Reviews

Perhaps it was the awareness that change was in the air. After decades of operating as the Northwest Bach Festival, Spokane’s year-round music festival was undergoing a change, both of name and as substance, to Classics Northwest, under its Music Director Zuill Bailey. Perhaps it was the appearance of Nick Carper, principal viola of the Spokane Symphony, who is admired by a cadre of followers. It cannot be denied, though, that the principal cause of the joyous and celebratory mood that permeated the weekend’s two final concerts in the 2025-26 season of Classics NW was the love of music that radiated from the Balourdet String Quartet, making its second appearance in Spokane. Its membership is happily unchanged: Angela Bae and Justin DeFilippis, violins, Benjamin Zannoni, viola and Russell Houston, cello.

The group’s two concerts in April of last year were characterized as much by their intense projection of emotion as by their mastery of all the technical, instrumental resources available to a string quartet at the very peak of its profession. One can report that both the emotional impact and virtuosic capability of the quartet are undiminished. If possible, they have only gained in their symbiotic ability to elevate an audience from where they sit to a higher plateau, from which they can view beauties of life which have become obscured by the ceaseless demands of the clock.

Both Saturday’s and Sunday’s programs, though diverse in the styles and periods from which they drew, were made up of music from the same categories: 1. String Quartets by Female Composers; 2. 19th century works for String Quartet; 3. String Sextets. In the first category were the String Quartet No. 2 (1994) by Eleanor Alberga (1949-) and the String Quartet in One Movement (1929) by Amy Beach (1867-1944). In the second category were the “Andante Cantabile” for cello and string quartet (1871) by Tchaikovsky, the second movement of Brahms’ String Quartet No. 3 in B-flat Op. 67 (1875), and Beethoven’s String Quartet No. 11 in F minor Op. 95 (1810).

To perform the string sextets, the Balourdet Quartet was augmented by the viola of Carper and the cello of Bailey. On Saturday audience member heard the glorious Sextet No. 1 in B-flat Op. 18 of Brahms (1860) and on Sunday, Tchaikovsky’s Sextet “Souvenir of Florence” in D minor Op. 70 (1890). Binding together such a varied and substantial program was the passionate commitment by the Balourdet Quartet and their colleagues to making every member of the audience feel as intensely as they do.

The sense of discovery was perhaps most evident in the quartets by Beach and Alberga. Beach was a pioneer not only in establishing a flourishing career as a woman in the male-dominated classical music establishment, but also as a visionary composer, open to the most advanced and enterprising trends in the music of her time.

Her only string quartet is brief but concentrated. It begins with a highly chromatic introduction of uncertain tonality, which is finally stabilized by the appearance of themes taken from the music of the Inuit. The power, simplicity and directness of indigenous cultures fuse with European techniques of musical development to create a vigorous and compelling central section, which is rounded off by a return of the meditative, questioning material of the opening section.

Alberga’s String Quartet No. 2 is plainly composed by a master of the most far-reaching and sophisticated techniques to have developed in the 65 years that followed the publication of Beach’s quartet. Alberga, a native of Jamaica, has long resided in England, where she has led a tremendously productive career as a composer, teacher and performer. It is plain from the performance of her second quartet that Alberga has immersed herself deeply in the quartets of Béla Bartok. She has not only achieved the technical mastery but also a degree of intellectual and spiritual integrity that stands comparison with those of the Hungarian master.

The Balourdet Quartet not only proved equal to Alberga’s extremely demanding string writing in the quartet, they – to borrow a phrase Rachmaninoff’s – “swallowed it whole.” The slashing bow strokes, complex polyrhythms, vertiginous passages at the upper extremities of the fingerboard, all were executed flawlessly, and never drew attention away from the rigorous exploration of the ideas and emotions which provided the music’s true reason for being.

To turn to the second category, Tchaikovsky’s “Andante Cantabile” was a star-turn for Bailey, who played Tchaikovsky’s gently melancholy themes with exquisite care, imbuing them with just the right balance of sentiment and stoicism. It was a great pleasure to hear him play out like the great soloist he is, with such full-throated ease – a degree of license in which he cannot take when striving to integrate himself into an ensemble.

This requires a greater degree of expressive modesty, as we saw when Bailey and Carper (who is a noted string stylist himself) joined the Balourdet Quartet in performing the two culminating works of the weekend’s concerts: the sextets of Brahms and Tchaikovsky. By programming these two blockbuster works, Bailey wanted to celebrate all that had been accomplished by the Northwest Bach Festival, while also creating a feeling of excitement and for what lay ahead for Classics NW: an even broader range of repertoire, embracing not only classics from the Classical tradition, but classics of other traditions, as well - folk, rock, musical theater – all music that is sufficiently well made, sincere and authentic to stand the test of time, “providing,” as Bailey said, “something for everyone in the region, while furthering our priority of making music accessible through education and community engagement.”

Both sextets are rich enough in melody and sonority to give tremendous pleasure and to create just the type of excitement Bailey intended. It is likely, however, that for many, the Brahms sextet fulfilled that goal more completely than did Tchaikovsky’s “Souvenir.” Tchaikovsky’s work is awash in gorgeous melody and infectious rhythm, but the Brahms sextet is the better-written piece. While Tchaikovsky pads the spaces separating one amazing melody from the next with repetitive sequences and formulaic modulations, Brahms employs his genius for development in constantly searching after and finding new beauties in every fragment of melody, and exploring endlessly the effects of combining one instrument with another. Brahms’ inspiration does not start and stop, but remains continuously active over long spans. This sort of integrity is experienced by an audience as taking a continuous journey of exploration and discovery, all the while ascending a steady incline of emotional involvement. The culmination of that journey was made audible on Saturday night with an explosion of applause at Barrister Winery that must have been audible in Ritzville.

