Aug. 11, Bon Air Presbyterian Church
Olivier Messiaen’s “Quartet for the End of Time” has a meteorological history in these parts. Its instrumentation – violin, clarinet, cello and piano – isn’t one of the standard chamber-music configurations, so the piece is most often heard at festivals. Most are in the summer, which in the southeastern US is a season of sometimes spectacular thunderstorms.
The Messiaen has met heavy weather several times in Virginia. In what became something of a regional legend, a performance at the Hampden-Sydney Music Festival took place during a violent electrical storm. When the Richmond Chamber Players presented the work in 1998, concertgoers who arrived on a hot summer day left the concert to face an apocalyptic cloudscape with torrential rain to follow.
No such weather adventure when violinist Susy Yim, clarinetist David Lemelin, cellist Ryan Lannan and pianist John Walter played Messiaen’s quartet in the second program of this summer’s Richmond Chamber Players’ Interlude 2024 series. It was a mild summer afternoon when we went in and still was when we came out.
External atmospherics may enhance this musical experience, but aren’t needed. Messiaen’s stark yet otherworldly score, inspired by the revelation of St. John (a “mighty angel” declaring “that there should be time no longer”) in the Book of Revelations, creates its own atmosphere, an environment of rarified tonality – lots of thin strands produced in highest registers of the instruments – in which musical materials are developed without conventional linearity. The usual components of musical movement – melody, harmonic progression, rhythm – are sublimated or absent in a score that is more inhabited than followed.
The four musicians in this performance sounded intent on giving the piece as much expression, dimension and space as it can accommodate. Fine threads of sound seemed to give off auras. Contemplative sections had a uncanny stillness, enhancing the contrast with the score’s violent episodes. Silences were as impactful as sounds.
The “Quartet for the End of Time” is meant to be an extraordinary experience. This performance was.
Two much shorter works preceded the Messiaen: Charles Wuorinen’s Trio for bass instruments and Zhao Tian’s “Viaje.”
Double-bassist Kelly Ali, bass trombonist Scott Cochran and tuba player Conrad Shaw negotiated Wuorinen’s trio capably, coaxing some textural transparency and rhythmic punch out of what could easily turn into a muddle of low, rumbling sound. They couldn’t avoid the score’s Jurassic quality – large reptiles lumbering across the savanna – so they played it up.
“Viaje” (“Voyage”) is the product of a Chinese-American composer’s trip to Spain, a “thrill ride” inspired by the legend of El Cid and his uneasy relationship with his daughters. El Cid is portrayed by a cello, played here by Emma Cary; the daughters by a flute, played by Mary Boodell. The piano, played by Walter, is more than an accompanying instrument; it’s charged with enlarging the soundscape of music that all but begs to be orchestrated.
The exchanges between Cary and Boodell were characterful, Walter’s accompaniment-plus colorful and dynamic.
The Richmond Chamber Players’ Interlude 2024 series concludes with a program of Mozart, Britten and Franck, 3 p.m. Aug. 18 at Bon Air Presbyterian Church, 9201 W. Huguenot Road. Tickets: $25. Details: (804) 272-7514; http://richmondchamberplayers.org
