Mason Concerts 2025: The Opening Two Programs

l-r: Todd Mason, Chloé Tardif, Tim Durkovic, Cécilia Tsan, Kyle Gilner, Luke Maurer (March 29).

REVIEW

• The Debussy Trio play Rota, Mason, and Bax, February 22

• Five LA stars play Mozart, Mason, and Schumann, March 29

JOHN STODDER, JR.

The 2025 Mason House season is underway, with its usual rich programs of chamber music fitted inside a modest West Los Angeles living room with remarkable acoustics and room to seat up to 50 classical music fans, plus a backyard patio where wine and food are available from a buffet donated to each gathering by Ethel Phipps. Due to the LA fires, Todd Mason was forced to postpone his first concert in the series from January until June, but the following two took place as scheduled, and the next one is just around the corner on April 12. Here is a review of February’s concert, and a brief account of March’s.

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The Debussy Trio, February 22: Harp Liberation

Nino Rota (1911-1979): Sonata for Flute and Harp (1937)

I. Allegro molto moderato

II. Andante sostenuto

III. Allegro festoso

Todd Mason (b.1957): Magical, for flute, viola, and harp (2023) 

I. Andante (Sunrise)

II. Adagietto (Daydreams)

III. Allegro moderato (Magic Carpet)

Arnold Bax (1883-1953): Fantasy Sonata for Viola and Harp, GP 284 (1927)

I. Allegro molto

II. Allegro moderato

III. Lento espressivo

IV. Allegro.

If you attended this concert by The Debussy Trio (Angela Wiegand, flute; David Walther, viola; Marcia Dickstein, harp), you came away from it knowing more about one of the most readily identifiable instruments in all of music, the harp. The sold-out audience was treated to discussions from the perspectives of a musicologist (the LA Philharmonic’s frequent pre-concert educator Dr. Kristi Brown), from a composer who has written chamber music for harp (Todd Mason, whose Magical was played here), and finally from Ms. Dickstein, who spoke memorably about perception vs. reality in the tough world of harp music.

“I have worked my entire career to take it out of the restaurant, to take it out of being that ‘Oh isn’t that sweet and pretty?’ No, it’s not, it’s a m---f--- to play,” she said. “I want people to have an opinion about my instrument. I wanted it to be respected for being able to play incredibly difficult music. It’s a really great instrument. But listen to it and judge it like you would a piano. Because you know great piano playing, you know great violin playing and hopefully you’ll know great harp playing.”

The Debussy Trio: David Walther, viola; Marcia Dickstein, harp; Angela Wiegand, flute.

Mason said it’s a challenge for a modern composer accustomed to changing keys at will to write for the harp because it is a diatonic instrument, meaning it only has seven notes, A-G, corresponding to the white keys on the piano. To reach the sharps and the flats, Dickstein must use the harp’s seven pedals, which give each string three potential notes. “Depending on where my feet are, I can be wrong in every imaginable (way),” Dickstein said.

Attending a rehearsal, Mason noticed how busy her feet were as she kept up with his key changes. But Dickstein made it clear that, at least speaking for herself, she didn’t want composers dialing back on the modulations to spare the harpist. Instead, she seeks out challenging, wonderful music for her instrument.

The Debussy Trio is named after the chamber music lineup defined by those instruments, trios for flute, viola and harp being first popularized by Claude Debussy with his 1915 Sonata, L. 137. Within the niche of chamber music, this piece has had a big influence. Among more than 50 composers since Debussy who wrote for this configuration are Darius Milhaud, Maurice Duruflé and Walter Piston, while Wikipedia lists almost 40 flute, viola and harp trios that perform throughout the world.

Dr. Kristi Brown.

In her pre-concert talk, Dr. Brown described the “connective tissue of sound” that the Debussy-style trio encompasses and presents to the ear. It is an unusual combination but the three contrasting sounds “vibe together,” she said, in the interchange between the continuous notes of the flute, the plucked notes of the harp and the viola’s ability to do both.

In this concert, only Mason’s composition used the full trio lineup. As he explained, Magical is a programmatic piece, a surreal three-part narrative about daydreams that ends with a magic carpet ride above the city “watching things change.” The instrumentation was perfect for conveying the images he created. I especially loved the way the second movement, “Daydreams,” opened with a viola solo that extended a kind of invitation to the flute and then the harp to wander through a dreamscape where alluring fragments of melody floated into each other, striving to connect but then letting go, finally letting the viola take over and bring the daydreamer back to reality.

Helicopter view of downtown Los Angeles.

To describe the final movement, my notes say this: “Like a slow gallop, like a magic horse playfully riding the waves of air.” The music in this section was joyous and fun in its evocation of flight, but I couldn’t help but be reminded of the images on TV from helicopters flying over an LA transformed by fire. But the music pushed those images out of my mind and took me back to the reassuring narrative of touring the cityscape on a flying carpet.

Nino Rota is a familiar name to fans of classic mid-century Italian cinema, especially the films of Federico Fellini, for whom Rota’s role was more like a collaborator. No one who’s seen 8½, La Dolce Vita, or Amarcord can possibly remember scenes without recalling Rota’s musical accents. He also wrote award-winning soundtracks for Franco Zeffirelli’s Romeo and Juliet and Francis Ford Coppola’s The Godfather and The Godfather Part II. In all, he wrote 171 film scores between 1933 and 1979.

