A chamber music concert kicks off the classical-music portion of UMD's Sieur du Luth Summer Arts Festival. Held at Weber Music Hall on the UMD campus -- the perfect place to hear small ensembles -- it features a couple of wonderful pieces: Beethoven's Trio in B-flat Major, op. 11, for clarinet, cello and piano; and Schubert's String Quintet in C Major, op. 16.
The Beethoven is sometimes played with violin, but with clarinet, as intended, it has the requisite sparkle of humor and pathos -- especially if the clarinet is played by Ted Schoen, the UMD professor who also is producing this concert. Betsy Husby plays the cello and Alexander Chernyshev is on the piano. The Trio is head-spinningly difficult to play, but easy to listen to, with a theme taken from a popular song. The music is emotionally open, rhythmically entertaining, and altogether the sort of thing that fun-loving musical angels might enjoy performing with a beer of an afternoon.
Schubert was a little younger than Beethoven, more of a melodist, a romantic. And the quintet is correspondingly more lyrical -- a beautiful and comprehensive piece of music. The Highland Quartet is joined by an extra cello for this. Some Schubert pieces have names and stories -- "Death and the Maiden" is one of his chamber works, "The Trout" is another -- but the story behind this Quintet is just life itself. It's different for everyone.
Hear the concert at 7:30 p.m. Monday at Weber Music Hall, at Ordean Court on the UMD campus. Tickets are $14 for adults, $12 for seniors, $8 for children, and $6 for UMD students (ID required). Call 726-8561 or go to umdartsfest.com.
