{"id":117155,"date":"2025-08-04T03:07:13","date_gmt":"2025-08-04T03:07:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/117155\/"},"modified":"2025-08-04T03:07:13","modified_gmt":"2025-08-04T03:07:13","slug":"rarely-played-scandinavia-music-shines-at-summerfest","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/117155\/","title":{"rendered":"Rarely played Scandinavia music shines at SummerFest"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"The<\/a>The Conrad, home to the La Jolla Music Society. (File photo by Bradley Joslin\/La Jolla Music Society)<\/p>\n

One of the glories of La Jolla Music Society<\/a>\u2019s annual SummerFest is its perennial embrace of neglected music (leaving aside its equally long embrace of brand-new music via commissions). Even the very first Summer Fest in 1986 featured the music of Carl Nielsen<\/a>, Arnold Bax, and lesser-known works by canonical composers like Bartok.<\/p>\n

Friday\u2019s nothing-but-strings program at La Jolla\u2019s Conrad, \u201cNorthern Lights,\u201d nicely illustrated that embrace. The evening\u2019s closing mainstay was Jean Sibelius<\/a>\u2019 Voces Intimae string quartet in D minor (1909), not as well-known as his symphonies but without doubt his most frequently performed chamber work (Finland\u2019s Meta4 quartet played it here in April).<\/p>\n

But the evening\u2019s first half was pure SummerFest iconoclasm: an early string quintet by the late great Danish composer Nielsen (1865-1931) and the second nonet by the very-much-living Finnish pianist\/composer Ollie Mustonen<\/a> (born 1967). How neglected are they? Nielsen\u2019s quintet has received all of two performances worldwide in the past decade (both this month); Mustonen\u2019s Nonet No. 2 has been recorded exactly once in the past quarter century.<\/p>\n

Only the Nielsen offered any purchase on claims that neglected music is neglected for a reason. Nielsen himself never published this quintet and even withdrew it (as his Opus 3) until late in his life. Eric Bromberger notes in SummerFest\u2019s program that Nielsen\u2019s comment after hearing it performed 37 years later was \u201cHow like Brahms it is!\u201d How like Norwegian composer Johan Svendsen it is too. In withdrawing another piece he wrote the same year as the quintet, Nielsen admitted Svendsen\u2019s obvious influence was the cause.<\/p>\n

All-star violinists Blake Pouliot and Alan Gilbert (the New York Phil\u2019s former music director); violists Kyle Armbrust and Sohui Yun; and cellist Kajsa William-Olsson gave the quintet its star turn. Pouliot\u2019s keening lyricism, Armbrust\u2019s soaring gestures, and the quintet\u2019s cohesion behind a piece \u201cnobody in the group has played before,\u201d according to Gilbert in the concert\u2019s prelude video, drew applause after every movement. <\/p>\n

But textural muddiness marred the second and third movements, and only in the last could one hear the muscular, vigorous voice that Nielsen began, three years later, to make his own with his first symphony. In other words, this early work perfectly fit SummerFest music director Inon Barnatan\u2019s \u201cMilestones\u201d theme: \u201cdefining moments in a creative life.\u201d<\/p>\n

Judging by Friday\u2019s performance, any neglect Mustonen\u2019s fascinating and likable second nonet has suffered is simply because no one\u2019s heard it. Barnatan shared in the festival\u2019s opening-night interview that when he first heard the nonet\u2019s brooding, slashing opening it \u201cblew my mind.\u201d The rhythmic energy, originality, and dramatic instinct of the first two movements do grab by the lapels. <\/p>\n

But the nonet\u2019s hypnotic soul is its eight-minute adagio. Built on simple, repeated musical ideas, punctuated by the violins\u2019 darting descending figures, it casts a haunting spell, somehow elegiac and hopeful. The racing rhythms, thrumming pizzicato, and vaguely Sibelian shimmer of the closing vivacissimo culminated in a thrilling cliff leap that drew a roar from the Conrad audience.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Though two of the four musicians seating themselves for Sibelius\u2019s Voces Intimae\u00a0\u2014 violinists Stefan Jackiw and Liza Ferschtman \u2014 had played in the first half, the step change in sonic magnetism and virtuosic force post intermission was unmistakable. True, the D minor string quartet was the night\u2019s only work of genius, and cellist Clive Greensmith and violist Jonathan Vinocur brought rested virtuosity on stage. But the detectable character shift likely came down to these musicians\u2019 rapport and the good fortune all canonic repertoire enjoys: players have had years to probe their mysteries.<\/p>\n

This was a riveting performance. Wielding his 1704\u00a0Vincenzo Rugeri<\/a>, first violinist Jackiw injected an electric urgency into his top-voice role. With his precise, spiderlike fingering, Goldsmith brought a dark, throbbing burnish to his anchoring line. Locked tightly in, Ferschtman and Vinocur channeled the quartet\u2019s blistering energy. Counterintuitively, these four created a more massive sonic presence than the combined four violins, two violas, two cellos and bass of Mustonen\u2019s nonet.<\/p>\n

In the prelude video, Goldsmith hinted at the quartet\u2019s secret sauce: \u201cFor me it\u2019s much more about the character of each instrument\u201d than it is the players\u2019 ability to blend \u201cin a technically accomplished way.\u201d Finland\u2019s Meta4 succeeded with Voces in April through telepathic unanimity and a psychological conception of the work. <\/a>The visceral success of Friday\u2019s quartet came down to the sheer intensity and virtuosity of their playing.<\/p>\n

Paul Bodine has been writing about music \u2013 from classical to pop\/rock \u2014 for over 30 years for publications such as Classical Voice North America, Times of San Diego, Classical Music Daily, Orange County Register, and Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. Among the artists he\u2019s interviewed are Joshua Bell, Herbert Blomstedt, Sarah Chang, Ivan Fischer, Bruno Canino, Christopher O\u2019Reilly, Lindsay String Quartet, David Benoit, Laura Claycomb, Jon Nakamatsu, Paul Chihara, the Ahn Trio, Lucas Debargue, and John Thiessen.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Conrad, home to the La Jolla Music Society. (File photo by Bradley Joslin\/La Jolla Music Society) One…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":117156,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5134],"tags":[5229,1582,276,73327,1576,73328,12458,73329,3549,7264,73330,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":{"0":"post-117155","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-san-diego","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-ca","10":"tag-california","11":"tag-carl-nielsen","12":"tag-classical-music","13":"tag-la-jolla-music-society","14":"tag-northern-lights","15":"tag-ollie-mustonen","16":"tag-san-diego","17":"tag-sandiego","18":"tag-summerfest","19":"tag-united-states","20":"tag-united-states-of-america","21":"tag-unitedstates","22":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","23":"tag-us","24":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114968293837530701","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/117155","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=117155"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/117155\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/117156"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=117155"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=117155"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=117155"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}