Astral Artists' Brahms Festival

When I first started frequenting chamber music concerts, I noticed that Brahms's chamber music produces a visible effect on musicians. They seem to dig into their instruments and act like they're totally happy in their work. This phenomenon occurs, I think, because the musicians know that (1) they're doing something good and (2) the audience will like it.

The Astral Artists Brahms Festival confronts that theory with a decisive test. Astral presents three complete Brahms programs in a single day. I missed the inaugural festival last year, but this year I hit all three concerts and wandered home Saturday evening without any sense that I'd overdosed. If someone had told me I could catch all two hours of the Brahms German Requiem the next day, I would have gone without any complaint.

As most Philadelphia chamber music enthusiasts are aware, Astral provides selected young performers with performance opportunities and career guidance. The Brahms festival teamed some of Astral's best young artists with stars of the Philadelphia chamber scene, like the pianists Cynthia Raim and Natalie Zhu.

The range and power of Brahms's chamber music can be a revelation to people who know him only through his orchestral works. The festival provided a panorama of his output that included major instrumental works, two sets of vocal works, and a piano spectacular that paired Raim and Zhu in a two-piano version of one of Brahms's most popular chamber pieces: the quintet for piano and string quartet.

Matsuyama does it again

The opening concert would have been an event in itself, since it included first-class performances of two of my personal all time favorites: the Brahms First Piano Trio and his groundbreaking trio for violin, piano and horn. Astral artist Saeka Matsuyama deserves a special mention for her work in the all-important violin part in the horn trio. In the opening number, in addition, she delivered a performance of the Second Violin Sonata that ranked with her work in the first sonata at her Astral debut last year. (To read my review of that concert, click here.)

The second concert opened with the aforementioned piano spectacular, which consumed the entire first half. Raim and Zhu both put plenty of muscle into the opening allegro and followed it with movements in which they produced clear, distinctive voices and beautifully shaped melody lines. In the finale, they maintained the complex interactions of the two instruments and met challenge after challenge right through the final all-out charge toward the finish line.

The piano duo constituted a solid afternoon's work, but Raim and Zhu returned at the end of the second half and provided the piano accompaniment for Brahms' lighthearted Liebeslieder Waltzes, sung by a quartet that included Lyric Fest's Suzanne DuPlantis and the familiar presence of Randall Scarlata, who seems to have become the baritone of choice at Philadelphia chamber concerts.

Paganini dissected

The star of the final concert was Roberto Diaz, now president of Curtis Institute, who joined Astral artist Alexandre Moutouzkine in the Brahms Second Viola Sonata and finished the festival playing the strong first viola part in the Brahms string quintet in G major. Good as those were, the most fascinating event on that bill was the opening exploration of Brahms's Variations on a Theme by Paganini.

Astral's artistic director, Julian Rodescu, enhanced those variations by placing them between the original work— Paganini's Caprice No. 26— and a two-piano set of variations that the Polish composer Witold Lutoslawski created when he and a friend played duets in cafes during World War II.

Paganini's Caprice was deliberately designed as a display piece, so the program opened with a young violinist, Astral Artist Kristin Lee, reproducing all the tricks the greatest violinist in Europe devised to wow audiences and overwhelm competitors. Astral pianist Sara Daneshpour then demonstrated her mastery of shading, touch and all the tricks a pianist like Brahms could add to Paganini's violin display. The Lutoslawski piano duo paired her with Alexandre Moutouzkine and added more complexities, with twice as many opportunities to make mistakes.

Paganini happens to have been a good composer, so this orgy of technical display was accompanied by music that would be a pleasure to listen to even if you didn't know the performers were dancing on a high wire without a net.

Paganini and Lutoslawski weren't the only guest composers on the schedule. Strauss and Schumann also put in appearances. The Brahms Festival showcases Astral's artists in programs that range all over the repertoire. It may be something of a stunt, but it's a high-class stunt with a serious purpose.♦


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