Like a springtime Santa, Zuill Bailey blew into town over the weekend, bringing with him his customary bag of gifts: irrepressible energy, a tireless pursuit of excellence and an abiding belief in the power of music to enhance our lives. Also as customary, he was accompanied by a member of his worldwide network of colleagues exhibiting the same traits. This time, it was the Australian pianist, Piers Lane, who last appeared under Bailey’s aegis nine years ago. At that time, he guided us through a tour of European music beginning with the crystalline clarity of Mozart and ending in the demented supervirtuosity of Leopold Godowsky.

This time, a program of a pair of recitals at Barrister Winery, featuring both Bailey and Lane, was much more narrowly focused on music of the Romantic era. Last week’s concert by the Spokane Symphony featured works by three composers of the Romantic era: Robert Schumann, his wife Clara and the other man who loved Clara, Johannes Brahms. Zuill Bailey obligingly filled in the mural of this era of musical history by programming works of Franz Schubert (1797-1828), Felix Mendelssohn (1809-47) and Frederic Chopin (1810-49). Even for us, living in a period of rapid progress, it is remarkable to consider that all of the masterpieces performed on Saturday and Sunday were composed between 1825 and 1847.

Both concerts were divided into two sections, with the first consisting of solo works performed by Lane, who was joined after an intermission by Bailey to perform works for cello and piano. Saturday’s solo program was dedicated to works by Schubert: his Impromptu in G-flat major D. 899 and his Piano Sonata in D major D. 850 those numbers preceded by a “D” specify where the work can be found in a catalogue of Schubert’s works compiled by Otto Deutsch). From the opening measure of the Impromptu, the luminous tone produced by Lane assured everyone present that the treasured repertoire they were about to hear would come to them from the hands of a master. While singing out Schubert’s serene and sad melody Lane maintained the accompanying arpeggios both at a lower volume and softer touch. When Schubert’s tone darkened to suggest the tragic underpinnings of earthly happiness – a distinctive feature of all of Schubert’s late works – Lane managed to increase the volume of the music while maintaining the suffused, non-percussive quality of the tone.

In the D major Sonata that followed, the range of Schubert’s expression greatly increased, and with it our awareness of Lane’s skill. At one point in the second movement, for example, where Schubert asks the pianist to alternate the melody between the two hands, Lane altered the tone quality between the hands to preserve the balance between melody and accompaniment. While piano mavens might wonder at the technique required to render Schubert’s argument with such clarity and consistency, the average attentive listener heard no technique at all; only music that seemed to spring from the piano as freely and spontaneously as it did from the composer’s uniquely gifted mind and heart.

As Saturday’s program progressed, Lane’s remarkable ability to convey the essential voice of the composer, rather than drawing attention to the charm, wit and sensitivity of his own personality, became more and more apparent. He remained seated quietly before the piano, regardless of the emotional temperature of the music. Unlike some fabled keyboard masters, he never looked heavenward to seek heavenly inspiration nor swayed to and fro in the grip of emotion. To have done so would have drawn attention from the music, and it was with the music alone, in all its richness, power and diversity, that Lane was concerned.

Sunday’s recital was devoted entirely to the music of Chopin, and, had one not been present on Saturday, one would have thought that Chopin was the only composer Lane ever played. He completely commanded the composer’s unique lyrical voice and technical vocabulary. For the solo portion of the program, Lane chose to play a varied group of Chopin’s works that had been arranged for orchestra by Alexander Glazunov to create the score for a ballet entitled Les Sylphides. As a recital program, they offer a satisfying survey of Chopin’s incomparable attributes: the vocal quality of his melodies, which was much influenced by his love of Italian opera, and his ability to combine the melancholy of his Polish roots with the translucent gaiety of Paris, his adopted home.

Lane performed a demanding list of 11 pieces without interruption. Most were based on dance forms: a Polonaise in A major, followed by an assortment of waltzes, mazurkas and a tarantelle, with the addition of a nocturne and a prelude. Each presented its own technical challenges and interpretive demands, all of which were resolved by Lane by answering a single question: What does the score say? By following that lodestar with resolution, by totally absorbing everything on the page and then bringing it to life with vitality, commitment and sovereign technical command, Lane brought the whole of Chopin’s genius to the audience, which responded with a heartfelt ovation.

The second half of both programs allowed us to see the effect of joining Lane’s chamelionlike versatility with the powerful personality and Bailey’s distinctive voice. In their performance of Mendelssohn’s early Variations Concertantes and his later Cello Sonata No. 2, Bailey and Lane acted as a prism, separating the composer’s blend of classical order and Romantic ardor into two channels, with Lane taking the first and Bailey giving voice to the second.

Never it seemed had Bailey’s cello emitted a greater rainbow of color or a more dramatic variety of expression. In the sonata’s third movement, a lyrical Adagio, it seemed that each note from the instrument had a life of its own, passing through changes of color and dynamics to tell its own story, before giving birth to the next note. In the final movement, the two players, equally in tune with Mendelssohn’s desire for an exhilarating conclusion, challenged one another to ever greater levels of velocity, without ever sacrificing clarity or accuracy. One hopes that the resulting response from the audience did not too greatly damage the roof at Barrister Winery.

In the Sonata in G minor Op. 65, his last completed work, Chopin sought from the cello the true legato sound – in which each note is seamlessly joined to those that precede and follow it – which throughout his life he attempted to achieve on the piano. Had he been present on Sunday afternoon, he would have heard his hopes realized by Bailey, most notably in Bailey’s performance of the Largo third movement which, for perfection of phrasing and subtlety of coloration, could serve as a standard for any musician, regardless of instrument.