
“One of my mentors in the beginning of my chamber music life told me that when you’re learning a piece it is easy to overthink things or become mired in technical details. The vast majority of music is either a song or a dance, and if you can identify what you think a phrase or a passage that you are playing is, you are already halfway there.”
That’s a quote from Caitlin Lynch, Artistic Director of Project Chamber Music: Willamette Valley (PCM), and it’s a perfect introduction to the concert that she and three of her colleagues gave on October 19 at Hudson Concert Hall on the campus of Willamette University. They formed a top-notch piano quartet that went way past the halfway mark and beyond the goal line to deliver an evening of Mozart and Brahms with panache. Their music-making embraced the concert’s theme, Song & Dance, and raised funds for PCM, a non-profit organization that works with music students in the Salem-Keizer school district (read our 2023 story on Lynch and PCM here and our 2024 story on PCM here).
In preparing for the concert, I talked with Lynch via Zoom about the pieces on the program: Mozart’s Piano Quartet No. 2 in E-flat major and Brahms’ Piano Quartet No. 1 in G minor.
“It is interesting to note that although both piano quartets are recognized as masterpieces and cornerstones of the chamber music repertoire today, they were not embraced back in the time when they were written,” said Lynch. “Mozart’s publisher, who was supposed to publish the piece as part of a set, brushed him off with a ‘Nevermind!’ Clara Schumann told Brahms that she was not a fan of the piece. So neither piece was a flashing success when they were written. I love that piece of history. It shows that the great music can persevere.”
“The Mozart and the Brahms are beautiful pieces of that express song and dance,” added Lynch. “Mozart is known for his lyricism. He wrote this piano quartet right after he finished The Marriage of Figaro. The last movement of the Brahms is a dance, a Hungarian-inspired dance that is quite the whirlwind.”
Lynch, who is the violist of the Aeolus String Quartet and is violist and co-Artistic Director of A Far Cry chamber orchestra, invited three stellar colleagues to join her for the concert. They were violinist Rachel Lee Priday, cellist Bion Tsang, and pianist Julio Elizalde. Priday is Assistant Professor of Violin at the University of Washington School of Music. Tsang is Professor of Cello and Division Head of Strings at the Butler School of Music at the University of Texas at Austin. Elizalde teaches at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music where he is associate chair of strings and piano chamber music.
“I know these artists from totally different points of my life,” remarked Lynch. “Rachel Lee Priday and I were roommates at the Perlman music program. Bion Tsang and I have played together at two music festivals. Julio Elizalde and I lived in the same dorm at Juilliard – for grad school. But we have never played together before. This concert will be our first time.”
Based on what I heard and saw at their performance, it seemed that Priday, Lynch, Tsang, and Elizalde had played together many, many times. Their ability to listen to each other while delivering a superb rendition of both the Mozart and the Brahms was just fantastic.
Because of a car crash on I-5, I reached Hudson Hall a little late and missed the opening movement of Mozart’s Second Piano Quartet. But the remaining two movements – Larghetto and Allegretto – received warm and sensitive playing by the ensemble so that the cantabile style was clear but never syrupy. The sound was exceptionally well-balanced and yet always allowed the musician with the thematic passage to rise just above the others. Elizalde’s light touch on the keyboard added sparkle to the last movement, which the ensemble wrapped up with a delightful elegance.
The ensemble opened Brahms First Piano Quartet with gripping intensity, moving from the dusky, contemplative opening to stormy surges and terrific crescendos. The tension in the second movement – with Tsang’s throbbing cello gradually shifting upwards – was almost palpable. Wonderful sforzandos accented the march-like passage of the third movement, making a wonderful contrast with the sweetness that followed from Priday’s violin and Lynch’s viola. The wild Hungarian-inspired dance of the final movement came with wonderful dynamic nuances in which the pace slowed down and sped up. Priday and Lynch got so involved in the music that they shredded some hairs on their bows – and that was before everyone went dashing into the fiery finale, which drew cheers and a standing ovation.
With such excellent music-making, it would be great if more people came to the concert, because Hudson Hall was not even half-filled. Lynch really knows how to select outstanding musicians and deliver an excellent program. And it’s all for a truly worthwhile cause.
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