In a concert Friday night at St. Mark's Episcopal Church in Palo Alto, the Music@Menlo festival featured the world-class artists for which it is known, playing music both familiar and strange. Although a theme like this evening's, “Death and Transfiguration,” might at first glance appear to promise a wallow in melancholy (even lacking as the program did the obvious choice of Richard Strauss' famous meditation on the subject), the intelligent selection of pieces ensured variety and light amid the gloom.
After introductory remarks to the sold-out house by pianist and coartistic director Wu Han, the concert opened with Rachmaninov's early Trio élégiaque. Written while the composer was a teenaged student at the Moscow Conservatory, the trio can perhaps better be heard as a meditation on teen angst rather than on death.
With a minimum of material, Rachmaninov provided the opportunity for a maximum of expression. Pianist Han, violinist Philip Setzer, and cellist Colin Carr dove into the depths of this one-movement work. Carr's sensitive and achingly expressive cello playing was the highlight of the piece. Han demonstrated supreme command of her instrument, as did Setzer. The trio surged and soared, and was thoroughly impressive.
From Rachmaninov's trio, the evening moved on to a string quartet by Bruce Adolphe. Written in 1994, String Quartet No. 4, Whispers of Mortality, was performed by its original dedicatee, the Miami String Quartet. From the shock of the first movement to the canonic web of the last, the Quartet told a convincing story of a dying man coming to grips with his own mortality.
The Miami is an extremely fine ensemble — the performers brought the characters to life in the piece, even as they effortlessly moved from idea to idea with perfect understanding of each other. And Adolphe's repetition of material throughout the five movements of the quartet not only added to its sense of completion, but it also created a familiarity that makes the work enjoyable even for a listener not accustomed to contemporary music. Working with the ostinato principle so familiar in later 20th-century music, Adolphe managed to create a moving intimation of (im)mortality. The additive nature of his composition creates the impression of a slowly unfolding understanding of death that leads to gradual acceptance.
Rebekah Ahrendt holds the artist's diploma in viola da gamba and historical performance practice from the Royal Conservatory of The Hague. Currently, she is a graduate student in historical musicology at UC Berkeley.