[ad_1]
The final installment of the 2022-23 season of the Emory Chamber Music Society of Atlanta’s Bach’s Lunch concert series was staged Friday at the First Presbyterian Church of Atlanta. The lighthearted affair — entitled “The Magical Harp” — featured Atlanta Symphony Orchestra principal harpist Elisabeth Remy Johnson, and drew a packed house.
Johnson tackled a traditional extract from the classical canon, and was given the opportunity to meditate on a set of accessible and engaging works.
The concert opened with Mozart’s Concerto for Flute and Harp — his only piece for the harp. In the composition, Mozart maintains a cosmic sense of balance between the organ and the other instruments. It is reflective of the sort of mathematical precision that shows Mozart’s clear debt to Johann Sebastian Bach but still carries his own ethereal charm.
The work is a tour de force of formidable intricacy for even the most adept harpist, yet is built on the foundation of the gentle aura of Mozart’s playful nature. The piece is hypnotic and allows the harp to interact with its flute counterpart with fluid grace. Johnson performed it with organist Jens Korndoefer and Atlanta Symphony Orchestra principal flutist Christina Smith, who’s tone was impeccable and fluid.
The afternoon’s second piece — Arnold Bax’s Fantasie Sonata for Harp and Viola — stood as the concert’s most challenging work from both the standpoint of performance and audience appreciation. In one sense it is a daring display of minimalism, employing only the harp and the violas as its unlikely counterpart. That pairing combined with a dense, unorthodox chordal structure for a surprisingly adventurous piece that in one instant embraces the brazen attack of Stravinsky only to delve into the gentle eloquence of Vivaldi a moment later.
Johnson was again in peak form as was her partner, the Vega Quartet’s Yinzi Kong on viola. Kong navigated Bax’s explorations with ease.
The final piece of the afternoon — Maurice Ravel’s Introduction and Allegro — saw Johnson and Kong joined by the remainder of the Vega Quartet (Emily Daggett Smith and Jessica Shuang Wu, violin, and Guang Wang, cello) along with clarinetist Laura Arden and Christina Smith once more on flute. Despite being the shortest piece of the performance, it nevertheless afforded Johnson the opportunity she so richly deserved. The ensemble dropped out altogether, allowing the beauty and grace of the harp to seize the spotlight with naked clarity.
As the concert concluded, the packed audience erupted into cacophonous applause. First Presbyterian Church of Atlanta has done a great service with its [email protected] series, and hosting Bach’s Lunch on top of that has sealed its place as one of the city’s premiere destinations for classical music.
::
Jordan Owen began writing about music professionally at the age of 16 in Oxford, Mississippi. A 2006 graduate of the Berklee College of Music, he is a professional guitarist, bandleader and composer. He is currently the lead guitarist for the jazz group Other Strangers, the power metal band Axis of Empires and the melodic death/thrash metal band Century Spawn.
[ad_2]
Source link