From the Musical Vault Dept.: The Cascade Soloists, as a group, is no more, but clarinetist David Shifrin continues a distinguished career on the faculty of Yale (among other schools) and as a longtime part of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center. Violinist Ik-Hwan Bae was an enthusiastic chamber-music performer as well as concertmaster of South Korea’s Hwaum Chamber Orchestra, while pianist William Doppmann was a composer as well, winning two Guggenheim Fellowships in that capacity; both died over a decade ago. I can find no recent internet trail of cellist Warren Lash. But we’re going back 40 years now (as we did last week) to revisit a wonderful concert performed by the four of them in Schenectady.
Cascade Soloists is a charming name for a chamber music ensemble, and their performance at Union College’s Memorial Chapel on Friday night was a charming concert. The music was well chosen and received the kind of sensitive ensemble playing that is usually the result of many more years of collaboration than the few the Cascade Soloists have racked up.
First performed in 1941 while the composer was held prisoner in Germany, it combines a bleak sense of those surroundings with a bold tribute to the tenth chapter of the Book of Revelation.
There is a pastoral aspect to the piece in two senses of the term: the religious underpinnings are topped with a setting of birdsong, and this awareness of nature informs much of the work.
Although the entire quartet plays in the more dramatic of the eight movements, the instruments otherwise are paired or perform solo. The third movement, for instance. “Abyss of Birds,” is scored for solo clarinet, and Shifrin did a lovely job of filling the hall with his rich, well-modulated sound.
The cello was given a movement of its own in “Praise to the Eternity of Jesus,” to a slow piano ostinato of block chords. It was a pleasure to hear Lash make the most of an opportunity to thus sing out.
Much of the Messiaen is strident. highly syncopated music that shows off the more percussive aspects of the instruments. The sixth movement; “Dance of Fury for the Seven Trumpets.” is written for the four instruments in unison. Although one or another drops out from time to time, there is no vertical harmony, yet a most apocalyptic feeling is the result.
The penultimate movement took pleasant material and turned it inside out, to produce (according to the composer’s program notes) “swords of fire ... rhythms of blue-orange.” The conclusion is a solo for violin and piano, giving “Praise to the Immortality of Jesus.” Violinist Bae rushed some passages enough to spoil the sense of ease and majesty that should end the piece.
But he may have been rushing to get away from the cacophony that started across the campus lawn just before the end of the concert: Somebody cranked up a stereo loud enough to penetrate the Chapel. perhaps providing an inadvertent metaphor for the end of time.
Peter Schickele’s 1982 Clarinet Quartet was the opening work on the program. Written for Shifrin, it was a good example of Schickele’s extremely pleasant compositional voice. In four traditional movements, it had a wistful aspect (especially in the beginning) that well serves one of the clarinet’s convincing characteristics.
And it was a tender, cheerful piece throughout, very accessible and deceptive in its accessibility: it’s the kind of piece that will grow on you and reveal more depth than may be first apparent. Schickele gives a good deal of his music a “jam session” quality, so that you might think the performers just thought of the just-right phrase they’re playing.
A good choice for an opener, too; it was nice to give the Baroque and Classical boys a rest.
Brahms’ Trio in A minor for Clarinet, Cello, and Piano was the third work on the program. and Lash stole the show a little bit with his superb ear for Romantic phrasing.
Doppmann was a sensitive collaborator in each of the pieces, and was outstanding by his refusal to grab any more attention than the music required. The Cascade Soloists present that rare group that has its ego problems under control.
The Schenectady Museum-Union College series continues at 8 p.m. January 4 with a performance by the New York Trumpet Ensemble.
– Schenectady Daily Gazette, 18 November 1985
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