Frankly Music opened its season last week to a near-capacity audience at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church. A variety of players from Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra (MSO) performed a potpourri of a program with artistic director Frank Almond, who has a knack for putting music and musicians together. He also did some splendid playing. We are so fortunate to have chamber music at this level in our city.
The MSO brass section boasts some terrific players, four of whom played three Renaissance selections, two by Giovanni Gabrieli and one by Giovanni Palestrina. Trumpeters Matthew Ernst and David Cohen were joined by trombonist Megumi Kanda and hornist Dietrich Hemann in playing that was well-blended, balanced and a pleasure to hear in the church’s ringing acoustics.
We have not had enough opportunities to hear MSO principal flutist Sonora Slocum in chamber music. She played with a buoyant, resonant sound, displaying her elegant way with a phrase in Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s Flute Quartet in D minor, K. 285 with Almond, Alejandro Duque on viola and Peter Thomas on cello. The first and third movements were bubbly happiness; the lovely, song-like second movement was a plaintive melody over plucked strings.
Believe it or not, Arnold Schoenberg, known as the inventor of atonality, wrote arrangements of three waltzes by Johann Strauss II, including the Emperor Waltz heard in this concert. Both men were Viennese, and even the fiercely intellectual Schoenberg must have had some sentiment in him, with inventive writing for seven instruments in this arrangement. It was an enchanting performance. Pianist Elena Abend and clarinetist Todd Levy ably joined in on the fun.
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Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky’s Souvenir de Florence for string sextet might start in Italy, but it becomes decidedly Russian over its four movements. Almond was joined by violinist Ilana Setapen, violists Samantha Rodriguez and Duque and cellists Madeleine Kabat and Thomas. This was a lively and colorful account, with sharp contrasts in dynamics, ending in a blazing, exciting finish. I loved the Mendelssohn-like fleet section that interrupted the slow second movement. It was good to hear the warm, present viola tone from Rodriquez.
