Ulysses Kay
(G.D. Hackett/Pictorial Parade)
Joan Kwuon and company take on Mozart and Brahms at the Library of Congress
By Tom Huizenga,
Sunday, March 23
Two predominantly stern Germanic piano quartets monopolized Friday
evening’s concert at the Library of Congress. Violinist Joan Kwuon,
violist Joel Smirnoff, cellist Sharon Robinson and pianist Sergei
Babayan (all Cleveland Institute of Music professors) were engaged to
play Mozart’s Quartet in G minor, K. 478 and Brahms’s Quartet in G
minor, op. 25.
That the two pieces are both in the same stormy key is one of many
similarities in these iconic, densely woven chamber works that arguably
are best left programmed in separate concerts. Even for those who crave
their protein and starch, it made for a heavy meal, mercifully offset by
Ulysses Kay’s colorful Five Portraits, a 1972 Library of Congress
commission.
...
In the midst of it all stood Five Portraits (for violin and piano) by
Ulysses Kay. Kwuon and Babayan’s irresistible performance, deftly
pivoting between Kay’s smoldering, lyrical lines, animated angles and
whiffs of dance, was proof that this neglected piece of American chamber
music should be heard more often.
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