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CLASSICAL VOICE OF NORTH CAROLINA
Concert Review
November 18, 2007
By Paul D. Williams
November 18, 2007, Raleigh, NC: By the time the lights dim and the first performer walks onto the stage playing the opening lines, you suspect you are in for a gorgeous Sunday afternoon of top flight musicianship. The instrument is the horn, and the player is Jeff Scott of the woodwind quintet, Imani Winds. Presently a flute sounds from off stage and Valerie Coleman joins him. Their duet soon becomes a trio as clarinetist Mariam Adam strolls on stage. She is followed by oboist Toyin Spellman-Diaz, with the bassoon of Monica Ellis ultimately laying the musical foundation.
Such could well have been the musings of practically any attendee as the Raleigh Chamber Music Guild presented its latest edition at the Fletcher Opera Theater. This opening piece, "Afro Blue" by Ramon Santamaria, was as unorthodox as it was attractive. Evidently a "signature" feature of the group, it was arranged by the flutist. At one point it called for vocal give and take between audience and players. It was played from memory with the performers standing and informally moving about.
The honors and achievements applicable to the Imani Winds (in Swahili imani = faith) and to each individual member would constitute a long and impressive list. It would contain their Grammy nomination, commissions, CD releases, scholarly pursuits. For extensive background information, the reader is directed to an excellent Preview in this journal by Alexandra Jones.
A major work of the afternoon was the Quintet in D, Op. 95 by the Czech composer Josef Bohuslav Foerster. He is said to have come under the influence of Mahler during a lengthy sojourn in Vienna. This four-movement quintet was surprisingly modern, with only the second movement, andante sostenuto, showing the "Mahlerian" romanticism. The fine program notes contained a quote from Foerster as he praised the instrumental colors in his work. Perhaps that quote could just as well be applied to these five players in general: "...the exploitation of the low and high registers of the flute, the exultant sound of the oboe, the lizard-like suppleness and the dramatic accents of the clarinet, the dreamy cantina of the horn, and the humorous depths and lamenting highlights of the bassoon."
The group's main concession to musical "orthodoxy" was a piece by Franck. With "Scherzo," Geoffrey Emerson has adapted a movement from that composer's string quartet. Though obviously written for strings, the piece seemed like a natural for woodwinds. In yet another adaptation, Jeff Scott has successfully arranged Astor Piazzolla's "Escualo" for the quintet. It maintained the lively Latin flavor one expects from Piazzolla.
Present in the audience was the Prague-born composer, Karel Husa, whose "Five Poems" provided the highlight of the concert. The listener is invited to supply the actual words to the poems. Each of the five movements evoked distinct images of birds - birds walking, birds fighting, birds lamenting. The clarinet was the chirping, happy bird. The horn effectively mimicked the walking, or rather hopping, bird. Arresting was the conjured image of birds lamenting their dead. The flute, oboe, and clarinet provided the mournful lamentations, while one visualized the dead by way of the horn and bassoon. With the final poem, "Bird Flying High Above," the reader/hearer of the poems was at length lifted high above the fray. It would have been impossible to resist the lure of that great bird as it wafted on powerful thermals in ever increasing spirals.
Perhaps the fate of the "finer" arts is indeed in the hands of those accomplished practitioners who will dare to break the molds cast by their honored predecessors.
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