Milwaukee Musaik tenderly performs Wagner lullaby

Piece premiered on Christmas in 1870

Not all music we associate with Christmas was written with any thought to the holiday and its celebrations.

Milwaukee Musaik, the flexible-in-instrumentation incarnation of the Milwaukee Chamber Orchestra, played at Wisconsin Lutheran College on Monday evening, opening with Wagner’s love letter to his wife and lullaby to his infant son, “Siegfried Idyll.” The piece was premiered in the Wagner family home on Christmas Day in 1870.

The evening’s contingent of Milwaukee Musaik, violinists Jeanyi Kim and Alexander Mandl, violist Nicole Sutterfield, cellist Stefan Kartman, bassist Brendan Fitzgerald and pianist Jeannie Yu gave a thoughtful, tender delivery of the Alfred Pringsheim arrangement of the piece written for two violins, viola, cello, bass and piano.

The group wasn’t entirely secure in balance or blend in this opening piece, which may have had more to do with the arrangement than the players. Pringsheim’s arrangement is not heard often, perhaps because the iconic motifs, familiar from other Wagner works, are blurred in the condensation from the 13 mixed winds and strings of the original, to five strings and piano.

The program was emceed by Musaik president Alexander Mandl, who played violin on “Siegfried Idyll,” introduced the program, and turned pages at the piano for the Hummel and Schubert.

Balance and blend were not issues in the least in the thoroughly engaging performance of Hummel’s utterly charming Piano Quintet in E-flat Minor.

Playing with style, energy and clear-headed musical purpose, the ensemble gave an engrossing, thoroughly enjoyable performance. Yu’s eloquent piano lines, executed fluidly, featured a lovely musical shape and nuanced use of colors and dynamics.

The program’s grand finale was a suitably grand rendition of Schubert’s Piano Quintet in A Major. Best known as his “Trout Quintet,” the piece takes its name from its delightful fourth movement, based on Schubert’s Lied (song) “Die Forelle” (“The Trout”).

The players gave a delightful performance, particularly of the playful, tuneful, fourth movement, in which “Die Forelle” stars.

But it was not just the fourth movement that found them enjoying the deft melodic layering and harmonic richness of the quintet. Throughout the five movements, the players handled many of the piece’s melodic lines with the grace and ease of a singer, bringing rich, warm sounds.