Milwaukee’s Frankly Music chamber ensemble continues its season with elegant French music in a lovely setting at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church. Violinist Frank Almond, Frankly Music’s leader and longtime concertmaster of the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra, recently shared his thoughts about his cohorts and the “French Connection” concert in particular.
He started by expressing his anticipatory joy with the prospect of performing with his musical mates—cellist Julian Schwartz and pianist Brian Zeger. “I’m really happy to have both Brian and Julian back on the series. Julian was here during our 10th anniversary year and is rapidly establishing a substantial solo and chamber career,” Almond remarked. “Brian has an incredibly diverse career, well-known for his collaborative work with major singers around the globe. He continues to play chamber music as well as run the Young Artists programs at the Metropolitan Opera and Juilliard. We’ve worked together on and off since the 1990s and recorded the CD Portraits and Elegies a few years ago.”
This trio of fine and accomplished talent comes together this month to perform some truly lovely, if often overlooked, French classical chamber music. The oldest works on the program are three excerpts from Pièces pittoresques (1891) by Emmanuel Chabrier (1841-1894), a composer whose piano writing is both thoroughly inimitable and sui generis. A fellow French composer of a later generation, Francis Poulenc, expressed great admiration for this particular composition thusly: “Without hesitation, I declare that the Pièces pittoresques are as important for French music as Debussy’s Préludes.” There’s also the 1922 Duo for Violin and Cello by Maurice Ravel (1875-1937), a work composed while he was somewhat hesitantly exploring the growing avant-garde movement. Gabriel Fauré’s Piano Trio in D Minor, Op. 120 (1923) came just a year before the ill and deaf composer’s death—a delightfully unexpected final surprise from the old master. The only non-French composer on the program is also the most modern by far—American Philip Lasser (b. 1963). Though not a native Frenchman, Lasser nevertheless studied and worked extensively in France as a young man. Concertgoers will hear Lasser’s Vocalise for Violin and Piano of 1999.
Stay on top of the news of the day
Subscribe to our free, daily e-newsletter to get Milwaukee's latest local news, restaurants, music, arts and entertainment and events delivered right to your inbox every weekday, plus a bonus Week in Review email on Saturdays.
Almond explained the decision to opt for essentially an all-French program. “I wanted a real contrast to the opener [his “Bach and Brahms” concert in September], so this is a completely different musical language. Chabrier is mostly known for one slightly mediocre orchestral work, so the piano pieces offer a different perspective. The Ravel is of course a much-loved masterpiece and tour de force for both instruments. The very beautiful Lasser piece is kind of an anomaly—a young American composer with deep French roots in his compositional style and training. The Fauré Piano Trio is also underplayed; one of his last works and, in my opinion, one of his best—a synthesis of his best musical characteristics while at the apex of his compositional abilities.”
Frankly Music’s “French Connection” concert takes place at 7 p.m. on Monday, Nov. 9 at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, 914 E. Knapp St. For tickets visit franklymusic.org.
CLASSICAL HAPPENING:
Latino Strings and the Villalobos Brothers
Latino Arts Auditorium & Gallery
United Community Center, 1028 S. Ninth St.
7:30 p.m., Friday, Nov. 6
Latino Arts is likely one of Milwaukee’s best-kept secrets; it shouldn’t be, for they’ve been providing people with authentic Hispanic visual and musical arts programming on Milwaukee’s near South Side for three decades. One such event is a concert for the Day of the Dead Celebration including the Latino Arts Strings Program. Established in 2002, the LASP is a musical instruction program providing Latino students with instruments as well as individual and ensemble lessons. The guest performers are the Villalobos Brothers, a Xalapa, Mexico-born trio of violinists, composers, instrumentalists and singer-songwriters. (John Jahn)
