Emerald Duo (Musica Viva) plays to a packed house in Porterville

It gave me a distinct feeling of pride to sit in the audience on Oct. 17 at Porterville College and just enjoy the music. Not that I haven’t enjoyed the past 23 years of music at PC, but now from a slightly different perspective… being an educated audience member.

Note that I said educated in reference only to a level of understanding of music from various periods and composers, but like all other audience members wanting to be at once entertained and exposed to music and composers new to me.

No better partners could provide this kind of new exposure than Susan Doering (violin) and husband Dieter Wulfhorst (cello), who have in so many performances brought rare and wonderful music to our Porterville audiences. The good news is that the college’s music department (and new professor Sarah Rector) are continuing the tradition that has been established of presenting chamber recitals to the public.

One thing that has been a hallmark of the Emerald Duo is to present music that is uncommon. Their program of “Musical Miniatures” at once delighted the large audience assembled in the college’s music room and also served to teach about obscure composers and their works, but did not ignore the major composers we all learned about in school.

Beginning with a Bach “invention” (originally for keyboard), they maintained the detached feeling a harpsichord would provide by playing every new note on a “new bow” — providing on stringed instruments the articulation one would commonly hear from a keyboard.

They followed this with an unknown (literally, discovered and completed only 10 years ago) work by Beethoven, providing their own dynamics to a score that called for both players to end phrases with “double-stop” (playing two notes at once) to produce solid chords.

They followed these two contrapuntal works with “Romance in G Major” by Johann Nep. Hummel. Violin carried the lyrical melodic phrases while the cello provided a solid Alberti bass accompaniment (as with several of their selections, the artists had arranged this work for their instruments — my guess is that it, too, was originally a keyboard composition).

The excellent sense of impeccable intonation (tuning) and ensemble (playing together without error and with the same style and technique) was evident throughout their performance, but was charming in the pizzicato (plucked) Vesipisaroita (translated as “water droplets”) written by familiar composer Jean Sibelius at the tender age of 9. Of particular interest was a set of four pieces that were written by husband-and-wife duo Ken and Laurie Turley to celebrate their own 30plus years of marriage. The program included music from most of the major compositional periods, and even included an Argentinean Tango (El Choclo, by Angel G. Villoldo) and an up-beat ragtime finale to the concert (Toots, written by Felix Arndt).

A college music department typically opens its doors to the community for solo recitals, chamber music performances and large ensemble concerts.

Keep your eyes on the PC music department’s calendar and share the wonderful heritage we all share in music.

Keeping these events free to the public helps one and all to “connect” with the college’s program and is enjoyable for one and all.

David Hensley recently retired after more than 20 years as Professor of Music at Porterville College.