REVIEW: South Mountain Concerts, "Academy of St. Martin in the Fields Chamber Ensemble"

South Mountain Concerts, Pittsfield, MA

www.southmountainconcerts.org/concerts.html

October 6, 2024

by Michael J. Moran

Perfect weather for Berkshire leaf-peeping cast a warm autumnal glow on a packed house at the final program in the 2024 season of this 106-year-old early fall chamber music series founded by renowned music patroness Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge. But the music on the program featured all three of its composers in the springtime of their careers.

Tomo Keller

The performers, eight principal players of the London-based St. Martin in the Fields orchestra, led by their first violinist, Tomo Keller, debuted at South Mountain in 2019, and this was their first return engagement. They opened today’s concert with the “Two Pieces for String Octet,” which eighteen-year-old Dmitri Shostakovich wrote in 1924-25. The four violinists, two violists, and two cellists of the Academy Ensemble stressed the experimental modernism of the young Russian composer still finding his voice in a brooding “Prelude” and restless “Scherzo.” 

Next came a glowing account by six players of the “Sextet in A, for Two Violins, Two Violas, Two Cellos. Op. 48,” which then 36-year-old Czech composer Antonin Dvorak wrote during his early maturity in 1878. Its relaxed spirit may reflect Dvorak’s growing confidence after he had just received a government grant recommended by his fellow composer Johannes Brahms. An ardent “Allegro moderato” was followed by a melancholy “Dumka” (a Slavic elegy) and a headlong “Furiant” (a fast Bohemian dance), both forms that Dvorak used often in later works, and a sweeping “Theme and Variations” finale that builds from a modest folk-inspired tune to a powerful conclusion.    

The full ensemble regrouped to end the concert with a thrilling rendition of the “Octet in E-flat, Op. 20,” written in 1825 by sixteen-year-old German child prodigy Felix Mendelssohn. The piece’s formal balance and melodic invention have made it not only Mendelssohn’s own chamber masterpiece but one of the most popular works of chamber music by any composer. The Academy musicians presented a vigorous and flowing “Allegro moderato ma con fuoco,” a meltingly tender “Andante,” a fleet and gossamer “Scherzo: Allegro leggierissimo” (played exactly as marked: “as lightly as possible”), and a joyous closing “Presto.” A more festive way to finish a season would be hard to imagine.    

Tickets for the September-October 2025 South Mountain Concerts season go on sale next May.