Do you remember what you were doing at age 20? Many of us were new in our jobs, fresh out of high school. Or perhaps we were in college. As advanced as we feel when we look at the world from yon dizzy heights of two decades, most of us have little to show for our knowledge up to that time. Not so German composer Felix Mendelssohn and British composer Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, whose works were featured in the latest of New Jersey Symphony Orchestra’s (NJSO) Arts in the Garden concerts on July 13. This Summer’s weather has been anything but a Midsummer Night’s Dream, as heat and strong thunderstorms challenge our calendars. Eric Wyrick led the NJSO String Quartet in this sultry evening’s program and though the sky was overcast, there was an energy about the works that combined with the barometer to make for a thrilling evening.
Whenever you visit a new venue, be certain to give yourself extra time. There is a conveniently located parking lot adjacent to the gate to the Alice Ransom Dreyfuss Memorial Garden, but it was full of tractor trailers on the evening of this event (Netflix filming, rumor had it). We were able to park nearly as conveniently diagonally across the street and after all, weren’t we there for adventure?
Al fresco concerts have a charm of their own–the Memorial Garden had chairs set up in pods. Wyrick set the stage for us with what we would hear, as there were no printed programs, meaning we could enjoy the arc of the performance without the rustling of paper. From where I sat, I had full view of the first and second violins, where I could enjoy watching the artists’ hands. While I do not play, watching this pair of Orpheuses (Orphei?) ply their instruments, I began to feel twitching–as if I could. Mendelssohn’s String Quartet Number One in E flat major, Opus 12 may have been written for his neighbor, Betty Pistor. Why say it with flowers when you can say it with music? Especially delightful was the second movement, Canzonetta: Allegretto, in G minor. You can hear Mendelssohn incorporating his knowledge of Johann Sebastian Bach, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and more even in such an early work. While Mozart often used G minor for more tragic pieces, Mendelssohn’s is a dramatic piece that starts slowly, then progresses into a fantasia reminiscent of “Three Blind Mice” being set to Grand Opera–it is a world in a drop of water amidst a sea of present, and future, genius.
Mr. Wyrick then returned to the mic to set the stage for Coleridge-Taylor’s Quintet in F-sharp minor for Clarinet and Strings also written at the tender age of 20. What command Coleridge-Taylor had of his talent, even so young. His musical talent was part of the legacy he passed on to his son Hiawatha, who worked to modify his father’s work, and his daughter Avril who became a composer and a conductor who achieved her own measure of renown. From the very first strains of the Quintet, we were transported from a steamy Summer evening in Newark, replete with sirens signaling an ambulance arrival at St. Michael’s Hospital adjacent and the roar of a small economy sedan’s second life as a street racer, yet feeling the warmth of an English countryside in this quintessential music with an open sound unique to the island across the Pond. Listening to Coleridge-Taylor’s work, you can hear where he and contemporary Ralph Vaughn Williams were creating music of a quintessential British pastoral character equivalent to Aaron Copland’s broad and recognizably American sound. And the rapture was complete, all too soon.
Ready for MORE Arts in the Garen? Me too! Meet me at www.njsymphony.org for more details, tickets and Arts in the Garden. Better hurry, or like Summer, these tickets will soon be gone!