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  • Musicians make these pieces engaging

    Ottawa Citizen, Canada
    July 29 2006

    Musicians make these pieces engaging


    Unknown Piano Trios was the name of yesterday's afternoon Chamberfest
    concert at Dominion Chalmers Church. Featuring the music of the
    equally unknown composers Arno Babajanian and Carl Fruhling, the
    program wasn't expected to draw a large crowd.

    However, between the reputation of the Duke Trio, the air
    conditioning at Dominion Chalmers and the fact that the concert was
    free to pass holders, the audience counted something like 500 souls.

    Babajanian, according to armeniapedia.org, was a distinguished
    20th-century composer, a USSR People's Artist and a laureate of the
    State Award of Armenia. His dates were 1921-1983. He wrote music in
    many genres including popular music and film scores.

    His Trio is a sophisticated and powerful work that should be heard
    often. Although its idiom is far from easy-listening, neither is it
    avant-garde.

    The Duke Trio's members, pianist Peter Longworth, violinist Mark
    Fewer and cellist Thomas Wiebe not only play well together, but
    regularly enough that one never gets the sense of three competing
    personalities trying to make sense of the music.

    Fruhling, whose trio opened the program comes from an earlier era,
    1868-1937, and seems to be known today almost entirely for his Trio
    in A minor, op. 40, originally for clarinet, cello and piano, but
    yesterday played by a regular piano trio (with a violin replacing the
    clarinet.)

    It's a well-crafted piece, of which two movements slightly exceed in
    length what they offer in interest. However, it was generally
    engaging, which probably says as much about the commitment of the
    players as to the composer's undoubted talents.

    Russian String Quartets

    St. Matthew's in the Glebe was the venue last evening for the Moscow
    String Quartet's final appearance in this year's Chamberfest. The
    program included quartets by Shostakovich, Schnittke and Tchaikovsky.

    If one were to divide Shosta-kovich's works into periods, as we do
    with Beethoven, the Quartet no. 4 in D, op. 83 would be a
    middle-period work. In fact, the composer was in early middle-age
    when he wrote the First Quartet and that is why even the earliest of
    them are mature masterworks.

    The Moscow String Quartet, not surprisingly, knows this repertoire
    well and, being the terrific ensemble it is, can put it across most
    convincingly. While the entire performance was superb, the last
    movement in particular had a deep feeling of summing up and
    resolution.

    Alfred Schnittke, a generation younger than Shostako-vich, is widely
    regarded as having inherited the latter composer's primacy in the
    world of Russian/Soviet music. His music is still challenging for
    today's audiences in much the way that Shostakovich's was 40 years
    ago.

    Whatever difficulties listeners had with the Moscow account of his
    Quartet no. 2, it seems likely most were aware they were hearing
    great music performed by some of the greatest of musicians.
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