Photo via Friends of Villa Terrace - Facebook
Mercury Courtyard - Villa Terrace Art Museum
The Mercury Courtyard at Villa Terrace Decorative Arts Museum
What better way to celebrate summer than with a sizzling weekend of chamber music in an enchanting setting at Villa Terrace, a spectacular Italianate Villa overlooking Lake Michigan in Milwaukee’s Historic Water Tower neighborhood.
The Milwaukee Chamber Music Festival’s artistic director Yaniv Dinur is a concert pianist and was resident conductor with the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra 2015-2023. He explained that he created this festival because there were no classical concerts in Milwaukee in the summer. “If you wanted to experience live classical music during the summer, you had to drive a few hours,” he says. “But not anymore!”
The festival opens 7 p.m. Friday, July 25 with Paul Schoenfeld’s “Café Music for Violin, Cello and Piano.” Schoenfeld was sitting in one night at a restaurant in Minneapolis when the inspiration came to write a trio that would be at home in both this setting as well as a concert hall. “Café Music” is the result. The classical trio with obvious jazz influence will have you snapping your fingers and tapping your toes.
This is followed by Mozart’s Clarinet Quintet, one of the peaks of the classical repertoire, a delightful work with melodies only Mozart could write. Interesting to wonder how Mozart would have written for a jazz bar.
After intermission, Friday’s program concludes with Dvorak’s Piano Quintet No. 2. A Romantic whose slow Slavic laments are followed by robust dance rhythms. It ties in nicely with Schoenfeld’s “Café Music.”
Dinur will be joined by Jay Shankar (clarinet), Ilana Setapen, (violin), Dylana Leung (violin), Elizabeth Breslin (viola) and Peter Thomas (cello).
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Saturday night begins with C.P.E. Bach’s Six Sonatas for Clarinet, Bassoon and Piano—six short single movement pieces written shortly after he moved to Hamburg in 1768. The clarinet had recently been invented and here Bach incorporates it in the more traditional Baroque style. Martinů’s Three Madrigals for Violin and Viola, composed in 1947, incorporates medieval polyphony and chordal structures in a format Mozart used for his violin-viola duos. And there is ample use of counterpoint and invention reminiscent of Bach!
The program concludes with Beethoven’s Septet for Clarinet, Bassoon, Horn, Violin, Viola, Cello and Bass. “It’s basically a small orchestra,” says Dinur. “The fact that it’s written in an unusual form of six movements inspired me to program Bach’s Six Sonatas as a parallel piece from a different century.” The Septet premiered in 1800 along with his Symphony #1.
For this program Dinur will be joined by Jay Shankar (clarinet), Catherine Van Handel (bassoon), Matthew Annin (French horn), Jeanyi Kim (violin), Alejandro Duque (viola), Madeleine Kabat (cello) and Brittany Conrad (bass).
The Festival closes 2 p.m. Sunday with three compositions featuring not only musical connections, but also personal ones. The first, Robert Schumann’s Dichterliebe (A Poet’s Love), was composed in 1840 using 16 songs from Heinrich Heine’s Lyrisches Intermezzo written in 1822–23. Dinur will accompany Alisa Jordheim, soprano. The songs are tender and heartfelt.
On the second half, Dinur will be joined by Milwaukee Symphony’s concertmaster, Jinwoo Lee, to play Brahms’ agitated Third Violin Sonata, and a Romance by a lesser-known German female composer, Luise Adolpha Le Beau, who was a student of Clara Schumann.
This wonderful chamber music will be performed in the Great Hall of Villa Terrace which looks out over Lake Michigan, July 25–27. For tickets and more information, visit friendsofvillaterrace.com.
