imagination. As it was, the acutely sensitive and atmospheric performance of it by the Pacific Symphony and Chorale—joined again by Elissa Johnston and two more Chorale members, Jane Hyun-Jung Shim and Daniel Coy Babcock—was arguably the high point of the whole concert.

Frank Ticheli.

Ticheli’s There Will be Stars (2009) was the second a cappella work of the evening, its soft harmonic clashes and gently aspiring tranquility as rendered by the Pacific Chorale underlining the point about the singular qualities of a big chorus unaccompanied. It was brief enough to make one regret that the two even shorter movements that precede it, forming the triptych Constellation, could not have been included so as to place it in the context of the complete work.

Jake Heggie.

Finally, and expressively poles apart, came Jake Heggie’s Seeking Higher Ground: Bruce Springsteen Rocks New Orleans, April 30, 2006, which Pacific Chorale had commissioned for the opening of the Renée and Henry Segerstrom Concert Hall in 2006, the year following New Orleans’ Hurricane Katrina disaster.

For ideas Heggie had turned to his collaborator Sister Helen Prejean, librettist for his opera Dead Man Walking, who had lived through Katrina and its aftermath in the city. Despite the tragedy, it had been decided to press ahead with the 2006 New Orleans Jazz Festival, at which Bruce Springsteen performed (hence Heggie’s work’s subtitle) and the event became a defining moment in the city’s recovery.

Seeking Higher Ground adumbrates both the immediate horror of Katrina and the regenerative power of music via that Festival. In its sense of urgent engagement with contemporary tragedy, it brought to mind Tippett’s A Child of Our Time, an impression strengthened by both works’ resort to spirituals in their aspirational language. Fervently sung and played, it brought this celebratory event to a powerful end, and Maestro Alexander and his combined forces were greeted with a prolonged and cheering ovation. 

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Pacific Chorale, Renée and Henry Segerstrom Concert Hall, Costa Mesa, 7pm, Saturday, May 23, 2026.

Images: The performance: Jamie Pham; Vaughan Williams: Howard Coster, © National Portrait Gallery; Mozart, Bruckner, Brahms: Wikimedia Commons; Boulanger: Musée de la Musique, Philharmonie de Paris; Ticheli, Heggie: composers' websites.

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A Scintillating Mason House Season Finale

Tosca Opdam and Asi Matathias, violins, with Alin Melik-Adamyan (hidden) at the keyboard,
play Moritz Moszkowski’s Suite for Two Violins and Piano at Mason House.

REVIEW

Tosca Opdam and Friends play Moszkowski and Dvořák at Mason House

DAVID J BROWN

Two of the 19th century’s most luxuriantly-mustachioed compositional neglectees came out of the shadows during this year’s Mason House concerts. Back in April we had Ludwig Thuille’s Sextet for Piano and Woodwind Quintet, Op. 6 (reviewed here by John Stodder), and in the final concert of this 12th season of what is surely LA’s most intimate, impactful and welcoming chamber music series there was the Suite for Two Violins and Piano, Op. 71, by Moritz Moszkowski (1854-1925).

Moritz Moskowski.

Moszkowski’s Wikipedia page describes him as “a German-Polish composer, pianist, and teacher,” but his principal fame in life seems to have been as a performer and—as Dr. Kristi Brown-Montesano noted in her, as ever, witty and informative pre-concert talk—when illness necessitated his withdrawal from the concert platform, his star went into a permanent and ultimately tragic decline. Once rich and famous, he became mostly forgotten and destitute, the proceeds of a testimonial concert organized by friends and admirers failing to reach him before his death from stomach cancer.

However, Moszkowski was a composer of real substance. Some of his prolific output of solo piano pieces have kept his name modestly present in recital programs, but it’s only in recent years—mainly via the British record companies Toccata Classics and Hyperion—that his orchestral works have surfaced, mostly hugely enjoyable… and some also, frankly, really huge. Between these extremes, though, Moszkowski seems to have had little time for multi-movement chamber works which, if this performance of the Suite—a relatively late piece dating from 1903—was anything to go by, is a pity.

In the hands of the virtuoso spousal violinists Tosca Opdam (right, who has recorded host Todd Mason’s Violin Concerto) and Asi Matathias, visiting from their home in Amsterdam, and LA-based pianist Alin Melik-Adamyan, the Suite’s opening Allegro energico erupted from the starting-gate in a galvanizing display of unanimity and passion that continued to surge through the entire concise movement, dominated as it is by its exuberantly tumbling, many-time-repeated main theme.

