By Nancy Plum
Richardson Chamber Players, Princeton University’s resident ensemble of faculty performers, presented an eclectic program of chamber music on Sunday afternoon at Richardson Auditorium. From the lavish poignancy of Gustav Mahler to the chromaticism of Arnold Schoenberg, the Richardson Players showcased eight faculty and student musicians in an event presented under the umbrella of Princeton University Concerts.
The early 19th-century poet Friedrich Rückert was a favorite of a number of Romantic composers, including Gustav Mahler, who set 10 Rückert poems in two collections. Richardson Chamber Players played an arrangement of Mahler’s five Rückert-Lieder scored for voice, viola, cello, and piano by Swiss composer and conductor Stéphane Fromageot and featuring mezzo-soprano and Princeton faculty member Jacqueline Horner-Kwiatek.
Horner-Kwiatek was joined by violinist Anna Lim, violist Jessica Thompson, cellist Clancy Newman, and pianist Margaret Kampmeier to present Rückert’s touching poetry as set by Mahler as expressions of love. Horner-Kwiatek was sensitive throughout, singing with a clear and rich sound well suited to intimate art songs. A former member of the vocal quartet Anonymous 4 and an expert early music vocalist, she successfully conveyed the text to all corners of the audience and well drew out Mahler’s harmonies and Romantic emotions.
Kampmeier set a lyrical tone from the opening accompaniment, with especially feathery arpeggios in the right hand in the first song. The second song, a gift from Mahler to his wife Alma, featured clean running eighth notes from violist Thompson complemented by Lim’s sweet violin lines. Newman came to the forefront at the close of the set, with all instrumentalists precise in Mahler’s jarring harmonies leading up to a majestic ending.
Newman has won awards for composition and appeared as solo cellist with orchestras worldwide. Currently on the Princeton University faculty, Newman has composed extensively for solo cello and chamber ensemble. Palindromic Variations for String Trio is, as its name indicates, a musical palindrome constructed as a theme and variations anchored in the center with a coda which also reverses itself. Newman conceived the piece to be exactly the same whether played backwards or forwards.
As played by Lim, Thompson, and Newman, Palindromic Variations was a clever sequence and a delightful surprise for the audience, when it became apparent during the “reverse” passages that the principal theme was “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star.” Played with a variety of techniques, the melody’s most charming rendition was in the “Coda,” in which the tune was embedded in what seemed like a country western swing palette. The fast and furious second variation showed Newman’s compositional style to be fresh and appealing, and a variation played mostly pizzicato from all instruments was clean and exact. Passages that sounded harsh going forward were elegantly Viennese going backward, as Newman effectively explored the registers and capabilities of the violin, viola, and cello.
When one thinks of the early 20th-century European classical musical revolution, a name that often comes to mind is Arnold Schoenberg. Schoenberg eventually settled in the U.S. but emerged from the cultural debates of late Romantic-era Vienna with avant-garde ideas about both composition and music theory. Schoenberg’s 1899 String Sextet known as Verklärte Nacht was inspired by a poem of German writer Richard Dehmel depicting a couple’s night walk and conversation under a dark moon. The five sections of Schoenberg’s sextet correspond to the five stanzas of the poem, each of which conveys either new dialogue or an interlude. Schoenberg reached back to the Classical era for the work’s form, recalling the rondo structure popular with his Viennese predecessors Haydn and Mozart.
Schoenberg can be difficult for an audience to comprehend, but in the hands of Lim, Thompson and Newman, joined by Princeton students violinist Tienne Yu, violist Jason Seo, and cellist Maurice Neuman, Verklärte Nacht enabled the audience to hear quick-shifting styles and textures. Yu, Seo and Neuman were all attentive to the other instrumentalists, as the ensemble increased intensity uniformly and arrived at resting points together. Thompson’s expressive viola solo closed the piece, accompanied by delicate playing from the other musicians capturing the shimmering moonlight.
Richardson Chamber Players will present its next performance on Thursday, March 26 at 7:30 p.m. at Princeton University Chapel. “Dies Irae” is a semi-staged musical reflection on the devastating consequences of global warming, resource wars and the refugee crisis. Ticket information about this and other Princeton University Concerts events can be obtained by visiting concerts.princeton.edu.