Musicians from Marlboro III

Berg wrote the suite in response to an extramarital romance, according to the best evidence available, so I think it’s fair to listen to it primarily for its emotional impact, even if you don’t try to correlate it with a particular story line.

For me, the dialogue between the four instruments mostly expresses inner conflict and turbulence. The fourth movement adagio appassionato includes some beautiful short solos, but its dominant emotion is the kind of passion associated with outbursts that end with a telephone flying across the room.

The Berg made an interesting companion to the final item on the Philadelphia Chamber Music Society’s Musicians from Marlboro program. Dvořák’s Piano Quintet in A Major is just as emotional as Berg’s suite, but it expresses its emotions through melodies and harmonies that integrate the four voices, with none of the tension that runs through the Berg.

The Berg captures the way I feel much of the time (especially when I’m writing). For me, it’s the kind of art that wins your affection because it lets you know you aren’t alone in the world. The Dvořák expresses the way I’d like to feel — and do manage to feel some of the time.

The PCMS Musicians from Marlboro programs present traveling ensembles from the annual Marlboro Festival in Vermont, an institution that is tightly associated with PCMS. Every summer, established veterans and up-and-coming young musicians gather in Marlboro, work on chamber pieces, and present concerts. The Musicians from Marlboro programs bring some of that wealth to the rest of the United States.

The string quartet for this program consisted of violist Samuel Rhodes, who recently completed 46 years with the Juilliard Quartet, and three younger string players. The Marlboro groups always bring a youthful vitality to their work. This quartet, in addition, was so locked together they sounded like a quartet that has been playing together for several seasons.

Cynthia Raim belongs to the small group of Philadelphia-based master pianists who enrich our city’s musical life with chamber work, accompaniments, and an occasional solo. (It contains eight members, by my count, but I won’t name the others for fear of inadvertently leaving someone out.) In the all-important piano role in the Dvořák quintet, she displayed all her usual gifts, including a dazzling ability to jump, almost instantaneously, from soft melodic passages to big dynamic eruptions.

I’ve been listening to most of these pianists since I first started reviewing 25 years ago, and I’ve recently noted that none of them seem to have aged very much. I plan to file a complaint as soon as I can identify the proper authority.