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The Teenager and the Titan New York
BargeMusic
08/25/2024 -
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: String Quintet in G Minor, K. 516 – String Quintet in B‑Flat Major, K. 174
Mark Peskanov, Katya Moeller (Violins), Beatrice Chen, Margo Shohl (Violas), Noah Chen (Cello)
M. Peskanov, K. Moeller, B. Chen, M. Shohl, N. Chen
(© Samuel A. Dog)
“By general consent, Mozart’s greatest achievement in chamber music is the group of string quintets with two violas.”
Charles Rosen, The Classical Style
“People who make music together cannot be enemies. At least while they make music.”
Paul Hindemith
Before heading to BargeMusic this afternoon, a neighbor asked me, “So you like Mozart, huh?” I nodded “Yes”, and resisted a supercilious retort: “Actually, there are about 620 different Mozarts. And about one‑fifth are really terrific.”
A pair of Mozart quintets were offered at BargeMusic. One is famed, iconoclastic, the venture of a composer old before his time, perhaps–like Schubert–all too aware of his demise. The other quintet was that of a prodigy teenager, new not only to me, but First Violinist Mark Peskanov.
Yet it was this early B-Flat Major Quintet which showed off these five players, with outward joy.
(Uh-oh, the word “joy” has now been copyrighted by the Democratic Party. To their attorneys, I plead guilty.)
And to a certain degree, the pluses and minuses of this “viola quintet” were easily shown. The major plus was the music itself. The work of a teenage tunesmith enjoying unusual combinations, giving emphasis to the violas (probably Mozart’s own instruments for reasons below).
The composer loved those inner voices, and here he achieved not only unlikely canons but textures thicker than most works at this time.
The only “con” here was an imbalance between Mark Peskanov and the other four members. Mr. Peskanov is not only the longtime Artistic Director of BargeMusic but an unalloyed violin virtuoso. And oh! How his virtuosity shone here, often to the detriment of the other instruments.
The four artists, from the Semplice Players, had an understated beauty, whereas Mr. Peskanov is all to happy to show his virtuosity. Thus in the echo effects of the two violins or violin and cello, the impression was a Goliath-and-David test.
Mind you, Mark Peskanov is such a brilliant soloist that one could still hear this early quintet with enjoyment. Yet at the same time, it sometimes less like a quintet than a chamber concerto.
The G Minor Quintet, like most of Mozart’s works in that key, was introverted, strange, the work of a man no longer interested in making a success. But one who finally realized that music could be another language for a next‑door universe. And here, Mr. Peskanov allowed the five players to be a truly integrated chamber ensemble.
Yet could any excellent musician fail to notice the drama calling for five players working together? From the start, these five players worked to achieve a virtual symphonic opening. Again referring to Schubert, one felt the gravity of an early symphony, A sweeping first theme, essayed with suspended tension by Mr. Peskanov followed by a sweet (never cloying) second theme by violist Beatrice Chen.
The young writer of the first quintet would have enjoyed the contrast. This composer wove the themes together, with a shadowy yin‑yang effect. One could never explain it with a one– or two-word adjective. It was too complex for that.
Adding to the complexity, a second-movement Minuet that was anything but danceable. Where the First Quintet would have had Wolfies (the 1773 equivalent of Swifties) minueting in the aisles, this might have left them puzzled and entranced at once.
We come to the Adagio, which Tchaikovsky called “resigned and inconsolable sorrow.” No, that was hardly true here. In fact, this group was not so much “sorrowful” as tender, sweet, lyrical, highly melodic. Again, this was ensemble playing to the highest degree. In fact, in the last measures where Mr. Peskanov and Ms. Chen played a duet, one felt less tragedy, less gravity, more an Elizabethan poetic sweetness, the most gorgeous measure of the work.
The last movement could have easily been Haydn. The first minutes were funereal, liturgical, holy and infinitely tragic. But Mozart–like Haydn–was only kidding. When the Allegro started, it was a quick, imaginative, quite jubilant, a happily-ever-after finish after a rather unhappy tale. Finally, these five players came together, like a momentary ray of sunlight through the BargeMusic windows.
Harry Rolnick
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