You know you’re witnessing a great concert when the musicians are smiling from ear to ear.
And when those smiles come close to turning into audible giggles, you’re witnessing magic.
That’s what happened on Sunday afternoon at Grace St. Paul’s Episcopal Church when St. Andrew’s Bach Society hosted its summer concert series opener “Summer Schubertiade.”
Violinist Lauren Roth, the Tucson Symphony Orchestra concertmaster, led a quintet of musicians — violist Melissa Hamilton, cellist Ian Jones, bass player Philip Alejo and pianist Michael Dauphinais — in Schubert’s Quintet in A major “The Trout.” Several times throughout the players smiled at one another in a playful way that gave you the impression that if we weren’t there filling the University of Arizona area church they would bust out laughing.
“The Trout” has a way of doing that to musicians. It’s inherently bright and cheerful, following a leisurely pace that allows the musicians to interact on an intimate level much as they likely did in Schubert’s day when the work was played in the parlors of the privileged.
The Bach Society was going for that feel, but sans any notion that chamber music has any class divides, according to Ben Nisbet, the artistic director who curated Sunday’s program.
Instead, Nisbet wanted to go deeper with Schubert and examine how his early art songs — the concert opening “Death and the Maiden” and “The Trout” — influenced the composer’s later chamber works — String Quartet No. 14 “Death and the Maiden” and the Quintet in A major.
Tucson soprano Erika Burkhart, a regular soloist and chorister with the Grammy-nominated True Concord Voices & Orchestra, and Daphinais, a piano professor at the UA and an in-demand accompanist, sang a trio of Schubert songs leading up to “Death and the Maiden.” Burkhart shined throughout especially on “Du bist die Ruh,” a work that showcased the breadth of colors on her vocal palette that went from bright and mischievous to somber and resonant. She sounded simply sublime.
Roth, Jones, Hamilton and violinist Nisbet, whose career includes playing chamber music with his Kingfisher String Quartet and playing with the TSO, True Concord and Artifact Dance, followed Daphinais and Burkhart with Schubert’s String Quartet in D minor “Death of A Maiden.” The piece is not nearly as light and bright as “The Trout,” but that didn’t stop Roth from flashing a smile at her colleagues. If she and the others looked out in the audience, they would see us smiling back.
Next up: St. Andrew's Bach Society celebrates Tucson arts philanthropist Dorothy Dyer Vanek on the eve of her 90th birthday on June 26 at St. Andrew's Presbyterian Church, 7650 Paseo del Norte in Oro Valley.