The Suite has none of the prolixity that makes some of Moszkowski’s early orchestral works threaten to outstay their welcome. The second movement was a sweetly beguiling Allegro moderato replacing what would be the scherzo if the work aspired to sonata status, followed by a brief, romantic Lento assai. Then, to usher in the finale, a boogie-woogie piano intro led to a whirl of duetting and motifs being tossed back and forth between the violins before a presto coda for all three instruments brought this delicious discovery to an audience-cheering end.

After the interval—as always, not as brief as the host Todd Mason requested due to the conviviality fueled by resident caterer Ethel Phipps’ delicious food—it was back for the second half, again a single work, and this time Antonín Dvořák’s Piano Quintet No. 2 in A major, Op. 81, in which Opdam, Matathias, and Melik-Adamyan were joined by two luminaries from LA’s illustrious musical community—both familiar from previous Mason House recitals—Carson Rick (viola), and Cécilia Tsan (cello).

Dvořák was as prodigious in his output of chamber music as Moszkowski was parsimonious, and amongst this richly varied landscape of works the Second Piano Quintet, written in 1887 between the Seventh and Eighth Symphonies, stands as a peak in its memorability, breadth and variety of expression, second only perhaps to the magisterial Piano Trio No. 3 in F minor.

Antonin Dvořák, 1882.

By now it was only reasonable to anticipate that this would be an exceptional performance, but even so the sheer coherence and unanimity of this group of five performers, who sounded as if they had been playing together for years rather than having come together for the first time for this evening, was quite remarkable.

If there was a regret, it was that they omitted to make the marked first movement exposition repeat, if only because it deprived us of hearing for a second time the fathoms-deep richness of Ms. Tsan’s cello as, over a gently rocking piano accompaniment, the solo instrument lays out Dvořák’s spacious and deeply felt opening theme—the immediate juxtaposition of which with vigorous action from all five instruments immediately making clear the range of expressive territory that the work will explore.

“Tosca Opdam and friends” indeed proved masters of every mood and motion within this masterpiece. Their playing of the second, Dumka, movement—an extraordinarily original structure that is so much more than just a “slow movement”—encompassed every facet of its elaboration and many changes of pace. Dvořák’s masterly sense of proportion doesn’t fail him, with the latter two movements notably concise after the complexity of their predecessors. The Scherzo (Furiant) was as fleet and airborne as anyone could wish, and the group had ample energy left for the vigorous Allegro finale.

l-r: Todd Mason, Alin Melik-Adamyan, Tosca Opdam, Asi Matathias, Cécilia Tsan, Carson Rick.

This rivetingly engaged performance of the great work was hailed by everyone in Mason’s packed concert room, and it was good to be reminded that Tosca Opdam, Asi Matathias, Carson Rick and Cécilia Tsan, together with pianist Zachary Deak, could be heard again in a week’s time at the first of this year’s “Sunday Afternoon Concerts in the Dome” at Mount Wilson Observatory, the series as ever under Ms. Tsan's curatorship as Artistic Director.

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Mason House Concert, 3484 Redwood Ave., Mar Vista, CA 90066, 6:00 p.m., Saturday, May 16, 2026.

Images: The performance: Todd Mason; Moszkowski and Dvořák: Wikimedia Commons.

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Schubert’s Second Piano Trio at Rolling Hills

The Felici Piano Trio, l-r: Rebecca Hang, Steven Vanhauwaert, Brian Schuldt.

REVIEW

The Felici Piano Trio, Second Sundays at Two, Rolling Hills United Methodist Church

BARBARA GLAZER

The recital of Schubert’s Piano Trio No.2 in E-flat major, Op. 100, D 929 (1827) by the acclaimed Felici Trio (pianist, Steven Vanhauwaert; violinist, Rebecca Hang; cellist, Brian Schuldt) in the Classical Crossroads series, was one of technical perfection and exquisite instrumental interplay rarely achieved in performances of this symphonically-scaled masterpiece. It is well worth a repeat viewing on Jim Eninger's excellent video.

Some background

Franz Schubert, by Wilhelm August Rieder, 1825.

Of the great Classical musicians, Mozart, Haydn, and Beethoven all moved to Vienna, but Schubert was the only one born and raised in that cosmopolitan city. At eight, he began violin studies with his father and shortly after the piano with his brother, whom he rapidly surpassed; at 11 he was a student, and member of the second violins in the prestigious Stadtkonvikt in Vienna, where he was exposed to the music of the masters and particularly enthralled with Beethoven, who had an indelible influence on the young composer's work. (The teenage Schubert even sold his books for the price of admission to Fidelio).

