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PERFORMING ARTS
John Rutter conducts his Mass of the Children at the Rock Creek Festival.
(By Mauricio Franco)
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The two groups crammed onto the stage for a final set, but Alash's steady gallop didn't leave much room for Allen and company to find their footing. Maybe that was for the better -- it gave everyone in the audience a chance to catch their breath.
-- Chris Richards
Fessenden Ensemble
Two cheerful works, one by Dvorak and the other by Brahms (both in arrangements), closed the Fessenden Ensemble's season at St. Columba's Church on Tuesday. With a quintet of strings and five wind instruments busily at work, the musicmaking was more orchestral than chamber in dimension and the acoustics of St. Columba's sanctuary, immediate and rich, added extra oomph.
The Fessenden Ensemble is not a fussy group. The members play with energy, and while they achieve admirable balance, they take on their assignments with the enthusiasm of a group of soloists rather than with the attention to detail so characteristic of chamber musicians. This worked agreeably for both pieces on their program.
Dvorak wrote his "Five Bagatelles" for two violins, cello and harmonium (a sort of reed organ) and if the arrangement used here preserved none of the harmonium's distinctive sound, it was still convincingly idiomatic Dvorak, full of rough peasant dance romps and rhythmic fun. The Brahms Op. 11 was his first "Serenade," an early work full of bits and pieces of ideas that would see the light of day in much grander works. (This arrangement replaced one of Brahms's original clarinets with an oboe and added the double bass.) The ensemble handled the rhythmic morphing from four beats into three and back again with cool aplomb, the hunting horn passages with agility, and high-speed cello triplets with remarkable clarity.
Next year's Fessenden concerts will move from Tuesdays to Sundays and from St. Columba's to two new venues, some at Westmoreland Congregational United Church and others at St. Paul's Rock Creek.
-- Joan Reinthaler
