by Kevin T McEneaney
Smithfield Presbyterian Church in Amenia presented an autumn concert sponsored by the Bang Music Committee with Hudson Pro Musica Trio on November 2nd at 4 pm.
This concert inhabited the ambiguous borderland between the Baroque period and the Romantic Period.
While it is not completely certain that Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791), wrote Prelude and Fugue No. 5 K. 404a in C Minor, it remains the firm conjectured designation for when Constanze Weber and Wolfgang acquired some Bach manuscripts in 1782 and pounced on their treasure with great excitement just before they married, as Wolfgang adapted and tweaked Bach’s lean linear Baroque lines with Romantic inflection, especially in the melodramatic prelude, yet there were only minor adjustments for strings in the exciting fugue that concluded the event where cellist Eric Schoen-Rene excelled.
Ignaz Pleyel (1757-1831), an important Viennese student of Joseph Haydn and a prolific composer of several hundred works, is today known only to violin, harp, and piano students. He is especially known for his sixty-four quartets and numerous symphonies, which both Haydn and Mozart admired. In his mid-twenties, he moved to Paris and founded a music publishing house that printed over 4,000 scores. Many of Pleyel’s compositions were commissioned and published in Edinburgh. The Trio performed String Trio Opus 2 No. 2 in D Major which inhabits a pleasantly extroverted world of accessible satisfaction and delight where Piotr Kargul on viola delivered colorful shading.
Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750), Organ Trio Sonata No. 6 BWV 530 in G Major, circa 1730, was arranged as a String Trio with three movements. This sixth concluding sonata of the series is often considered to be among Bach’s most difficult compositions due to its multi-directional polyphonic resonance. This piece featured a well-balanced presentation for all instruments as it reduced random playfulness in favor of logic and complex witty linear progressions where trio leader Rob Murphy provided impressive, angelic guidance and august intonation.
For an encore, they played the lament of the clown husband when his wife is murdered in the opera Pagliacci (Clowns, 1892) by Pietro Mascagni with score by Ruggero Leoncavallo.
So as not to conclude in sorrow, they performed with syncretic gusto a popular, dynamic, happy tune from the 1960s.
This trio played with sublime unity enhanced by the wonderful acoustics of this 1742 church. Rob can also be heard every Sunday, since he is the regular violinist for Sunday 10 am services.