Beethoven and Schubert lived in Vienna at the same time, but seem not to have been personally acquainted. However, it was a relationship that was mutually appreciative, if impersonal: with his nephew Karl, Beethoven enjoyed playing Schubert's Eight Variations on a French Theme, which Schubert dedicated to Beethoven with the flattering inscription "from his Worshipper and Admirer, Franz Schubert"; and a month before Beethoven died he read through 60 of Schubert's lieder manuscripts, shown him by the publisher, Anton Schindler, and with evident enjoyment said "truly, the divine spark dwells in this Schubert.”

Schubert's grave.

In death they are also entwined: Beethoven died on March 26, 1827, and was interred three days later in Währing cemetery in a funeral attended by over 10,000 people. Schubert was one of the 30 torchbearers. On his deathbed, he requested a performance of Beethoven's String Quartet No. 14 which Schubert acknowledged as the pinnacle of musical art, saying "after this, what is left for us to write?"

He died on November 19, 1828, and two days later his father honored his son's request for burial at Währing cemetery, next to Beethoven—the nearest site was three places apart. Although the funeral was subdued, attended only by family and friends, Schubert's brother arranged a torchlight parade, traditional for composers.

In 1888, Beethoven and Schubert were both reinterred in the Zentralfriedhof (Central cemetery) in Vienna where they now lie side by side (Brahms is nearby). The poet Grillparzer's words are inscribed on Schubert's tombstone: “The Art of Music has buried here a rich possession, but even far fairer hopes"; Beethoven's tombstone is a simple white pyramid shaped monument, inscribed with only his name BEETHOVEN (right), decorated with a gold cross and surrounding laurel wreaths. To visit was very emotional.

The answer to Schubert's question "what is left for us to write?" (after Beethoven) is "plenty!" Schubert was one of the most prolific 19th century composers, and despite his youth wrote music of remarkable maturity. In addition to over 600 lieder, he composed 10 dramatic works, seven complete symphonies plus the famous “Unfinished,” chamber music, solo piano works, six mass settings, and countless incomplete pieces. Little known to the general public during his lifetime, his works through the praise and performances of Schumann and Brahms was rescued from obscurity to become jewels in the classical canon—even the harmonic inspiration for some of the popular work of the Beatles.

The work

Schubert’s Piano Trio No. 2 has a different sensibility from his lyrical First Piano Trio (not performed in his lifetime). Written eight months after Beethoven's death, it sounds like a homage, with multiple references to that musical Titan, and was first performed at a private party on January 28, 1828. It formed the centerpiece of Schubert's only solo public concert, on March 26, 1828, a date chosen to mark the first anniversary of Beethoven’s death. As Schubert was not a virtuoso pianist (or violinist), he engaged his good friends and renowned solo performers Carl Maria von Brocket (piano), Ignaz Schuppanzigh (violin), and Josef Linke (cello) to play it at both events.

Ignaz Schuppanzigh
(1776-1830).

Schubert did accompany the songs on the program, including Auf Dem Strom, D. 943 (“On the river”) which quotes the funeral march from Beethoven's Eroica. It is a melancholy song of farewell—most believe referencing Beethoven—with the piano triplets' rhythm imitating the constant flow of the river taking one further and further from the shore (and the adored one) and the vocal line expressing sadness, and longing for an irretrievable loss.

Josef Linke (1783-1837).

The 1828 subscription concert was a significant financial and artistic success for Schubert, and enhanced his status beyond that of an admired lieder composer. Shortly after Beethoven's death there had been concerts pairing his and Schubert's works—the first on April 15, 1827, by Schuppanzigh and his chamber ensemble, which perhaps answered the question posed at Beethoven's funeral in Grillparzer's eulogy: "Who shall stand beside him?" This concert included the first public performance of Schubert's Octet in F Major, followed by a transcription of Beethoven's Emperor Concerto.

Schubert's Piano Trio No. 2 references Beethoven's compositional structures in many ways, but these are not just imitated, they are a catalyst to Schubert's own musical vision and unique expressive genius. A brief overview of these structures includes his use of the keys of E-flat major (which Beethoven described as heroic and used for the Eroica, which is quoted in Schubert’s first movement), and C minor—said to be Beethoven's favorite key—in the second movement, the heart and soul of the Trio.

