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When musicians go moonlighting
Chamber music: Philadelphia's secret weapon
Tom Purdom
When Philadelphians assess the Philadelphia Orchestra's contributions to the city's musical scene, we shouldn't overlook all those chamber music organizations that draw most of their players from the Orchestra— groups like 1807 & Friends, Dolce Suono, the Philadelphia Chamber Ensemble, the Amerita Chamber Players, the Network for New Music, and the Orchestra's own chamber music series.
Those six ensembles will add 21 concerts to Philadelphia's current music season. That doesn't include other organizations (like the Philadelphia Chamber Music Society) that regularly feature Orchestra musicians as soloists and guest artists.
The variety contributed by the Orchestra musicians matters even more than the quantity. Many great works in the chamber repertoire combine winds with strings. They can only be performed regularly if you can tap a pool of accomplished musicians that includes wind players.
The best source for such a pool is a major orchestra. The best violinists and pianists can pursue full-time solo careers. The top wind players, by contrast, usually end up in the first and second chairs of major orchestras, playing solos and chamber music on the side.
Montanaro's motive
The Philadelphia Chamber Music Ensemble specializes in pieces that combine musicians from different sections of the Orchestra. Its music director, the Orchestra's retired associate principal clarinetist, Donald Montanaro, has said that he started it 35 years ago because he didn't want to play in a wind quintet. The three items on its season opener included two pieces for winds and strings— Mozart's quintet for clarinet and strings and Marcel Tournier's suite for flute, harp, and string trio.
The Tournier employs a favorite combination of French composers, but you can only encounter it at chamber concerts presented by broad-based organizations. Flutist David Cramer and harpist Margaret Csonka Montanaro showed up just to play in this one piece. How many globetrotting soloists would do that?
Mozart's pickup group
The Mozart quintet is a prime example of a masterpiece that practically requires a pickup group assembled from an orchestra. A major string quartet will occasionally team up with a famous clarinetist and add the quintet to a string quartet program, but I've been hearing this work regularly for years, thanks to the wealth of musicians based in Philadelphia.
Mozart wrote the quintet for a Viennese court musician, his friend the clarinetist Anton Stadler. It isn't hard to imagine Stadler playing it with four string players from the court orchestra, in the same way Donald Montanaro played it with four of his younger colleagues at this event.
An orphan genre
The other piece on the Chamber Ensemble program didn't include winds, but it belongs to a genre that's something of an orphan: the quartet for piano and string trio.
The piano quartet (as it's properly called) tends to get sidelined in a world where the chamber music scene is dominated by string quartets. Famous string quartets can schedule its larger relative, the piano quintet, by joining forces with a pianist. When you program a piano quartet, on the other hand, one of the violinists must vacate the stage.
The Chamber Ensemble's pianist is Kiyoto Takeuti, the Philadelphia Orchestra's principal keyboard player. On the Kimmel stage, she usually performs a secondary role, mostly providing brief flourishes when a composer includes a piano or celesta in the main body of the orchestra. When she plays a piece like the Schumann quintet, you're reminded that the source of those flourishes is an accomplished pianist capable of playing a major chamber piece with style and sensitivity.
A major event
Two weeks earlier, the season opener for the Orchestra's own chamber series ended with another major piano quartet: the Brahms First. The roster didn't include any wind musicians, but the program preceded the Brahms with a Dvorak string quintet and a Mozart duo for violin and viola.
Again, those three forms can be included in one program only if you have access to a large pool of willing and able musicians.
The Brahms quartet, like the Schumann, is the kind of piece that can turn a concert into a major event all by itself. The Orchestra ensemble teamed one of Philadelphia's leading free-lance pianists, Cynthia Raim, with three of the Orchestra's most active chamber players: violinist Paul Arnold, violist Kerri Ryan, and cellist Yumi Kendall.
Ryan is the Chamber Ensemble violist. The Chamber Ensemble cellist, John Koen, played in the Dvorak, and the Chamber Ensemble's second violin, William Polk, played in the Dvorak and the Mozart duo.
Case for free-lancers
The famous touring chamber groups specialize in chamber music and hone their teamwork by playing together night after night. The Orchestra's chamber music enthusiasts, on the other hand, may have to squeeze their chamber appearances into the cracks in the Orchestra's schedule. But eventually they become experienced chamber players by playing with each other regularly, in various configurations.
Philadelphia music lovers have been blessed with a remarkable corps of free-lance musicians. As a free-lancer myself, I'm somewhat biased in their direction. But our lives would be duller and less satisfying without the extracurricular activities of some of the Philadelphia Orchestra's best musicians.
Those six ensembles will add 21 concerts to Philadelphia's current music season. That doesn't include other organizations (like the Philadelphia Chamber Music Society) that regularly feature Orchestra musicians as soloists and guest artists.
The variety contributed by the Orchestra musicians matters even more than the quantity. Many great works in the chamber repertoire combine winds with strings. They can only be performed regularly if you can tap a pool of accomplished musicians that includes wind players.
