BSO wows at Davis Museum

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By Audrey Anderson
Hometown Weekly Correspondent

The Boston Symphony Orchestra brought their 2018–2019 Community Concerts series to a sold-out audience at the Camilla Chandler and Dorothy Buffum Chandler Gallery in the Davis Museum, Wellesley College, on Sunday, November 11. The program, chosen to align with the Christiane Baumgartner: Another Country exhibit currently at the museum, consisted of Mendelssohn’s String Quartet No. 2 in A minor, performed by Glen Cherry (1st violin), Tatiana Dimitriades (violin), Rebecca Gitter (viola), and Adam Esbensen (cello). The quartet was followed by Mozart’s Quintet in C Major, performed by Tatiana Dimitriades (1st violin), Glen Cherry (violin), Rebecca Gitter (1st viola), Rachel Fagerburg (viola), and Adam Esbensen (cello).

The chamber concert was preceded by a community conversation led by BSO Associate Director of Program Publications Robert Kirzinger, during which he described the two pieces to be performed and discussed the woodcut prints by Christiane Baumgarten hanging in the gallery. Among his observations, he noted that while Mozart was middle-aged in 1787 when he wrote his Quintet in C, Mendelssohn was 18 in 1827 when he wrote his String Quartet No. 2 in A minor. In addressing Christiane Gartner’s work, he described her intention of creating prints that were similar to the low resolution of video, rather than the high-resolution of photographs.

As the quartet started to play Mendelssohn, the gallery was filled with rich tones and lush chords, played with the technical excellence and emotional expression expected of the Boston Symphony Orchestra. The quiet, delicate melodies in the 1st violin were exquisite in the adagio. The quicker movements featured deep and powerful runs in the cello that were echoed in the viola. The quartet floated to the end with a gorgeous adagio.

The Mozart quintet’s adagios featured lyrical melodies traded back and forth between the first violin and the first viola, while the rest of the quintet provided a background for them. The energy of the allegretto con moto was intoxicating, and the final allegro was a classic Mozart summation of themes.

Christiane Baumgartner’s large woodcut prints conveyed a rhythmic energy with repeated horizontal lines in each piece. Her strong sense of line and shape underscored that energy.

Both the chamber concert and exhibit made for an invigorating Sunday afternoon’s entertainment, and the players and audience enjoyed a warm reception after the concert, featuring a dessert table designed with musical sculptures.

It was a truly delightful afternoon of skilled musicianship in the center of a gallery filled with thought-provoking art.