The American Classical Orchestra celebrated its 40th anniversary season with a Special Chamber Music Concert, hosted by the University Club of New York, featuring Schubert’s The Trout Piano Quintet and Beethoven’s Piano Trio No. 2. The works are all performed with period instruments and in private settings as they would have been at the time of their creation. The performers for the evening were, Aisslinn Nosky on violin; Kate Goddard on viola; Myron Lutzke playing cello; Nicholas Kleinman on double bass; and Mike Cheng-Yu Lee on fortepiano.
The evening opened with Beethoven’s Piano Trio in E-Flat Major, Op. 70, No. 2 with Lee, Nosky and Lutzke. The three of them perched on the lovely stage, in the grand and yet intimate space surrounded with both opulence and comfort, combined to bring the audience closer to the musicians and the music. In this deeply rich and historical space, Beethoven quietly rises up with angelic alacrity to the ornate ceiling, and as it dances on the ceiling and in our ears, it becomes a beautiful and fiery flower. Beethoven wrote this while on vacation. It feels like a vacation from the worries of the world. And we are all quiet listening to the stops, the lingering on notes of the singular instrument, and then the arrival of others so stunning and precise and simply spectacular. Spectacular clarity, intimate, we are transported to another time and place vacationing with Beethoven. A place of beauty, of space and air, and hope. All listening with our bodies.
Schubert was commissioned by wealthy music lover Sylvester Paumgartner, specifying that the commission use: piano, violin, viola, cello, and double bass. Schubert added a fifth movement to this standard four so that he could include a theme based on poet Christian Friedrich Daniel Schubart’s poem The Trout. All of these elements come together in an incredibly active and joyful composition. Schubert is stunning and accessible. His melodic repetitions had more than one audience member swaying, the five performers perfectly in sync with one another. Schubert was ahead of his time.
We, the audience, remained composed for the first half of the evening. Clapping only at the end of Beethoven’s Piano Trio, but here with Schubert, we can’t help ourselves and openly rejoice in our appreciation with claps and cheers between each movement. Schubert’s The Trout is an evocative piece of work that, if you are apprehensive about classical music, is a great introduction.
The American Classical Orchestra was created to revive, for modern audiences, the sound, experience, and the world of the master composers of the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries. The now-so-common electronic tablets performers used to read their music in place of sheet music were not present. The sound of the paper sheets being turned is a wonderful part of this “retro” musical experience.
Music is our sorcery. The spell-working creations of the notes and instruments. It takes us to deep places. The audience this night at the University Club of New York was transfixed. Many with closed eyes moving to the sounds, all sitting in a room full of individuals experiencing their own personal festive journey with and through the music.
The performers were a superbly balanced ensemble. The evening was a feast to both the ear and the eye.
Thomas Crawford, Founder & Artistic Director of the American Classical Orchestra, created the ACO to preserve and perform the repertoires of 17th, 18th, and 19th century composers. By playing the music on original instruments and using historic performance techniques.
The ACO’s next performance, The Art of the Touch, is on Friday, December 6, 2024, at the Salmagundi Art Club on Fifth Avenue at 12th Street.
Check HERE for more ACO Upcoming Performances
The University Club of New York is a private club established in 1865 for the “promotion of literature and art.”
Readers may also enjoy At Your Feet: Love in Music Through Time, Carmina Burana and More by the Oratorio Society of New York, and Oratorio Society of NY Performs Mahler, Beethoven, and Karen P. Thomas.
