Camerata Pacifica’s 29th season of concerts — called Why Beethoven — continues in Santa Barbara with a performance at 7:30 p.m. Friday, Nov. 30, in Hahn Hall at the Music Academy of the West, 1070 Fairway Road.
Participating musicians include Kristin Lee and Jason Uyeyama, violins; Richard O’Neill, viola; Ani Aznavoorian, cello; and The Calder String Quartet (Benjamin Jacobson and Andrew Bulbrook, violins; Jonathan Moerschel, viola; Eric Byers, cello).
What we might call the Camerata Quartet (Lee-Uyeyama-O’Neill-Aznavoorian) will open the concert with Anton Arensky‘s “String Quartet No. 2 in a-minor, Opus 35” (1895); followed by Ludwig Beethoven‘s “String Quartet No. 16 in F-Major, Opus 135” (1826); and, for the finale, the two quartets will join forces to play Felix Mendelssohn‘s “String Octet in Eb-Major, Opus 20” (1825).
On paper, this is a program to delight the heart of a mildly conservative music lover, harvested exclusively from the golden 19th century.
Considering only the three composers, one would expect the most radical composition to be the earliest — i.e., the Beethoven — but by one of those musical miracles that we can never get over, the Mendelssohn was written a year before Beethoven’s Opus 125, when the composer was 16.
Arensky was a deft purveyor of that sweet Russian melancholy we all know and love. Although he wrote a piano concerto, a ballet, a couple of operas, and lots of orchestral music, it was as a composer for chamber ensembles and solo piano that his work lives for us today.
So much has been written about Beethoven “Late Quartets” that we naturally think of them almost as one work, or a least a set. They are no such thing.
They don’t share a single opus number — like the six quartets of Opus 18 or the three “Rasumovsky” quartets of Opus 59 — and their opus numbers do not form an unbroken sequence.
Each is stand alone, unique, and generations of musicologists — however gifted and insightful — have failed to solve their immortal mystery.
Opus 135 may well be Beethoven’s last completed work. It begins hesitantly, as if he was in doubt as to what direction he wanted this music to take. Soon, however, the composer’s irrepressible confidence takes charge and the movement ends in quasi ebullience.
In the exquisite lento, the mood is one of resignation tempered with regret. The last movement is jaunty and watchful at once, and there is little that is valedictorian about it.
This same program also plays at 8 p.m. Thursday, Nov. 29 in Zipper Hall of The Colburn School in Los Angeles, at 3 p.m. Sunday, Dec. 2, at the Museum of Ventura County in Ventura, and at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday, Dec. 4, in Rothenberg Hall of The Huntington Museum in San Marino.
Admission to all venues is $58. For tickets and other information, show up at the box office, call the Camerata Pacifica, 805-884-8410, or email tickets@cameratapacifica.org.
Now, I’m obliged to point out that the Camerata has announced that this concert is sold out. However, in the same announcement, they offer a solution: two solutions, really, with one much more probable of success than the other. Here is what they say:
“If you’d like to join us for Friday’s performance at Hahn Hall, here’s the (great) deal:
“Subscribe to the rest of the season, and we’ll get you into Friday’s concert*. Not only that, we’ll extend this weekend’s sale price … 6 concerts reduced from $321 to $221!
“This offer can only be redeemed by email: jack@cameratapacifica.org, or by phone 805-884 8410. Otherwise, email jack@cameratapacifica.org to have your name placed on the waiting list for ticket returns.
“Reminder: there is a performance at 3 p.m. Sunday, at the Museum of Ventura County.
“*If, for some reason, we fail to secure a seat for you on Friday. We’ll further discount a 5-concert subscription to $200, ensuring you won’t miss another note.”
— 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.