Franz Grillparzer (1791-1872).

Schubert also adopted Beethoven's motivic compositional technique, where a small musical idea or motif (a “cell,” a few notes, a gesture, an octave leap) is used in various ways (repetition, changing pitch or rhythm, inversion, augmentation, fragmentation) to create a cohesive, comprehensible structure.

Schubert was influenced by Beethoven's prolific use of the dactylic rhythmic mode—the dotted long-short-short—and this became a hallmark of his later works (e.g. signifying fate in his String Quartet No.14,”Death and the Maiden”). This gives the E-flat major Trio an intense and often march-like rhythmic energy, especially in the Scherzo and the main theme of the rondo finale.

Very importantly, the Second Piano Trio borrows the “circular” structure much favored by Beethoven, in which thematic material from one movement returns later. Here the C minor main theme from the second movement recurs in the finale, but in its triumphant conclusion transposed to E-flat major, the Trio’s home key—as Beethoven used memorably in the Fifth Symphony, where the C minor first movement's theme returns in the finale, transformed to C Major.

The performance

The Second Piano Trio is a four-movement, monumental, expansive masterpiece of chamber music which balances dramatic, dark intensity with lyric beauty and emotional depth. The first movement, Allegro, is in sonata form, with one of the opening themes based on the theme of the Minuet from Schubert's Piano Sonata No. 18 in G major. The exuberant rising opening arpeggios, a motif used throughout the movement, as played by Steven Vanhauwaert were just gorgeous, and the melodic interplay between the piano, Rebecca Hang’s violin, and Brian Schuldt’s cello was stunning.

Schubert sometimes drew on songs for themes in larger works—and normally his own—but in the Andante con moto second movement he used a Swedish folk song, Se Solen Sjunker (The sun is setting), that deeply impressed him when he first heard it at a private party given by some friends. How Schubert deploys it is a mark of his genius. Its lyrics are not funereal, but a sort of quiet reverie, expressing scenes at day's end: the sun setting, forest creatures at rest, evening stillness, light rain on roofs, etc. But Schubert disregards all this and makes it a tragic, deeply emotional dirge, a funeral march with a relentless piano pulse and a singing melodic line in the cello, superbly played by Schuldt.

Stanley Kubrick's Barry Lyndon.

This music has been used in many films, most famously in Stanley Kubrick’s Barry Lyndon (click image right) as a motif underlining scenes of great gravity, tragic loss, and impending doom, as when Lady Lyndon ruefully assesses her unfortunate marriage to the Irish rake Barry, the fortunes of whom are imploding.

This movement is written in an asymmetrical double ternary form: a mouthful for a complex ABA structure where each section has its own subdivisions, but not equal or balanced in length as in a simple or compound ABA form. It's brilliant—the melancholic march section oscillates with an intensely passionate section, and the Felici players earned laurels for their performance.

The Scherzo, marked Allegro moderato, is in a double ternary form—an expansion of the standard ABA structure where each of the three large sections contains a separate, smaller musical form, typically used for scherzos and minuets. The fast, playful tempo of the Scherzo—with the piano dominating in setting a lively and witty tone, beautifully played by Vanhauwaert—introduces the main melodic material and drives the brisk dance-like energy. This contrasts with the lyrical, slower Trio, where Hang and Schuldt delineated to perfection the sudden harmonic shifts.

The sonata rondo fourth movement, Allegro moderato, is fascinating, and has three thematic centers, typical of late Schubert. The first is a "skolie" (Greek for a drinking song) , with a theme of "make hay while the sun shines." Schubert wrote more than one song with this title, and scholars differ as to which he used here, but Alfred (not Albert) Einstein, the well-respected Schubert biographer, identifies it as Skolie, D 306 (1815).

The next section, in duple time (two beats to the bar, with a strong/weak pulse, ideal for marches and dances) has a Hungarian gypsy flavor, while the last comprises two returns of the Andante's Swedish theme, the final one transformed from C minor to the Trio's home key of E-flat major. But this is the revised finale—originally the Swedish theme returned three times, the second in a fugal counterpoint with other material from the movement, which Schubert cut.

A page from Schubert's manuscript of the Piano Trio No. 2.

