By Nancy Plum
On the heels of Princeton Festival, Princeton University Summer Chamber Concerts has kept high-quality musical performance going in the community with a presentation of a creative instrumental ensemble. Last Friday night brought ensemble132, an American collective of soloists and chamber musicians, to Richardson Auditorium, as violinist Julian Rhee, violist Zhanbo Zheng, cellist Zachary Mowitz, and pianist Sahun Hon. held the audience in rapt attention with music of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Maurice Ravel and Gabriel Fauré. The concert had a special Princeton connection in that cellist Mowitz grew up in Princeton, winning numerous concerto competitions while a student in high school.
Mozart’s 1785 Piano Quartet No. 1 in G Minor was part of an intended trio of quartet commissions. The first completed, it was deemed too technically difficult for amateur payers, and the publisher canceled the rest of the commission. The Quartet was also novel for adding a viola, with which Mozart was particularly proficient and enamored, to the traditional piano trio. The key of G minor in Mozart’s works can represent darkness and turmoil, but this Quartet, despite an opening which could have come from Don Giovanni, possessed all the charm of 18th-century Viennese piano music. The players of ensemble132 showed a youthful and fresh approach to the score, with all performers in solid communication with one another.
In this Quartet, Mozart often contrasted solo piano against the three strings, with pianist Hong and violinist Rhee effectively chasing and echoing other’s phrases. The second movement “Andante” resembled a middle movement of a Mozart piano sonata, with clean running cello passages from Mowitz as solo keyboard alternated with string trio. Full of imitation, the closing “Rondo” was chipper and joyful.
The mission of ensemble132 has always incorporated a commitment to new compositions, including an arrangement performed Friday night of Ravel’s La Valse by pianist Sahun Hong. Ravel’s 1920 “choreographic poem for orchestra” was an homage to the glory days of 19th-century Vienna, when the waltz was king. The piece not only acknowledged a grand era ended by the destruction of war but was also infused with a sense of foreboding for what was to come later in the century. Hong’s setting for piano quartet began unsettled and agitated, evoking the chaos and confusion of the time in which Ravel’s work was written. A macabre waltz emerging from the ashes of a world war, Hong’s interpretation of Valse was played with cohesion and forcefulness at the close, reminding listeners that all which just occurred could happen again.
The programming of Fauré’s Piano Quartet No. 2 in G Minor looked back to a late 19th-century period of French nationalism; Fauré was both a member of the French military and an advocate for a strong French musical identity. The 1886 Quartet wrapped a traditional multi-movement form in a fluid impressionistic texture and from ensemble132, was dramatic from the outset. Fauré wrote extensively rich lines for viola and piano alone, elegantly played by Hong and violist Zheng. Especially in the opening movement, thematic material passed back and forth between keyboard and strings, with all musicians keeping the intensity well under wraps.
The second movement “Allegro” was marked by a demanding piano part, well executed by Hong. Zheng was again featured in the third movement “Adagio,” taking his time on melodic passages with a lush sound in the upper register. Cello and viola joined forces in the final “Allegro,” and the imaginative ensemble132 brought the Quartet to a fast and furious close with an articulate coda, showing their technical dexterity and collective versatility.
Princeton University Summer Chamber Concerts continues Thursday, July 9, at 7:30 p.m. at Richardson Auditorium with a performance by the violin/Chinese instruments and guitar duo ArcoStrum. This concert will feature music by Piazzola, Vivaldi, Li, Huang, Scarlatti, and J. Williams. Tickets are free to the public and available one week before the performance at tickets.princeton.edu.