By Eileen Wingard
LA JOLLA, California — Summerfest offered up another musical feast with Saturday night, August 2’s program. Thirteen artists participated, featuring works by Handel, Mozart, and Korngold.
Handel’s Trio Sonata in C Minor featured British oboist Nicholas Daniel, and Americans, Stefan Jackiw, violin; Ruben Valenzuela, harpsichord; and Jakob Giovanni Taylor, cello. Handel’s four movement piece, probably written during the composer’s early years in London, is a tuneful work. It opens with a slow Andante, oboe and violin entwined in contrapuntal lines, supported by the harpsichord and cello continuo. This is followed by an Allegro with a perky subject skipping between the two soprano lines. The following slow movement is dominated by the oboe spinning a beautiful melody over the violin and continuo chords. The final movement is a jig-like Allegro happily dancing to the end.
Daniel’s oboe playing was outstanding, beautifully nuanced and with the warm, soulful quality that made the oboe my favorite woodwind instrument, and apparently Handel’s as well, according to the printed program’s notes.
The next work, the Mozart G minor Piano Quartet featured Summerfest Music Director, Israeli-born Inon Barnatan, piano; Americans Alan Gilbert, violin; Jonathan Vinocour, viola; and Clive Greensmith, cello.
Barnatan shone in the piano part, well supported by the string trio. The first movement was dramatic in its opening unison statement and symphonic in scope. The second movement was infused with Mozartean charm and the final Allegro moderato was characterized by a playful rondo theme.
This piano quartet was one of only two that Mozart wrote for this combination.
After intermission, we were treated to a work most of us had never heard before, written by Eric Korngold, the Viennese-born Jewish immigrant composer who revolutionized movie music in Hollywood. His String Sextet in D Major was composed when he was still a teenager in his native Austria and foreshadowed the romantic, programmatic film scores that would make him famous. It premiered in Vienna before he was 20-years old.
The Summerfest performers were Dutch violinist Liza Ferschtman; Canadian violinist Blake Pouliot; American violists Jonathan Vinocour and Kyle Armbrust; and cellists Belarus-born Ivan Karizna and American Jonathan Swensen.
The first movement ebbs and flows with sounds of the high seas, from torrential storms to calmer waters. The first violin melody dominates. The Adagio opens with the cello’s jagged-sounding statement in unsettling progression through the other instruments. The Intermezzo sounds like a surreal waltz, perhaps danced by robots. The Finale, opens with a flurry of rapid notes, later contrasted with slower sections and the recall of the violin’s melody from the first movement before racing to its powerful conclusion.
The work required the virtuosic abilities of six highly skilled instrumentalists. In Ferschtman, Pouliot, Vinocour, Armbrust, Karizna and Swensen, an ensemble was assembled that met the challenge.
This program is another illustration of Barnatan’s ability to draw the highest level of talent from all corners of the globe to create in Summerfest a festival of the highest order.
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Eileen Wingard, a retired violinist with the San Diego Symphony Orchestra, is a freelance writer specializing in coverage of the arts.