October 10, 2021
private residence, Atlanta, GA – by invitation only
Christopher Pulgram & Sissi Yuqing Zhang, violins; Yang-Yoon Kim, viola; Thomas Carpenter, cello; Alcides Rodriguez, clarinet.
MOZART: String Quartet No. 21 in D major, K. 575
MOZART: Clarinet Quintet in A major, K. 581
Mark Gresham | 11 OCT 2021
Private concerts are nothing new. Circumstances in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic have made the format a necessary consideration for some smaller ensembles as many venues, especially alternative ones, remain closed to public events. When you don’t possess a regular performance space of your own, you cannot manage access without the consent of the venue, even if it is a place with which you have done business regularly for years. It then becomes a matter of improvising to keep performing and feed live music to your devoted patrons.
Sunday’s evening concert was not the first time the Peachtree String Quartet has performed a private concert in the carport of its artistic director, violinist Christopher Pulgram, caveat limitations to the number of people allowed in such a gathering.
For Sunday’s hour-long program, the Quartet (violinists Christopher Pulgram & Sissi Yuqing Zhang,violist Yang-Yoon Kim and cellist Thomas Carpenter) performed a pair of favorites by Mozart: the String Quartet No. 21 in D major and the Clarinet Quintet in A major.
Although not a wet evening, the cool air felt like it had some humidity to it, and both of these elements impact string instruments. Therefore the convivial D major Quartet, K. 575, with which then program opened, experienced some intonation problems here and there, especially in its first half. An open-air performance also poses different listening challenges for musicians, in contrast to a closed, acoustically warm room. Nevertheless, the Quartet’s sound exhibited clarity, balance and presence, and good musical communication between the players.
In speaking to the audience, Pulgram acknowledged the musicians’ preference for an indoor performance space. But their regular home venue, Garden Hills Recreation Center, remains unavailable for concertizing and will not be anytime soon. He announced that the Quartet does plan to present a concert in February at First Presbyterian Church of Atlanta, just north of the High Museum on Peachtree Street. It’s a place where other chamber groups have recently found welcoming refuge while awaiting renewed availability of their familiar concert sites.
Clarinetist Alcides Rodriguez joined the Quartet for the second and final piece, Mozart’s Clarinet Quintet. The musicians treated the audience to a lovely performance and they were alerted to the prospect of hearing it again soon. The five musicians, who are all members of the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, will play the Clarinet Quintet as a pre-concert chamber recital in advance of the October 21 concert by the ASO at Symphony Hall. ■
l-r: Christopher Pulgram, Sissi Yuqing Zhang, Yang-Yoon Kim, Thomas Carpenter. and Alcides Rodriguez (credit: Mark Gresham)
Mark Gresham is publisher and principal writer of EarRelevant. he began writing as a music journalist over 30 years ago, but has been a composer of music much longer than that. He was the winner of an ASCAP/Deems Taylor Award for music journalism in 2003.
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