In Performance: Bach Festival Continues

Web-only review:
(Note: due to a communications glitch, this review is being posted late. The Grace Church Bach Festival continues on Friday night at 8 p.m.)

Teiber Trio Offers "Goldbergs" For Three
by Cecelia Porter

J.S. Bach's music demands that musicians reach for the stars. The Teiber Trio did just that Monday with the composer's Herculean but strangely compelling Goldberg Variations, BWV. 988, at St. Mary's Church in Foggy Bottom. While Bach originally set the piece for a two-keyboard harpsichord, the Teiber offered Dmitry Sitkovetsky's arrangement for a string threesome.
(read more after the jump)

A set of thirty variations squeezed out of a seemingly simple folk-like theme in countless ways, this music is so abstract and concentrated in its conception as to be harrowing for performers and listeners alike. But despite the technical hurdles, violinist Regino Madrid, violist Derek Smith and cellist Charlie Powers conveyed the piece's exhilarating beauty, giving it the percussive punch and driving pulse that one expects from a harpsichord. The performance enthralled the audience, though it was first written to lull a Russian count, afflicted by insomnia, to sleep.

In a rather personal account of the variations, the Teiber players also revealed sides of the music possible with their particular set of strings: luminous contrasts in color, crystalline textures, a wide swath in sonorities from high to low and resonant depth. And the group's tempos and gradations in dynamics were imaginative, ranging from subdued adagio laments in minor keys to lightning-quick prestissimos, though occasional uncertainties in ensemble cropped up.

By Anne Midgette  |  July 9, 2009; 11:03 AM ET  | Category:  festivals , local reviews
Previous: Estival Festivals: An Introduction | Next: The Bar-iPhone Voice

The comments to this entry are closed.