MUSIC REVIEW

By John Zeugner Telegram & Gazette reviewer
There was an air of anticipation bubbling in the capacity audience in
the lower concert hall of St. Paul's Cathedral on Saturday night for the
opening of the Worcester Chamber Music Society's second season - so much
anticipation that it took a soaring high G from soprano Maria Ferrante
to still the crowd.

It seems WCMS has gathered avid fans to match (in lesser decibels and
numbers) the Tornadoes and Sharks. Ferrante and artistic director Peter
Sulski explained that the program contained a familiar war horse, Bach's
"Brandenburg Concerto No. 4," a rarely heard piano quintet by Edward
Elgar and one almost-never-heard trio for harp, viola, and flute by
Claude Debussy.

The crowd's buoyancy permeated the seven chamber members in the opening
Bach Brandenburg. This was a marvelously energetic rendition of Bach's
rhythms.

The duo flute work of Tracy Kraus and Amy Carroll was meticulous in its
headlong execution, spiraling in and through the delicate lead violin
efforts of Krista Reisner, and achieving absolute authority over the
mesmerized audience.

As always, Ian Watson provided perfectly meshed support from the
harpsichord, as did Michal Palzewicz on cello, and Amy Rawstron and
Sulski, violinists. This was celebratory, romping Bach, a pure "wow"
exposition.

So enthused was the crowd that the transition to the reflective, tragic
explorations of the Debussy was very difficult to negotiate.

Debussy wrote the trio very late in his life, while listening to the
German shelling of Paris, at a time he was struggling with fatal colon
cancer and perhaps meditating on the marital messes he had incurred.

Debussy had clearly moved beyond his impressionistic romanticism to
explore the tortured tonality of the most modern of compositions.

The musicians - Tracy Kraus, flute, Mark Berger, viola, and Ina
Zdorovetchi, harp - were more than up to the challenge. Their playing
was supple and riveting.

In particular, Berger handled the balance between sudden discordant
tones and lush idyllic melodies with particular adroitness.

Those who might have dismissed Debussy as the creator of saccharine
soundtracks like "Clair de Lune" and "La Mer" were forced to rethink
everything about the Frenchman.

The final piece, the Elgar quintet, brought back Reisner and Sulski on
violin, Berger on viola, Palzewicz on cello, and Watson, piano. Their
playing was muscular, with emphasis on dynamics.

The composition has its Brahms-derivative moments, but in nuance and
emotional power it is entirely worthy of its model. The second movement,
adagio, was sculpted by the players with exquisite poignancy, wringing
tears out of some of the audience.

The final movement displayed lush, hyperarticulated melodic lines
building on each other.

The chamber music society equals incandescent music-making of the
highest order and is an outstanding classical music bargain. Three more
concerts are planned in Worcester: Nov. 16 at the First Unitarian
Church, Jan. 19 at All Saints Church, and Feb. 15 at First Baptist
Church.