By David Abrams
http://cnycafemomus.com/David_Abrams.html

As I headed to the town famous for its Baseball Hall of Fame to hear a program titled "Boston Comes to Cooperstown," the only players that came immediately to mind were Red Sox legends Jimmie Foxx, Ted Williams, Carl Yastrzemski, Carlton Fisk and Wade Boggs.

The team that arrived to play at the Cooperstown Summer Music Festival Wednesday evening came from Boston, all right ― but they weren’t carrying bats. The five-member ensemble, most of whom have ties either to the Boston Symphony Orchestra or the Boston Chamber Music Society, nevertheless played as well together as any All Stars you’ll ever see at Fenway Park. Wednesday’s concert was by any measure first-rate and top-notch, and I’d be hard-pressed to think of any group of players capable of topping them. Except maybe the Yankees.

The six-work program opened with Mozart’s Oboe Quartet, K.370, giving the capacity crowd at The Farmers’ Museum’s Louis C. Jones Center a chance to experience the formidable talents of BSO Assistant Principal Oboist, Keisuke Wakao.

Written in 1781 to showcase the virtuosic wizardry of his friend, Munich oboist Freidrich Ramm, Mozart’s delightful quartet makes great demands on the oboist’s technical facility and command of the high register ― which is at once apparent from the heavy use of turns and trills in the opening movement.

As may be expected from one who occupies a position of such prominence in a major symphony orchestra, Wakao’s technique is flawless. The Tokyo native tossed off one pernicious ornament after another effortlessly, and delivered the rapid scale-wise passages with grace and élan. What impressed me most about Wakao’s playing, however, was the intense degree of sensitivity he brought to his phrasing of the lyrical passages, such as in the softer sections of the aria-like slow movement. His eyes closed, the oboist gently mimicked a vocal soloist with melodic lines that often cadenced in whisper-quiet pianissimos, even in the instrument’s extreme high register.

It was a pleasure to hear Wakao’s added embellishments (some rather wild) to Mozart’s writing in the sprightly Rondo movement that concluded the work, which I suspect Ramm had done to impress the audience during the work’s premiere. The strings (violin, viola and cello) exercised a marvelous blend of tone and politely stayed out of Wakao’s way in the softer sections. I commend the ensemble for following the composer’s wishes during the first movement by repeating the exposition ― a practice often ignored today in the interests of time and expediency.

The unusually scored Trio for Flute, Viola and Cello, Op. 40 by French composer Albert Roussel that followed is essentially a neo-classical work whose outer two movements combine snappy, syncopated rhythmic effects with ethnic folk-like harmonic flavors designed to keep the listener engaged. There’s lots of Prokofiev to be found here, especially in the opening Allegro grazioso ― whose percussive flute effects recall the celebrated Flute Sonata in D Major. Throughout the work I was often reminded of the melodic flavors of Czech composer Bohuslav Martinů, who in fact studied with Roussel.

Flautist (and Festival Director) Linda Chesis captured the charm and allure of Roussel’s ethnic melodic flavors through a rich tone and a sublime legato that appeared to glide across the instrument’s register changes. Moreover, her rhythmic precision in the recurring motif, comprising two sixteenth-notes followed by an eighth-note, helped capture a sense of joie de vivre that permeated all three movements of this demanding work. The level of performance was heightened considerably by some incredibly lovely and sensitive playing in the mesmerizing slow movement by Israeli-American cellist Inbal Segev, whose lush, resonant tone and sensuous phrasing sent me into a peaceful trance that I hope to recapture during my next visit to the dentist. Violist Marcus Thompson provided joyful animation in the ubiquitous arpeggiated figures that provided shimmer and sparkle within the texture’s inner-parts.

Benjamin Britten was only 18 when he wrote his engaging Phantasy Quartet for Oboe and Strings, Op. 2, which closed the first-half of the program. Britten, in this neo-Romantic work, is extremely effective in his writing for the strings ― particularly in his use of ostinato (repeated) patterns in the cello part. The writing for strings here is so beautiful that the oboe seems rather superfluous to the four-voice texture ― as if Britten had written the woodwind part more as an afterthought rather than as an organic part of the work as a whole. This point was apparently not lost on Wakao, whose brief but telling pre-concert remarks about the piece astounded the audience when he gratuitously proclaimed, "Britten is not my favorite composer," which he quickly followed by way of an apology, "…but this is a beautiful piece."

A set of duet arrangements followed intermission: the first a setting for flute and cello of three of Bach’s Two-Part Inventions, and the second a set of variations for flute and oboe on three arias of Mozart’s Die Zauberflöte. I thought the Bach transcriptions worked rather well, in part because the two instruments here are in contrasting ranges (bass and treble) but mostly because Bach sounds good on just about anything. Not so with Mozart. This transcription sounded rather bland throughout, largely because of the lack of register contrast between the two treble instruments.

The program closed with fitting flamboyance, and elegance, with one of the great warhorses of the string trio literature: the Serenade in C Major, Op. 10 by Ernö von Dohnányi.

As is the case with Brahms’s chamber works, playing Dohnányi convincingly requires strength, endurance and sufficient muscle to produce a collective sound than appears to double or even treble the number of players onstage. The big, brawny tone of violinist Alexander Velinzon, the BSO’s Assistant Concertmaster, matched both in depth and volume by cellist Segev and violist Thompson, produced a strongly defined sound that breathed life into the performance. This power of delivery peaked during the rapid sixteenth-note passages of the Rondo-Finale, which at times sounded more like an octet than a trio.

Ensemble interplay throughout the five movements was razor sharp, as the three musicians produced clearly defined entrances and phrase endings and balanced textures that allowed the melodic lines to buoy to the top. But it was the individual efforts ― more so than the collective ensemble effort ― that captured my fancy in this performance. And my ears rarely wandered far from the demanding cello part.

Segev’s playing combines the muscle and panache of a Nathaniel Rosen with the graceful lyricism of a Steven Doane (two cellists I’ve long admired). The rich intensity and delicacy of legato in her exquisite solo in the instrument’s altissimo register during the Tema con variazioni movement left me breathless, while in the louder sections she played with fearless intensity and determination. All this was evident not only to the ears, but also the eyes. Watching the gesticulate cellist in action afforded the listener a window into her soul.

Like Segev, Velinzon is a pleasure to watch as he moves and sways to the music ― which in the case of Dohnányi is difficult to avoid. I only wish that the comparatively undemonstrative Thompson showed as much emotion and depth of involvement as the other two players. His straightforward, business-like demeanor as he plays belies the beauty that radiates from his instrument. Thompson’s serene high-register solo in the second movement Romanza sounded beautiful, but here too I wish his face had revealed what my ears had experienced, so as to draw the listener into a shared experience.

The Cooperstown Summer Music Festival, which this season changed its name from "Cooperstown Chamber Music Festival" to better reflect its eclectic offerings, is a blossoming seasonal arts organization that is rapidly shaping into one of the premiere seasonal arts organizations in New York.

It’s well worth the trip to experience playing of this caliber. Just like the Yankees.