On the urging of his professional musical friends, especially pianist Carl Maria Brocket and publisher, Heinrich Probst, Schubert worked on several revisions to address their legitimate concerns that the fourth movement was too long (20 minutes), too repetitive, too “sprawling"—with highly complex harmonic detours and some experimental counterpoint (using the Swedish theme) not well integrated into the music. From a publisher's point of view, the Trio in its original form was not marketable.

Schubert's death mask.

By November 1828, a few weeks before he died, Schubert completed the final revision, and sent it to Probst with the instructions that it be published, and played, exactly as now revised. To reduce the finale’s length and make it a more coherent, Schubert made significant and extended cuts to the development section, removed the exposition repeat, altered the used of the Andante’s Swedish theme, and added some bridge material between passages to make the movement structurally more sound.

Surprisingly, despite Schubert's wishes, in the late 1860s Brahms published the uncut version of the Second Piano Trio, and the relatively recent re-publication in 1975 encouraged a cottage industry of uncut performances, even by the estimable Andras Schiff, who in his magnificent series on Beethoven's 32 piano sonatas cautions performers to adhere strictly to the composer's wishes—even to the daunting tempi of the Hammerklavier Sonata.

While earlier versions of a piece of music or the under-painting of a famous artwork are of academic interest, it's the finished canvas of a Leonardo, the final version of a Schubert—not the under-paintings, nor, say, any of Beethoven’s earlier tries before his final glorious version of the Fifth Symphony—that have pride of place, and for this I thank the Felici for playing the version of the E-flat major Piano Trio that Schubert stipulated, which they performed superbly. 

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Second Sundays at Two, Rolling Hills United Methodist Reform Church, Sunday, April 12, 2026, 2:00 p.m.

Images: The performance: Artists' website, Classical Crossroads, Inc.; Historical portraits and composer graves: Wikimedia Commons; Schubert manuscript: www.omifacsimiles.com/.

The LA Wind Sextet Return to Mason House

REVIEW

The Los Angeles Wind Sextet play Bach, Thuille, Kreutzer, and Gershwin

JOHN STODDER

One of the many pleasures of attending Mason House concerts is the intimate connection between the audience and the musicians that share the living room. In addition to listening to expertly performed pieces from the classical and modern chamber music repertoire, you get something extra from being able to watch the musicians at such proximity. The connection between them and the audience was especially vital at this concert.

Proof of life

If you’re a fan of serious music, a wind ensemble sounds like something fun and different from most chamber music, which tends to lean toward strings and piano. I remember at about age 14 falling in love with a recording of Stravinsky’s Octet for Wind Instruments, because it had such an unusual sound. This concert helped me to understand more fully what a unique place small wind ensembles occupy in classical music—the collective and conscientious labor of love required for the players of these disparate instruments to fuse their collaboration together.

Each wind instrument has a distinct construction, technique, and centuries of history that must be bridged with the others, which have equally thorny issues, to create an ensemble sound. The LA Wind Sextet features two instruments with double reeds, one with a single reed, one brass instrument, and a flute.

l-r: Judith Farmer, bassoon; Susan Greenberg, flute; Amy Jo Rhine, horn; Burt Hara, clarinet;
Jonathan Davis, oboe; Kevin Fitz-Gerald, piano.

Each performer uses a different tool in a different way, most of them radically unlike one another. The horn player, performing on the only brass instrument in a traditional wind quintet, buzzes their lips against the mouthpiece as they blow; the double reed players induce two small pieces of cane to vibrate against each other in just the right way; the clarinetist must blow down his stick-like instrument to make a wooden reed oscillate against the mouthpiece; while the flautist directs an airstream across an opening so that it strikes one edge just hard enough to fill the room with beautiful sound.

Playing wind instruments is the ultimate proof of life. As flautist Susan Greenberg explained during an invaluable post-concert Q&A, she must breathe twice as hard as the other wind players to be as loud as they are, because only half of her air goes into the instrument. Finally, all five of the wind instruments could fit inside the sixth member of this particular sextet: a grand piano with its felt-covered hammers and taut metal strings. Imagine the challenge of balancing all of this in live performance, with each player occupying their own island of unique factors to deal with.

Gershwin like never before

The highlight of this terrific concert was the final piece. I’ve heard Rhapsody in Blue in concert a few times, but never before able to watch, from 10 feet away, a clarinetist (Burt Hara) prepare to play the opening glissando—literally readying himself to launch the five greatest seconds of American music ever written. He wiped the inside of his instrument with what looked like a silk cloth, filled his lungs with air, tapped his music stand, adjusted how he was sitting, and waggled his fingers to loosen them for an extended musical journey. Hara’s an easygoing, witty performer, but was suddenly in motion agitating to unleash, abruptly and loudly, what George Gershwin called the “wail” that opens the piece.

