MUSIC REVIEW
Society dips into modern music with Jalbert premiere
CAMBRIDGE — The Boston Chamber Music Society – The club’s second commission is American composer Pierre Jalbert’s “Street Antiphons” for violin, cello, clarinet, and piano; its premiere was at the center of Sunday’s concert.
As Jalbert explained from the stage, the title derives from a division between secular “street” music and a more tranquil “sacred” music. Much of the piece’s energy derives from the manifold ways in which the two species interlace. The first movement’s tricky offbeat rhythms are interrupted by lyrical, wandering clarinet melodies; in the second, suspended harmonics in the strings gradually darken into music of pulsating intensity that grows to a pair of almost violent climaxes. The finale is a set of variations on a theme derived from Gregorian chant, set against a translucent background of string trills and chiming piano chords. Again, more impetuous statements erupt before the piece arrives at its solid if quizzical end.
A longtime subscriber told me that during the intermission he had polled “some other octogenarians,” all of whom had enjoyed Jalbert’s piece. Indeed, it struck me as virtually perfect for this audience: grounded in the tonal language and structures of the past, yet willing to extend them into a contemporary rhetoric. The subscriber reported that his colleagues would welcome the chance to hear the piece again; BCMS should take them up on it.
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