March 3, 2024
The Bremen Museum
Atlanta, GA – USA
“Music by Jewish Composers”
Charae Krueger, cello; William Ransom, piano; The Vega Quartet (Emily Daggett Smith and Jessica Shuang Wu, violins; Joseph Skerik, viola; Guang Wang, cello).
Felix MENDELSSOHN: Cello Sonata No. 2 in D Major, Op. 58
Osvaldo GOLIJOV: Tenebrae
George GERSHWIN: Rhapsody in Blue
Howard Wershil | 6 MAR 2024
Community. It’s a vital component of every human life. We celebrate Black History Month, attend Greek Festivals, and marvel at Diwali, the Indian holiday that symbolizes the spiritual victory of light over darkness, good over evil, and knowledge over ignorance. Our communities offer us a variety of options to take part in cultural events and educational opportunities that celebrate humanity’s diversity, complexity, and commonalities. In its finest moments, a sense of community provides us with ties that bind, introduces us to the stories of individuals whose souls have shined through darkness, and encourages us to be better custodians of our precious blue planet.
So many cultures support institutions that reveal their unique qualities and heritages. The Breman Museum is one of those exceptional institutions, providing a marvelous overview of the history and culture of the Jewish people through exhibits, discussions, literature, and artistic events. I’m glad I had time to stroll around the premises before the concert began.
Sunday’s concert of Music by Jewish Composers, presented by The Breman Museum in conjunction with the Emory Chamber Music Society of Atlanta, featured performances by pianist/artistic director William Ransom, cellist Charae Krueger, and the Vega Quartet (violinists Emily Daggett Smith and Jessica Shuang Wu, violist Joseph Skerik, and cellist Guang Wang). Support for this concert was provided by Marilyn Ginsberg Eckstein, with additional support from The Holly Blank Fund, Fulton County Board of Commissioners, the Atlanta Mayor’s Office of Cultural Affairs, and The Jewish Federation of Greater Atlanta, as part of Something Special Sundays, a current series of Breman Museum events focused on elements of Jewish community culture and history.
The concert hall at The Breman Museum can hold 200 or more individuals, and seating for this concert was almost at capacity. While the program being presented might clearly be of interest to many Jewish community members, I certainly cannot attest as to whether most of the audience was Jewish. However, it was certainly clear that each audience member was interested in either classical chamber music, Jewish culture, or both, thus demonstrating an intersection between at least two communities with their own special histories and salient characteristics.
Pianist William Ransom introduced the concert, providing valuable and much-appreciated information about composers Felix Mendelssohn and George Gershwin, peppering his remarks with humor and light. It’s always gratifying to hear pertinent dialog from an individual, in this case, an artistic director, whose depth of knowledge and clear enthusiasm for the program content invites us to delve into the life of the music and the lives of the composers themselves.
I did not know, for instance, that Felix Mendelssohn’s grandfather was the famed Jewish philosopher and reformist Moses Mendelssohn. I also did not know that Mendelssohn was a key factor in the revival of the music of Lutheran composer J.S. Bach. Such a gift to us on Mendelssohn’s part contrasts in stark irony to what I recently learned was the Lutheran attitude and misinformation then existing towards Jews and their practices as promoted by founder Martin Luther. Two communities – music and religion – two contrasting sets of values at the time. I was reminded that it was Mendelssohn’s father, Abraham, who converted his family to Christianity as an act of convenience and recommended the adaptation of the name Bartholdy; and that Felix Mendelssohn, unlike some of his siblings, rejected both the surname change and the religious conversion, choosing instead to honor the value of his Jewish identity.
I did not know that George Gershwin’s given name was Jacob Gershvin, Americanized from the original Gershovitz, to be further Americanized to George Gershwin; or that the piano purchased by the Gershwin family was originally intended for brother Ira, and not for Jacob.
I had not recalled that both Felix Mendelssohn and George Gershwin died young, causing me to reconsider the seemingly unusually high percentage of gifted composers who passed before their time. Mozart. Purcell. Schubert. Chopin. Mussorgsky.
But enough of the darkness. On to the light.
At the Bremen Museum: Pianist William Ransom and cellist Charae Krueger take a bow. (credit: David Schendowich)
This afternoon’s first piece was Felix Mendelssohn’s Sonata No. 2 in D Major, Op. 58, for piano and cello, consisting of four movements. Both William Ransom and Charae Krueger brought vibrancy and clarity to the work, exposing all the nuances in this wonderful music that ranged from playful to winsome to lyrical to bombastic. It is said that Heaven is in the details. I found it amazing how something as simple as a short phrase being repeated sequentially on two different cello strings could provide such sublime effectiveness in shifting mood and emotion. The details of Mendelssohn’s intent were clearly shining through in the polished interpretation offered by this talented performance duo.