Gershwin by Miguel Covarrubias, 1925.

Watching and hearing the LA Wind Sextet perform it in a small room was an unforgettable experience. It belongs on your bucket list if you love American music: Leonard Bernstein, Aaron Copland, Duke Ellington… be jealous! Even though there were only six instruments, I’ve never heard Rhapsody in Blue louder, nor have the work’s details and nuances ever manifested more clearly.

I would never have thought to apply “less is more” to this ambitious piece, but with the individual voices playing key passages in groups of two and three, Gershwin’s harmonic writing never sounded so clear, brilliant, and yet in some ways unfamiliar. The five wind players —in addition to Hara and Greenberg, we heard Jonathan Davis on oboe, Judith Farmer on bassoon and Amy Jo Rhine on horn—were mesmerizing.

However, the real star of the Gershwin was pianist Kevin Fitz-Gerald, because Rhapsody in Blue is in effect a piano concerto, a dialogue between soloist and orchestra. Fitz-Gerald’s way was not to dominate the piece, but to adopt a hybrid approach, playing solo passages like a headliner, then dropping back into the chamber music web when the score allowed him to make aural space for his ensemble-mates, then re-emerging with the force of thunder.

A mighty fortress

Medieval manuscript copy of Ein feste Burg.

The concert opened with a piece based on a song I recall singing in my elementary school choir, in the years before religious music was forbidden because it was, in effect, prayer in the school: Ein feste Burg ist unser Gott. Sung in English, it was known as “A Mighty Fortress is Our God.”

Based on a composition from the 1520s, attributed to Martin Luther and referred to by Lutherans as “The Battle Hymn of the Reformation,” in around 1707 J. S. Bach turned it into a chorale prelude for organ (BWV 720) that is less martial and more ethereal. The piece began with a statement of that instantly familiar theme on bassoon by Farmer, but the solo diverts from it almost immediately and is joined by the other instruments in a series of duet and trio variations, through which fragments of the melody float like ghosts. The elegant orchestration for wind quintet was by Mordechai Rechtman, himself a bassoonist and leader of the Israel Woodwind Quintet.

Introducing Thuille and Kreutzer

The next two pieces, that straddled the intermission, were by composers with whom I was not familiar, Ludwig Wilhelm Andreas Maria Thuille from Austria (1861-1907) and the German Conradin Kreutzer (1780-1849). They were both significant German-speaking composers who contributed to the development of romantic music, albeit from different timelines.

Kreutzer was a transitional figure from Classicism to early Romanticism, his music reflecting the simple melodic emphasis of that period, and most known for his songs and operas, particularly A Night in Granada, a Romantic opera about a prince and a peasant girl. Thuille, born 12 years after Kreutzer’s death, reflected the changes in Romantic music as the 19th century unfolded. Like many composers of his generation, he was influenced by Johannes Brahms, as well as by his lifelong friend Richard Strauss, and by the greater complexity of the late Romantics. Thuille wrote in many genres, including opera, but is most highly regarded now for his chamber music.

Ludwig Thuille.

His most celebrated work is the one we heard at Mason House, his Sextet for piano and woodwind quintet, Op. 6; Strauss was said to be instrumental in getting it premiered in 1888. At least 10 recordings exist on streaming media, and it is a popular choice for wind ensembles. Indeed, this concert was the second time this buried classic of late Romanticism has been featured at Mason House.

What struck me this time was how radically its mood shifts. Thuille begins it one way but ends it very differently. The 10-minute-long first movement is noble in feeling, a Beethovenian narrative in tribute to a conquering hero. As with the Gershwin arrangement, the ensemble seemed bigger than just six players, almost orchestral. The instruments paired up to create a large palette of effects, for example Rhine’s horn and Farmer’s bassoon blending in what sounded like a royal procession. The Larghetto, almost as long, slows the pace but seems otherwise a continuation of the first movement’s stately, unhurried style, the main difference being the pianist’s greater prominence, as well as several achingly beautiful horn passages.

Things change quite a bit with the third movement Gavotte, which opens with a more animated theme first on oboe and then passed around the winds before settling on the piano. The movement gradually gains momentum and becomes quite magical, like a music box or a cuckoo clock. Whereas the first two movements struck me as formal, this one was mock-formal, as if children had snuck on the stage to make fun of their elders’ stiffness.

