The dashing and gifted young Fellows at the Music Academy have put together an exciting — and relevant — program for their third Picnic Concert, at 7:30 p.m. Friday, July 5, in Hahn Hall at the Music Academy’s main campus, 1070 Fairway Road.
We’ll hear performances of Johannes Brahms‘ “Trio for Horn, Violin, and Piano in Eb-Major, Opus 40” (1865), by Han Na Lee, violin; Steven Harmon, horn; and Clayton Stephenson, piano; Samuel Barber‘s “Knoxville Summer of 1915,” text by James Agee (1947), by Yvette Keong, soprano and Anna Smigelskaya, piano; Erwin Schulhoff‘s “Concertino for Flute, Viola, and Double Bass” (1925), by Ariel Chapman, viola; Jakob Gerritsen, double bass; Austin Brown, flute; Claude Debussy‘s “Beau Soir: Lorsque au Soleil Couchant Les Rivières Sont Roses” (1880) by Connor Rowe, tenor trombone and Anya Garipoli, harp; and Antonin Dvořák‘s “Piano Quintet in A-Major, Opus 81” (1887), with Njioma Chinyere Grevious and Coco Mi, violins; Molly Wise, viola; Marcie Kolacki, cello; and Arthur Wenxuan Wang, piano.
Perhaps unconsciously, there is a kind of subliminal connective tissue between most of the composers on this program — except Samuel Barber, who can always find a place on any concert stage. That is to say that Dvořák, himself something of a protégé of Brahms, encouraged the young Erwin Schulhoff to study composition, which he did, with Debussy and Reger.
Barber’s “Knoxville Summer of 1915” achieves sublimity all on its own, being arguably the greatest piece of nostalgia ever composed.
Barber’s intensely intimate response to James Agee‘s poetic prose (usually published now as a kind of prelude to his novel A Death in the Family) takes us gently into a point of remembered time, as afternoon fades languidly into evening, allowing us to savor a world before it vanishes forever.
The 20th century is unique in the toll it took on artists, particularly musicians. There were George Butterworth, Rudi Stefan and Alberic Magnard, all killed in battle.
There was the Czech Erwin Schulhoff (1894-1942) who died in a Nazi concentration camp. As both a Jew and a Communist, Schulhoff was on several Nazi lists, and, like so many others, failed to get out in time. He had been approved for immigration to the Soviet Union, but the Gestapo got him first. Before that, he had enjoyed a successful career in music.
Schulhoff was a pioneer in the use of jazz in classical compositions, and, though never himself adopting serial techniques, was an admirer of the Second Viennese School. He disappeared for a long stretch after his death, but his works are starting to be rediscovered.
Rather than jazz or Vienna, it is the influence of Debussy which is apparent in the charming “Concertino,” composed when Schulhoff was 31.
Tickets to this Picnic Concert are $40 (Community Access $10, if available; 7-17s free). Tickets may be obtained by calling 805-969-8787, or by going online to https://www.musicacademy.org/whats-on/picnic-concert-no-1/book/24603.
As ever, the Music Academy invites us to: “Bring your own picnic to enjoy in the gardens before the concert.”
— Gerald Carpenter covers the arts as a Noozhawk contributing writer. He can be reached at gerald.carpenter@gmail.com. The opinions expressed are his own.