Chamber Music provides unusual take on Beethoven
Monday, February 25, 2008
Chamber Music Charleston, made up of local performers, offered an unusual and stimulating concert of chamber music by Ludwig van Beethoven on Sunday afternoon. Held at the Circular Congregational Church as part of the Holy City Series, "Beethoven — His Women and His Music" produced a varied and decidedly different air.
Nationally recognized actor of stage, film and television, Clarence Felder revealed Beethoven's thoughts in series of monologues between the selections. He gave a brief but concise portrait of the great composer through convincingly genuine musings on music, women and deafness.
Opening with the Piano Trio in D Major, Op. 70, No. 1, "Ghost," the musicians treated the audience not to the usual piano, violin and cello grouping, but instead with a flute taking the violin's melodic line. Regina Helcher, flute; Timothy O'Malley, cello; and Irina Pevzner, piano, captured the spirit of one movement.
O'Malley and Pevzner offered a singing and animated final movement of the Third Cello Sonata in A Major, Op. 69, dating from 1807-08, the years he finished his Fifth and Sixth symphonies.
Soprano Suzanne Fleming- Atwood sang three of the Scottish songs, Op. 108, and three songs from An die ferne Geliebte, Op. 98. Fleming-Atwood's delivery was made a muddle by the high reverberance of the church. With a pleasing and well-trained voice, her soprano just did not suit the acoustical environs. She was accompanied by the flute trio, instead of the called for piano trio.
The flute trio performers finished with intensity the Allegro from the early clarinet Trio in B-Flat Major, Op.11 (later arranged for violin by the composer). All of these unattributed flute arrangements seemed to work well.