Museum an inspired backdrop to show chamber music’s appeal
Museums, like libraries, are known for offering quiet tranquility. After all, who wants commotion when viewing a still life by Van Gogh, or Muzak when appreciating a landscape by Monet?
On Thursday, however, the Columbus Museum of Art was filled with sounds alternately lilting and lush, beautiful and brooding. The museum’s Derby Court was the setting of the second concert of the five-day VIVO Music Festival — and the pairing proved inspired.
Established by violinist Siwoo Kim and violist John Stulz — central Ohio musicians who have gone on to careers in New York and Paris, respectively — the festival showcases chamber music in an eclectic assortment of venues. Additional events will be held this weekend at the North Market and in galleries throughout the Short North.
Thursday’s program opened with Samuel Barber’s “Summer Music,” a gentle, deliberate work strikingly reminiscent of the composer’s masterpiece for voice, “Knoxville: Summer of 1915.”
Five wind players — flutist Jacqueline
Cordova-Arrington, oboist James Riggs, clarinetist Gabriel Campos-Zamora, bassoonist Brent Foster and horn player Laura Weiner — sensitively summoned sounds evocative of the present season.
Next up was Mozart’s bright, festive “Clarinet Quintet,” in which four string players — Kim, Stulz, cellist Alice Yoo and violinist Jeff Myers — provided warm support of CamposZamora on clarinet. In the evening’s highlight, the five performed with decisiveness and enthusiasm.
During the concert’s first hour, the natural light from the Derby Court’s skylights diminished, mirroring the program’s transition from peppy pieces to more complex music.
Following an intermission, nine musicians performed Pierre Boulez’s wistful “Memoriale.” Flutist Cordova-Arrington was front and center for the piece, which mixed quizzical passages on her instrument with sometimes-stormy playing from other instruments.
The concert concluded with Arnold Schonberg’s “Verklarte Nacht for String Sextet,” a passionate, roiling work played with the combination of skill and drama characteristic of the evening as a whole. Museumgoers overhearing the program from outside the Derby Court might have been tempted to check out the festival’s closing concert, set for Sunday in a museum auditorium.