On a side note, the accolades attributed to cellist Charae Krueger include recording studio performance contributions to tracks on albums by Bruce Springsteen, Faith Hill, and Natalie Cole. I find her choice to participate in both music communities – popular and classical – truly admirable. Immersion in both can only promote greater excellence in each.
The next piece presented was a contemporary work, Tenebrae, for string quartet, by Romanian/Argentinian composer Osvaldo Golijov. According to the composer, the piece takes inspiration – and its title – from Couperin’s Troisième Leçon de Tenebrae, music written for the Christian church service ‘tenebrae’ in which candles are extinguished one by one over three days prior to the Easter holiday until the congregation is left in complete darkness as an acknowledgement of the darkness placed in the world by Christ’s death.
The sensitive and fluid performance by the highly accomplished Vega Quartet treated us to clouds of beauty only intermittently interrupted by potentially contentious, artfully muted outbursts, perhaps representing, as suggested in the composer’s program notes, the difference between hearing the attractiveness of a piece from afar and hearing the pain beneath a piece’s lovely surface at a closer perspective.
The Vega Quartet maintained the expression of this metaphor throughout, see-sawing between major and minor tonalities asymmetrically, volleying between sustained tones and ethereal flutterings, occasionally offering the subtle unexpected bending of a pitch where the composer should have provided none.
The style of the piece embodies the aesthetic of somewhat younger composers who warmly embrace tonality and traditional performance techniques but enhance their use with imaginative applications of rhythm, harmony, and innovative structure. In that context, this wonderfully understated but effective composition relates to other works by such composers as Arvo Pärt, Hans Zimmer, Max Richter, and even Charles Ives (The Unanswered Question) and Aaron Copland (Appalachian Spring), both relevant examples of composers providing simplicity and directness in the works cited.
The Vega Quartet’s performance of Tenebrae offered the composition all the calm, reverence, simplicity and directness it needed and deserved as it traveled its fateful descent from light to dark, from air to vacuum, from presence to absence.
William Ransom performs Gershwin’s “Rhapsody in Blue.” (credit: David Schendowich)
Last on this concert was William Ransom’s performance of George Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue, now 100 years old, written in only two weeks’ time when the composer was a mere 25 years old. This was certainly a treat for many of the audience members and a particularly nostalgic treat for me, having performed a modified (less technically demanding) version of the piece as an aspiring pianist in my early teens. It has always been a favorite of mine, and you could easily tell that this was a particular favorite of Professor Ransom as well. He performed the piece from memory with joy, gusto, enthusiasm, and verve, offering the piece to the audience in the same manner as one might introduce a valued friend or relative to others of equal merit and consideration. I think we all feel a tiny bit younger now, greatly benefitting from our involvement with such an exuberant experience.
Music consists of contrasts. Loud and soft. High and low. Dense and sparse. Fast and slow. Life consists of contrasts as well. Happy and sad. Good and evil. Success and failure. Hope and despair. On this auspicious afternoon, in the context of the music presented and the significance of the site of the event, I found myself also thinking of contrasts of light and dark and of the Jewish concept of shining light to dispel the darkness, a concept found in many cultures and many communities. I also found myself contemplating the significance of community- a powerful concept and a powerful tool. It can give us chances to sing, dance, learn, play, compete, excel, love and enjoy. It can also provide excuses to demean, ridicule, marginalize, and destroy in the name of connections that are ultimately unsustainable.
Contrasting senses of community indeed! Pomp and humility. Music and static. Sound and silence. Heaven and Hell. In our contemporary society, contrast thrives. Contrast reigns. Given the virulence of polarities that currently exist on this rare blue dot of ours, I can only hope that more individuals will choose to utilize community to unite, and not to divide. And that more individuals will encourage their communities to dispel the darkness with their own special light and their own special strength.
And, of course, through all the darkness and all the light, I can always hope that more music will be valiantly shouted into the atmospheres of our lives and the vapors of our souls to provide the healing necessary to allow our spirits to transcend in peace. ■
EXTERNAL LINKS:
- Emory Chamber Music Society of Atlanta: chambermusicsociety.emory.edu
- The Bremen Museum: thebreman.org
- Vega Quartet: vegaquartet.com
- Charae Krueger: facultyweb.kennesaw.edu/ckruege1
- William Ransom: music.emory.edu/people/biography/ransom-william.html
Read more by Howard Wershil.
RECENT POSTS
Prieto and North Carolina Symphony excel in colorful French, Spanish, and Russian works • 10 May 2025
Atlanta Symphony’s ‘Italian Holiday’ spotlights dazzling Paganini and glorious Respighi • 08 May 2025
.png){kind=logo}