Music Of Deep Feeling Thrills Big Mount Wilson Crowd

Ambroise Aubrun (violin), Kate Hamilton (viola), and Allan Hon and Cécilia Tsan (cellos), play Arensky's String Quartet No. 2 in the 100-inch Telescope Dome at Mount Wilson Observatory. 

REVIEW

"Strings Attached!" Mount Wilson Observatory

JOHN STODDER

What a success Artistic Director Cécilia Tsan is having with the Mount Wilson Observatory’s “Sunday Afternoon Concerts in the Dome.” The September program, “Strings Attached!,” comprising works by Franz Schubert, Todd Mason, and Anton Arensky, and performed by four superb musicians including herself, was an uncompromising artistic treat that drew a sold-out audience to the great telescope dome. A rollicking crowd, larger than any I’ve seen in this building, occupied all the seats arrayed to each side of the small raised stage, filling almost half of the "Life Savers"-shaped mezzanine that surrounds the blue "Erector Set"-like mounting for the Hooker telescope towering in the center.

They were a perfect audience for what Tsan and Mount Wilson had to offer:

• Virtuoso string performances reverberating through the 100-inch Telescope Dome’s magical acoustics; 

• Three compositions that shared similar qualities—emotional richness, musical intricacy, stirring moments;

• A 360-degree spin inside the Observatory on its rotating floor; 

• Then, for those who lingered after the music ended, another 360-degree spin around the Observatory, this time in the dark, to experience an “immersive video work” by Rebeca Méndez.

An outdoor wine reception (above) in 95-degree heat between the two performances of the same program also enhanced the mood, making this not just a great concert but a good time had by all, a summer jam for an arts crowd.

Schubert at the piano, as visioned
by Gustav Klimt in 1899.

The first work—the only completed movement of Schubert’s String Trio in B-flat Major, D. 471 (1816)—was charming and nostalgic, an end-of summer farewell full of feeling. The primary voice through most of it was violinist Ambroise Aubrun, and he gave the relaxed performance of a seasoned raconteur. 

With Kate Hamilton (viola) and Ms. Tsan on cello, the three musicians together were like streams flowing into a stately river. Each plays frequently in chamber and symphony concerts throughout Southern California, often together, so they have the perfect kind of familiarity with each other to convey the conversational qualities of this piece.

The Schubert was a little bit like that last glass of wine that would have been nice to bring upstairs if you could sneak it past the docents. His music put the audience in the mood to listen, ready to absorb the chromatic harmonies and galloping rhythms that framed Todd Mason’s String Trio (2023) in one movement. Mason, who attended both performances, composed this rapidly metamorphosing piece to illustrate through the three string players “a range of emotions including urgency, love, wistfulness and, ultimately, triumph.” These were all vividly present, expressed through the musicians’ facility with a full range of techniques, and ability to shift from rough and grinding to lyrical and free-floating.

Todd Mason.

The music was, at times, like a journey through a dark tunnel, right down to the running footsteps. The changes from dark to light and back, when they came, felt unexpected. The audience seemed fascinated by the building sense of drama. Like much of Mason’s music, it was harmonically challenging in a 20th/21st-century way, but as a flavor only. The piece overall was accessible and stimulating, and was given an empathetic reading by the trio. The audience applauded exuberantly.

The lineup changed for the third and final piece, Anton Arensky’s String Quartet No. 2, Op. 35 (1894). This is scored for violin, viola and two cellos, a rare configuration that, as one might expect, had a strong sonic foundation. The second cello was played by Allan Hon. It became apparent as the piece began why Arensky—a student of Rimsky-Korsakov’s but a disciple of Tchaikovsky—chose this line-up.

The opening Moderato broods, filled with what seems like painful self-reflection, and its deep, dark texture made me think of a monologue by a Dostoevsky character. Reading Arensky’s bio, it did not come as a surprise that he was a drinker and gambler who only lived to 44. The music in this movement conveys an inchoate yearning, ultimately unresolved, followed by painful resignation—at its end, you could almost picture a doomed man crawling into bed.

Anton Arensky, painted by 
Karl Tavaststerjna in 1901.

Of course, it was the performance by these great players that brought such images to mind; working with magnificent intuition, they collectively inhabited the soul of this music. Like actors, musicians need to find such deep feelings in themselves in order to convey them to the audience, and these four did so. At the end of this movement, the audience breached convention to burst into applause. The musicians smiled as if to say, “Let’s not stand on ceremony, we nailed that.”

Then, the piece takes an interesting turn. Our depressed lead character, most often voiced by Aubrun’s violin, seems to have survived the night, and is now up, tentatively, and moving around their shabby basement apartment, or remote wooded cabin—a hovel somewhere. The middle movement of the work's three is based on a theme from a Tchaikovsky song and opens into a series of seven variations, the first of which has a dancing quality. Clearly, our hero has revived, at least in their imagination.

The playing through each of these variations was so engaging that, in the pauses between them, audience applause poured in. But far from being distracting, this enhanced this journey, almost as if, variation by variation, the audience was cheering on the character from the first movement on their increasingly active revival. The pizzicato-dominated fourth variation, Vivace, brought to mind the prisyadka, the famous Russian Cossack dance (above right), while the sixth, Allegro con spirito, seemed to describe a mad escape. The final variation, Andante con moto, leading into the Moderato Coda, felt like another journey into a much less troubled sleep.

The Finale, Andante sostenuto, takes a step back from the emotional tumult of one person’s psyche, offering a slower and more formal discourse which, however, just a few seconds before the piece ends, breaks into a run. The audience remained delighted, and then lingered as the Observatory went dark, and Mendez’ multi-media creation began to play. Her imagery is anything but peaceful. Just like much of the music, it conveyed emotional turbulence in response to a topsy-turvy world. But it all felt like something to celebrate. These Mount Wilson "Concerts in the Dome" have an unusual artistic alchemy that makes them even greater than the sum of their considerable parts.

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100-inch Telescope Dome, Mount Wilson Observatory, Sunday, September 8, 2024, 3 p.m. and 5 p.m.

Images: The performance: Todd Mason; Schubert, Cossack dancer: Wikimedia Commons; Arensky: www.meisterdrucke.us.