The best source for such a pool is a major orchestra. The best violinists and pianists can pursue full-time solo careers. The top wind players, by contrast, usually end up in the first and second chairs of major orchestras, playing solos and chamber music on the side.
Montanaro's motive
The Philadelphia Chamber Music Ensemble specializes in pieces that combine musicians from different sections of the Orchestra. Its music director, the Orchestra's retired associate principal clarinetist, Donald Montanaro, has said that he started it 35 years ago because he didn't want to play in a wind quintet. The three items on its season opener included two pieces for winds and strings— Mozart's quintet for clarinet and strings and Marcel Tournier's suite for flute, harp, and string trio.
The Tournier employs a favorite combination of French composers, but you can only encounter it at chamber concerts presented by broad-based organizations. Flutist David Cramer and harpist Margaret Csonka Montanaro showed up just to play in this one piece. How many globetrotting soloists would do that?
Mozart's pickup group
The Mozart quintet is a prime example of a masterpiece that practically requires a pickup group assembled from an orchestra. A major string quartet will occasionally team up with a famous clarinetist and add the quintet to a string quartet program, but I've been hearing this work regularly for years, thanks to the wealth of musicians based in Philadelphia.
Mozart wrote the quintet for a Viennese court musician, his friend the clarinetist Anton Stadler. It isn't hard to imagine Stadler playing it with four string players from the court orchestra, in the same way Donald Montanaro played it with four of his younger colleagues at this event.
An orphan genre
The other piece on the Chamber Ensemble program didn't include winds, but it belongs to a genre that's something of an orphan: the quartet for piano and string trio.
The piano quartet (as it's properly called) tends to get sidelined in a world where the chamber music scene is dominated by string quartets. Famous string quartets can schedule its larger relative, the piano quintet, by joining forces with a pianist. When you program a piano quartet, on the other hand, one of the violinists must vacate the stage.
The Chamber Ensemble's pianist is Kiyoto Takeuti, the Philadelphia Orchestra's principal keyboard player. On the Kimmel stage, she usually performs a secondary role, mostly providing brief flourishes when a composer includes a piano or celesta in the main body of the orchestra. When she plays a piece like the Schumann quintet, you're reminded that the source of those flourishes is an accomplished pianist capable of playing a major chamber piece with style and sensitivity.
A major event
Two weeks earlier, the season opener for the Orchestra's own chamber series ended with another major piano quartet: the Brahms First. The roster didn't include any wind musicians, but the program preceded the Brahms with a Dvorak string quintet and a Mozart duo for violin and viola.
Again, those three forms can be included in one program only if you have access to a large pool of willing and able musicians.
The Brahms quartet, like the Schumann, is the kind of piece that can turn a concert into a major event all by itself. The Orchestra ensemble teamed one of Philadelphia's leading free-lance pianists, Cynthia Raim, with three of the Orchestra's most active chamber players: violinist Paul Arnold, violist Kerri Ryan, and cellist Yumi Kendall.
Ryan is the Chamber Ensemble violist. The Chamber Ensemble cellist, John Koen, played in the Dvorak, and the Chamber Ensemble's second violin, William Polk, played in the Dvorak and the Mozart duo.
Case for free-lancers
The famous touring chamber groups specialize in chamber music and hone their teamwork by playing together night after night. The Orchestra's chamber music enthusiasts, on the other hand, may have to squeeze their chamber appearances into the cracks in the Orchestra's schedule. But eventually they become experienced chamber players by playing with each other regularly, in various configurations.
Philadelphia music lovers have been blessed with a remarkable corps of free-lance musicians. As a free-lancer myself, I'm somewhat biased in their direction. But our lives would be duller and less satisfying without the extracurricular activities of some of the Philadelphia Orchestra's best musicians.
What, When, Where
Philadelphia Chamber Ensemble: Tournier, Suite for flute, violin, viola, cello and harp; Schumann, Quartet in E-flat major for piano, violin, and cello; Mozart, Quartet in A major for clarinet and string quartet. Jennifer Haas, William Polk, violins; Kerri Ryan, viola; John Koen, cello; David Cramer, flute; Donald Montanaro, clarinet; Margaret Csonka Montanaro, harp; Donald Montanaro, music director. November 9, 2012 at Old Pine Street Church, 412 Pine St. (215) 542-4890 or www.pceconcerts.org.
Philadelphia Orchestra Chamber Music Series: Mozart, Duo No. 1 in G Major; Dvorak, String Quintet in E-flat major; Brahms, Piano Quartet No. 1 in G minor. William Polk, Kimberly Fisher, Paul Arnold, violins; Marvin Moon, Choong-Jin Chang, Kerri Ryan, violas; John Koen, Yumi Kendall, cellos; Cynthia Raim, piano. October 28, 2012 at Perelman Theater, Kimmel Center, Broad and Spruce Sts. (215) 893-1999 or www.philorch.org.
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