by Marvin J. Ward

Holyoke, MA, 6 December 2009.  Belle Skinner’s 1906 Music Room at her home, Wistariahurst, celebrating its 50th year as a museum, was once again the setting for what has now become a popular annual event that sells out, an afternoon of vocal and chamber music by Schubert such as he would have himself put together and hosted, also playing the piano, in early 19th-century Vienna.  The program, as usual, included some works that have become chestnuts and others that are rarely heard from all periods of the composer’s short life involving various combinations of instrumentalists and singers.

The opening work was “Schicksalslenker,” D. 763, a sort of Thanksgiving song setting an anonymous poem, “Des Tages Weilhe” (“Consecration of the Day”), for vocal quartet and piano, the latter played by Edward Rosser.  This was followed by “Heimliliches Liebe,” D. 92, to a text by Karoline Louise von Klenke, performed by soprano Laura Jenkins and pianist Estela Olevsky.  Rosser returned to the keyboard for a sensitive rendition of the “Moment Musical,” Op. 94/2, D. 780/2.  Baritone David Perkins then joined him for “Auf dem See,” D. 543, setting a text by Goethe, the only famous author on the afternoon’s fare.

The large chamber work for the afternoon came next, the ever-popular Sonata for Arpeggione and Piano in a, D. 821, brilliantly played by cellist Astrid Schween and Olevsky.  Schween introduced the piece by saying a few words about the short-lived and now extinct fretted guitar-like 6-stringed instrument that was bowed like a cello for which it was composed, invented in 1823 by Staufer, so the notes have to be re-arranged for the 4-stringed cello, presenting performance challenges.

After the intermission, during which refreshments were served in the Conservatory that connects the Music Room to the Dining Room of the main house and boasts a Tiffany peacock window, Monica Jakuc Leverett took over the keyboard for a wonderfully nuanced performance of the Impromptu in f, Op. post. 142/4, D. 935/4.  I could not help but imagine how much better it would have sounded on her 1819 Graf replica, lovely though it was in this space on its 4-foot Kawai.

Next came 2 brief works to texts by Pietro Metastasio, both rarely performed – we forget that Schubert set texts in languages other than German for his songs, so indelibly are his lieder imprinted in our minds.   The 1st was from his youth, when he was studying under Antonio Salieri, a duet from the oratorio Isaac figura del redentore, “Quell’innocente figlio,” D. 17, sung by sopranos Diana Brewer and Jenkins, accompanied by Rosser.  The 2nd was a canzonetta, “Mio Ben Ricordati,” D. 688/4, performed by Brewer and Rosser.

Perkins and Rosser followed this pair with “Fischerweise,” D. 881, to a text by Franz Xaver Freiherr von Schlechta.  This was followed by a fine, energetic and precise rendition by pianists Tanya Blaich and Jakuc Leverett, handling the upper and lower registers respectively, of the duet Rondo in A, D. 951, “Grand Rondeau.”  The closing piece was a Melodrama, a poem recited over piano accompaniment, Schubert’s only work of its kind, “Abschied von der Erde,” D. 829, to a text by Adolf von Pratobevera, elegantly presented by Perkins and Olevsky.  The whole was a beautifully constructed, well balanced, and excellently performed program, in a word: exquisite, making for a perfect early winter afternoon to help us forget the coming hardships of the season that began with the 1st snowfall the afternoon and evening before.

The printed program was again a classy 8” x 9” card-stock sheet, folded tall, colored outside, with un-credited reproductions of a painting of a real Schubertiad on the front and a fortepiano on the back, white inside with the list of works and their performers.  The alto and tenor of the vocal quartet in the opening number (Jenkins and Perkins were the other singers) were not listed, however.  Texts and translations, some by Perkins, for all the vocal works were provided on 11”x 17” ivory sheets folded or cut in half.  Perkins, the Artistic Director of the Chamber Music at Wistariahurst series, also served as host and MC, giving oral notes about most of the works.