The finale is even livelier—light and airy and a world away from the first movement’s solemnity—and characterized by ensemble play and only brief solo passages, as the musicians seemed to relax and enjoy the faster pace as a kind of liberation dance. This last movement was one of the better opportunities in the concert for the LA Wind Sextet members to flash their virtuoso skills.

Conradin Kreutzer.

As Kreutzer’s Trio in E-flat major for clarinet, bassoon and piano, Op. 43, began, we were brought back into a more formal mood. With only three instruments instead of six, the performers (Hara, Farmer, and Fitz-Gerald) each had more room to make their impressions on the listeners—and repeatedly rose to the occasion. In contrast with Thuille, Kreutzer’s composition looked back, recalling Haydn or early Beethoven, adhering to the Classical aesthetic.

The second movement, Andante grazioso, was gorgeous, highlighting Hara’s rich tone on clarinet, contrasted at times with the lower registers of the bassoon for a pleasing effect. The third movement was the dessert. The trio left behind the deliberate pace of the first two movements and gave us music played with increasing energy and theatricality, including three false endings. After the second one, I wrote in my notebook, “Fun, fun, fun.” It’s a charming piece that doesn’t deserve its obscurity.

Judith Farmer, Burt Hara, and Kevin Fitz-Gerald play
Kreutzer’s Trio, Op. 43.

What we learned

The performers are all expert musicians but also charming people with senses of humor, which they displayed during the closing Q&A. Another feature was the pre-concert talk by LA Opus Managing Editor, David Brown (below), an English-born amateur classical music scholar whose erudition and research prowess gave the audience vital context for understanding the concert and the compositions, especially helpful in preparing us to hear Thuille and Kreutzer.

In his talk Brown admitted that in the past the British music community had “pigeonholed Gershwin as a writer of popular music.” Of course he was—with his brother Ira one of the most revered Broadway songwriting teams, who composed standards like Fascinating Rhythm, The Man I Love, and I Got Rhythm for hit shows in the 1920s and 1930s.

However, his success in that field had meant to earlier generations of British classical buffs that Gershwin “was not to be taken seriously as a composer for the concert hall or the opera house. It took me emigrating to America to realize not only that Gershwin is cherished here as an absolutely central figure in 20th century American music, but also that the division between ‘popular’ and ‘classical’—or as I’d rather call it, concert music— is nowhere near as pronounced here as it is in Britain or in continental Europe.”

Jazz bandleader Albert Ayler famously said, “Music is the healing force of the universe.” Maybe that quote comes to mind because Ayler was also a wind player (tenor saxophone), like the LA Wind Sextet breathing life into music. The Mason House concerts now regularly sell out, and there has clearly been a lot of audience turnover, with more attendees encouraged by the publicity and word-of-mouth the series has enjoyed lately to venture from their homes to hear music at its finest. We began this concert as mostly strangers, but you could feel it: this concert created a bond. Great music is how we will get through all this.

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Mason Home Concerts, 3484 Redwood Ave., Mar Vista, CA 90066, Saturday, April 18, 2026,, 6:00 p.m.

Images: The performance: Todd Mason; Gershwin, Ein feste Burg manuscript, Thuille, Kreutzer: Wikimedia Commons.

World’s Favorite Opera Closes Seattle Opera Season

Dress rehearsal of Bizet's Carmen at Seattle Opera.

REVIEW

Carmen, Seattle Opera, McCaw Hall, Seattle Center

ERICA MINER

Georges Bizet in 1875, the year of
Carmen's premiere and his own death.

With tunes almost everyone can recognize, Bizet’s Carmen is universally accepted as the most popular opera of all time. Not so well known is that the composer virtually died of disappointment after the third performance, convinced that the flop he had created would never be a success, though it triumphed soon afterward. Sadly, he did not live to realize his accomplishment, but we all are fortunate to continue enjoying this immortal opera, and likely will do so for years to come.

Based on French author Prosper Mérimée’s scandalous novella of the same name, Bizet and his librettists Henri Meilhac and Ludovic Halévy created a multi-layered anti-heroine title character and her nemesis in the context of a vibrant setting. Co-produced with Irish National Opera and Opera Philadelphia, Seattle’s Carmen, with its flamboyantly portrayed characters and colorful background, fulfilled the most crowd-pleasing elements of the work. A pre-performance Flamenco trio of singer, guitarist and dancer performing in the McCaw Hall lobby set the mood for the Spanish-flavored evening.

