Dolce Suono's Barber celebration (2nd review)

The composer Samuel Barber occupied a comfortable niche in American 20th-Century music between tradition and modernity. During his career he scarcely moved from that midpoint, creating a legacy of stunningly beautiful, distinctive music that earned him a place among the world's great composers even as he was roundly criticized for his conservatism.

Actually Barber was a true Romantic, who soundly incorporated American and English harmonies and melodic idioms; this steady purpose, while questioned by some, won him a lasting place among music lovers and in musical history. He represents a successful confluence of tradition and modernity, and of Classicism and romanticism as well.

This concert by Dolce Suono was an ideal way to honor Barber's memory on the eve of his 100th birthday— significantly performed at Barber's alma mater, Curtis Institute, and featuring his own music in addition to that of three other Curtis alumni or faculty, all highly rated composers in their own right: Jennifer Higdon, Ned Rorem and David Ludwig. Each of these composers, while strongly influenced by Barber, has nevertheless taken a compositional path different from the master, venturing further forth into the seas of modernity, while taking care not to lose sight of the shore of tradition.

Musical tendencies interacting

With the skill and interpretive capacity of the Dolce Suono musicians, and their choice of chamber works with diverse instrumentation, the entire occasion, playing to a full house and including commentaries by artistic director Mimi Stillman and composers Higdon and Ludwig, was a gem. The fine performances of the Dolce Suono ensembles gave the listener music that charmed the ear while at the same time affording an opportunity to see how traditional and modern musical tendencies interact within a given set of compositions.

Intentionally or not, the program also seemed organized around the notion of music as conveying an idea, memory or mood— music that's deliberately evocative and metaphorical. Barber's Summer Music evoked the reflective mood of late summer, with beautiful melodic lines and effective counterpoint. Higdon's Autumn Music, consciously intended as a sequel to the Barber piece, was a virtual tone poem, evoking strong images of the colors and changes of that season, and strongly influenced in many respects by Debussy, and especially his Prélude Ó l'Après-midi d'un Faune.

Rorem's brooding

Rorem's Trio had a brooding quality, echoing troubled times and going further into modern idioms than any of the other compositions, at times utilizing the dissonances of Shostakovich. Ludwig's Haiku Catharsis consisted of four haiku poems set to music, each evoking a particular image and the corresponding emotion, as in T.S. Eliot's poetic concept of the "objective correlative."

And the finale— Barber's Capricorn Concerto— captured Barber's memories of his long-term home by that name, where he lived with his lover, Giancarlo Menotti, another Curtis alumnus. Here, Barber seems to pay homage to fellow composers like Copland and Bernstein, who must have visited Capricorn, and whose musical idioms at times break through Barber's own melodic and harmonic structures.

Crafty programming

Mimi Stillman, Dolce Suono's artistic director, has a crafty way of organizing the group's recitals around ideas and themes that are yet open enough to allow for variety and sustained interest. Varying the chamber ensemble instrumentation also lends an interesting quality to Dolce Suono's concerts. Moreover, the group's ensembles master the music to the point where even the most difficult passages seem effortless.

In all, an homage to Barber that the composer himself undoubtedly would have appreciated.♦


To read another review by Tom Purdom, click here.