Lenape Chamber Ensemble's 25th anniversary concerts

The Lenape Chamber Ensemble's choice of three pieces from the heart of the Classical, Romantic, and modern eras gave listeners a chance to reflect on the evolution of Western consciousness and sensibilities during the two-century span from the Enlightenment to Modernity.

Chamber music, with its intimate and introspective turns, allows the composer and listener to relate to one another in a quieter if no less intense way than does the orchestral repertoire, even across the temporal gap of several generations. The Lenape Ensemble's instrumentalists, with their diverse performing experience and mastery of complex forms, furthered this relational aspect of the music.

Haydn in isolation and out

Haydn composed his E Flat Piano Trio near the end of his career, in 1796, after his triumphant stay in London, where he may have heard talk about the American Revolution and other events associated with the Enlightenment. His own success and the liberating effect of a new historical era are reflected in the energetic momentum of this piece, which is more emotionally driven than much of what we associate with him.

By contrast, in Haydn's early days with the Esterhazy court, he composed in relative isolation, a situation that may have allowed him to further the lively Classical style— de-emphasizing the off-beat— that soon supplanted the Baroque architectonic approach, with its compressed metronomic pulse.

In this E Flat Piano Trio, "Papa" Haydn took the forward-moving (shall we say "optimistic"?) rhythm to a lovely climax in its presto dance-like rhythms, expressing a joyful spirit that betokened Beethoven, who at that time was Haydn's student. It's possible that Haydn took as much from his student as vice-versa. In any case, this compact and authoritative piece represents an apotheosis of both the Classical period in music and the Enlightenment sensibility, with its unbridled hopes for mankind.

Grieving Shostakovich

The mood of Shostakovich's Seventh String Quartet is predictably darker than that of the Haydn Trio, although a lightness of being does creep through the window shade at some points. Its dedication to his late wife, Nina, suggests that Shostakovich was still resolving his grief over her death several years before he composed it in 1960.

The second and third movements evoke the concatenation of light and dark that penetrates the grieving soul when it finally accepts that death is irrevocable. At the same time, these two movements amply illustrate the modern consciousness of despair and the disillusionment with Enlightenment thought to which Shostakovich was exposed in a crushing way in his battles with the Soviet censors.

Haydn and Shostakovich were both masters of harmony and counterpoint, and we can see how the increased complexity of these elements in Shostakovich permitted him to express troubled, warring emotions for which Haydn, even if he felt such feelings, hardly possessed the tools of expression, and which were left to Beethoven and beyond to develop.

Yet the cross-generational empathy between composers over two century's time cannot be ignored. Shostakovich, despite his forays into the demonic wilds of experience, expression and understanding, was a master and elaborator of the techniques and forms elaborated by his predecessors, including "Papa."

Dvorak takes risks

Unlike the Haydn Trio and the Shostakovich Seventh Quartet— both written late in the composers' respective careers— the Dvorak Piano Quartet was composed very early, when Dvorak was a student. In it, the composer took numerous risks, "playing" with forms and structures no doubt to his own delight. To the delight of Saturday's audience, the Lenape musicians overcame a certain hesitation in the first two compositions to deliver a master level performance that drew a standing ovation.

The lush sound of Arash Amini's cello brought out the budding romanticism of Dvorak, with his rich use of melodic strains from the Moldau region of Czechoslovakia— themes he employed throughout his career, even in the New World Symphony, which curiously embodied the music of his home country. Juxtaposed chronologically almost exactly between the Haydn and the Shostakovich, Dvorak sharply exemplified the movement in Western consciousness and art toward individualistic and nationalistic self-expression and the destiny of a people.

Hope for a steady rudder

If we consider the evolution of Western history, thought and art from the Reformation through the Enlightenment and the Romantic Era, we hear through the music the ascendance of individuality, self-consciousness and inner conflict. At the same time, the continuity of dance and folk themes, and the disciplines of harmony, form and counterpoint illustrate the continuity of Western sensibility despite its questionings, fragmentation and violent upheaval.

Throughout this continuum runs a thin strand of hoped-for steadiness of the rudder that can get us through difficulties to come. There is no better place to look for this evenness of purpose than the reflective lens of chamber music well performed and interpreted. Groups like the Lenape Ensemble— so thoroughly dedicated to the chamber idiom and so capable of rendering its meaning palpable— enable us to appreciate the riches contained in music that does not necessarily fill the purses of its devotees.