March 18, Old Cabell Hall
Philadelphia’s Curtis Institute of Music’s touring music program finds a pair of esteemed faculty members and two star students performing at the Tuesday Night Concert Series.
The visiting quartet boasts two Grammy-winning professors in guitarist Jason Vieaux and viola player Roberto Díaz, joined by Australian Emmalena Huning on violin, and cellist Ania Lewis. These performers are all decorated for their achievements in virtuosity and have, commensurate with their ages, an impressive list of experiences sharing stages and collaborations with composers and orchestras of the highest order. When they take up their instruments at Old Cabell Hall, this combined talent translates into an engaging evening of strings.
Kicking things off with a piece by everyone’s favorite Spanish 20th-century composer is Manuel de Falla’s Suite Populaire Espagnole. The Curtis quartet follows de Falla’s own geographic relocation to Argentina, busting out selections from the South American’s celebrated tango master Astor Piazzolla. They’ll take on his “Histoire du Tango” and its four-part cinematic view of the genre, taking the listener to a 1900 bordello, a café in 1930, a 1960s-era night club, and ultimately to a concert of the present moment. Kinda meta.
The quartet backs that history lesson with “Oblivion,” a shorter work that leans unwaveringly romantic without schmaltz, and, despite any chaotic misery suggested by its title, gives way to moving and intense melodic, emotive power.
Following intermission, the Curtis players turn to one of their own. A 2005 alumnus, Zhou Tian’s Red Trees, Wrinkled Cliffs offers a 10-minute musical journey inspired by classical Chinese landscape paintings, according to Curtis’ notes on the upcoming performance. Sounds fun, but I won’t venture to guess exactly what that may sound like. Wrapping with Niccolò Paganini’s Guitar Quartet No. 15 in A minor, M.S. 42 provides tailor-made moments for Vieaux to show his impeccable guitar skill, while also affording passages for each of the players to demonstrate their unrelenting chops.
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