Sasha Cooke as Carmen.

The former Seattle Opera Young Artist Sasha Cooke, returning to Seattle after a decade-long hiatus, made a noteworthy role debut in a title part that  demands huge resilience and fortitude. Not only was she vocally dazzling, bursting forth with full, lush tones, but she also brought much thought to the complexity of the character: sensual but freedom-loving, unfathomable and shrewd, yet filled with inner turmoil.

Matthew Cairns as Don José.

In the other leading roles were three Seattle Opera debuts, among them Canadian tenor Matthew Cairns as Don José. He sang with great power, enough to be heard above the dense orchestration. Though Cairns' voice sounded rather strident at times, he gave the role a convincing rendering, his pleading tones being especially strong in the tragic dénouement of Act 4.

Christian Pursell as Escamillo.

Escamillo, as sung by the American bass-baritone Christian Pursell, was one of the best in recent memory. Vocally, Pursell lacked nothing: consistent in all ranges, with gorgeous tones and effortless top notes. He was the embodiment of virility, entirely convincing as the drop-dead gorgeous, danger-craving hero rock star who would bring any red-blooded woman to her knees.

Kathleen O’Mara gave a touching performance as the faithful Micaëla. The young American soprano’s voice was soubrette-like in the appropriate places, full-bodied in others, and exceedingly well-defined in the high notes. As she matures, she will be a bright light on the opera stage.

Also making company debuts were Armenian baritone Navasard Hakobyan as El Dancairo, tenor Daniel O’Hearn as Remendado, and soprano Meredith Wohlgemuth as Frasquita. Returning to Seattle Opera were American baritone Darren Drone as Zuniga, baritone Ilya Silchukou as Moralès, and mezzo-soprano Melody Wilson as Mercédès. Wohlgemuth was especially enjoyable in her major moments, with high notes that were clear and sparkling. All of the singers were admirable, both vocally and dramatically.

Kathleen O'Mara as Micaëla.

Seattle Symphony Conductor Emeritus Ludovic Morlot, helming his first fully staged production since Wagner’s Das Rheingold in 2023, brought his characteristic French sensitivity to the podium. Greeted with roars of approval from both orchestra and audience, the much-loved maestro fulfilled their endorsement with an interpretation that was at once suave and high energy, bringing forth crisp playing from his Seattle Symphony musicians and creating an atmosphere dripping with sophistication and élan. One could sit back and luxuriate in this assuredly authentic rendering of Bizet’s luminous score.

Ludovic Morlot.

Acclaimed for his original Seattle Opera debut in this production in 2019, Scottish stage director and choreographer Paul Curran demonstrated his vitality and keen understanding of singers and dancers, giving them movements and gestures that remained dynamic throughout the evening. He added details that kept the stage activity energetic and constantly moving and provided numerous surprise and appealing moments: Carmen’s final act of defiance at the end of Act 1 (no spoiler alerts here!), the rapt expression on the children’s faces as they gazed at their Toreador hero, and more.

Paul Curran.

The chorus movements provided ongoing interest, yet were never distracting. The violence, enhanced by Fight Director Geoffrey Alm’s compelling combats and skirmishes, was shocking but not unseemly or out of context. In his alluring and creative choreography, Curran was able to capitalize on the talents of a small but outstanding troupe of dancers, all of whom performed impressively. There was not a single dramatically slow moment in the entire performance.

Gary McCann’s sets and costumes and Paul Hackenmueller’s lighting designs, were striking and attention-grabbing and succeeded in making the more contemporary than traditional setting believable.

Carmen is a heavy lift for the chorus, and Chorus Master Michaella Calzaretta delivered her customary high standards, making the most of the ensemble’s prominent moments. Especially noteworthy was the declaration À deux cuartos! that begins Act 4 which, generally difficult to discern, came across as extremely understandable and resonant. Youth Chorus Master Julia Meyering did an exceptional job with the children (below), who sang with excellent projection and rousing enthusiasm. The production continues until May 17 at McCaw Hall. Information and tickets at: https://www.seattleopera.org/carmen/.

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McCaw Hall, 321 Mercer Street, Seattle Center, Seattle, WA 98109, 7:30 p.m., Saturday, May 2, 2026.

Images: Bizet: Wikimedia Commons; Production photos: Sunny Martini; Ludovic Morlot: Lisa Marie Mazzucco; Paul Curran: artist website.