Nino Rota, aged 12 (1923).

But at the time he wrote his Sonata for Flute and Harp, he was an already renowned young composer, a former child prodigy, and a student of composition at a conservatory in Rome. He did write one movie score in 1933 but would not complete another until 1942, so this Sonata came about five years before he committed to the art form that made him world famous.

For film buffs and fans of Rota’s, this piece was a chance to hear what might have been, the road not taken. But the piece itself seemed to fit into exactly what we know about his music. The expertly played flute opening to the first movement signaled happiness and a carefree attitude. A subsequent harp solo was gorgeous, cheerful, and uncomplicated. Images came to mind immediately that matched the sounds.

Fellini and Giuletta Masina.

The second movement was more formal and austere, and it perfectly conveyed that seriousness. Rota might be a genius at conveying identifiable emotions. Moment to moment, you didn’t need to guess what human feeling this composer was trying to express. I thought of the soulful eloquence of Fellini’s wife and frequent star, Giuletta Masina, whose face was like Rota’s melodies—a perfect mirror of emotion. It was fascinating to hear a Nino Rota unconnected with film and yet writing music that seemed like a calling-card for the masterful scores he would go on to write.

Arnold Bax in 1922.

The Arnold Bax piece that David Walther and Marcia Dickstein performed after the intermission was a dense beauty. Bax wrote a lot of music that included the harp, including a single-movement Elegiac Trio scored for just this combination of flute, viola and harp. But Dickstein doesn’t prefer that and instead presented the 1927 Fantasy Sonata for Viola and Harp. “The harp writing is really hard, but it’s really good. It takes you to the edge of what’s playable.”

Before my Mason House concertgoing career began, I’d never heard of the prolific British composer Arnold Bax, but I’m becoming a fan. Dickstein’s and Walther’s passionate and sensitive playing conveyed Bax’s lonely, brooding reflections on rural Ireland and its vast beauty. Like his more famous contemporary, Ralph Vaughan Williams, Bax defines his Britishness through meditations on nature and place. But Bax seems to try less hard to paint the perfect picture, instead making room for more idiosyncratic reflections.

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“Mozart-Mason-Schumann”

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791): Piano Quartet No. 1 in G Minor, K. 478 (1785)

I. Allegro

II. Andante

III. Rondo

Todd Mason: L’etreinte de l’amour for string quartet (2108)

Robert Schumann (1810-1856): Piano Quintet in E-flat Major, Op. 44 (1842)

I. Allegro brillante

II. In Modo d’una Marcia. Un poco largamente

III. Scherzo. Molto vivace 

IV. Allegro, ma non troppo.

Five weeks later, I returned to Mason House, this time for a very different concert played by five of LA’s most outstanding musicians, Kyle Gilner and Chloé Tardif (violins), Luke Maurer (viola), Cécilia Tsan (cello), and Tim Durkovic (piano). This culminated in a warm, powerful performance of Schumann’s Piano Quintet, which followed Mozart’s First Piano Quartet and Todd Mason’s L’etreinte de l’amour. The concert opened with a performance of the Ukrainian national anthem, arranged by Mason for string quartet to commemorate the third anniversary of Russia’s invasion.

This is not really a full review—I didn’t anticipate writing one and didn’t make notes—but if it was a full review, it would be a rave. For those who have read the Pink Section of the San Francisco Chronicle, this review will be only slightly more substantial than the picture of the Little Man. The verdict on this concert: The Little Man is leaping out of his chair.

And, come to think of, I leapt out of my chair after each piece was completed. I was not alone in this. Mason House audiences know their classical music and know not to applaud between movements, but on this night, they did. This was a concert that moved the audience physically, especially the Schumann Quintet, a powerful, heroic, overtly Romantic masterpiece, where each movement gives the musicians opportunity after opportunity to make a loud, visceral impression. The notes may fade from my memory, but I will never forget how Cécilia Tsan’s bow mashing her resonant C string made me feel.

Individually and then as a roaring ensemble, her companions Tim Durkovic, Kyle Gilner, Chloé Tardif, and Luke Maurer all had moments that also resonated for me physically, that made me want to stand up and pretend to conduct them, or march around the room. The Piano Quintet is also lavishly, emphatically melodic to the point where I was quietly humming along with it. It was a rare treat to hear such a big piece in such an intimate space. I feel tattooed by it.

To take nothing away from the other performances—of the Mozart Piano Quartet, a mighty piece in its own right, albeit more restrained and judicious in its use of noise; nor of Mason’s short, loving string quartet honoring a relative’s wedding—but I’m most grateful that musicians of the caliber of Gilner, Tardif, Maurer, Tsan, and Durkovic gave so much of themselves to deliver the Schumann. This was a performance never to forget.

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

• The Debussy Trio, Saturday, February 22, 2025. 

• Mozart-Mason-Schumann, Saturday, March 29, 2025.

Images: The performances: Todd Mason; Helicopter view: Brian L. Frank, courtesy los-angeles-helicopter-tours.com; Fellini and Masina: everythingbutpopcorn.com; Bax: Herbert Lambert, courtesy National Portrait Gallery.