Copious Notes

The musicians of the Chamber Music Festival of Lexington perform Antonin Dvorak's "Quintet for piano and strings in a minor" Aug. 29, 2009 at the Fasig-Tipton Pavilion. Photo by Rich Copley.

Clancy Newman’s Dream Sequence sounded like a nightmare.

The piece, which had its world premier Saturday night at the UBS Chamber Music Festival of Lexington, started with about as much racket as a piano quintet can make, the piano sounding like it had been tossed down the stairs and the string quartet sonically stabbing in the dark.

After the violent outburst, the piece settled into screeches, wails and trills, Alessio Bax’s piano often rumbling right under the surface. As the Dream went on and parts jumped among the four string players, violinist Nathan Cole’s eyes darted around the group seeming to search for a goon with a knife.

Dream Sequence may not have been melodic, but it was definitely evocative, seeming to live up to its name, taking the listener from the terrifying midnight and wee small hours to glimmers of the sunrise in its jazzy conclusion, anchored in Bax’s smooth piano and a groove by the lower strings — cellist Priscilla Lee and violist Burchard Tang.

This is the three-year old festival’s second world premier, an ambitious undertaking that also puts a lot of faith in the young audience to try an untested work.

Last year’s effort went pretty well, as Daniel Thomas Davis’ Book of Songs and Visions won the 2009 ASCAP Morton Gould Young Composer Award. Time will tell if Newman’s piece will get as good a ride. But the last two nights had to tell the young composer this: He couldn’t put his new work in better hands.

Friday night’s insightful, skilled playing endured Saturday in two demanding works that bookended the evening and a performance of George Enescu’s Sonata No. 3 in a minor for violin and piano. Last night, we were talking about Cole’s selfless artistic direction of the festival. But this piece certainly gave him and Bax a a showcase for their skills from a very sensitive reading of the first movement, with its wild mood swings to the athletic second.

Enescu created serious suspense in this piece putting demands on the violinist you had to wonder if he’d be able to meet. But Cole did, and he and Bax repeated what made Friday’s performance of Alfred Schnittke’s Piano Quintet so awesome: they cut to the emotional core of music many would consider difficult.

Taking the first violinist chair for the concert opener, Franz Joseph Haydn’s String Quartet in D, Akiko Tarumoto certainly didn’t have an easy time, but navigated it flawlessly. And anyone who did think Dream Sequence was a nightmare had to be comforted by the concert closing performance of Antonin Dvorak’s Quintet for Piano and Strings in A.

It was a energetic closer that exemplified this festival’s strength: Though these five musicians only get together once a year, they play like they’re on stage night after night.

Now that might be a dream come true for music fans. In Lexington, people are responding as the festival’s audience is growing. Fest president Charlie Stone said Friday’s concert attracted a record 359 paying customers, and Saturday’s crowd appeared to be bigger.

The festival concludes Sunday with a live and multimedia program in the first half that will put Sir Edward Elgar’s Quintet for piano and strings in a minor in musical and historical context. The festival’s musicians will perform the piece in the second half of the show.

Nathan Cole and his wife and fellow Chicago Symphony violinist Akiko Tarumoto perform at the UBS Chamber Music Festival of Lexington Aug. 28, 2009. Photos by Rich Copley | LexGo.com.

This could have easily been the Nathan Cole Show.

That was what the UBS Chamber Music Festival of Lexington hung its first edition in 2007: Hometown guy made good Nathan Cole, a violinist in the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, came back to Lexington to launch  the chamber fest in the tres horsey venue of the Fasig-Tipton Pavilion, which usually hosts horse auctions.

But from the beginning, Cole, the festival’s artistic director, has made the event an ensemble effort, and that’s why it’s great.

Friday’s opening night concert gave the quintet of Cole, violinist Akiko Tarumoto, cellist Priscilla Lee, violist Burchard Tang and pianist Alessio Bax its best chance yet to show the depth of their skills with Alfred Schnittke’s Piano Quintet.

Bax opened the piece with great use of a verbal introduction, talking about the quintet’s painful origins. It was inspired by the tragic death of Schnittke’s mother who fell and froze to death in the streets of Moscow. Knowing the story gave the audience an on ramp to the quintet which challenged listeners with its quiet, menacing tones that provide lots of emotion but little conventional beauty. This is tough music to play, throwing the musicians little they are used to with abrupt starts and stops and challenging blends.

Cellist and composer Clancy Newman played with the Chamber Music Festival of Lexington's string quartet on Franz Schubert's "String Quintet."

But, led by Bax, the group executed it flawlessly, allowing the listener to focus on the music’s mysterious allure.

The first half of Friday’s concert was bookended by smaller efforts, Bax and Tarumoto teaming to open the show with a spirited rendition of Johannes Brahms’ Sonatensatz: Scherzo in c minor, and guest composer and cellist Clancy Newman closing the first half with his solo composition Pizzicato Piece.

The cello work was a fun little jam, seeming to have roots in Newman’s rock band days. Saturday night, the festival’s core group will present the world premier of Newman’s new piano quintet Dream Sequence.

The funny thing watching the musicians play the distinctly modern Schnittke and Newman was knowing they would turn around and play Franz Schubert after intermission. Newman joined the string quartet for Schubert’s Quintet for Strings in D. While it was a return to traditional melodies and harmonies, the piece tapped some of the same emotions of the Schnittke and even gave Newman more pizzicato to play.

Though this group only assembles once a year, they are stunningly unified, and you have to think the next time they come town they ought to get into a recording studio.

The Chamber Music Festival of Lexington started on the strength of Cole’s talent as a violinist. It has become a testament to his humble skill as an artistic director.

The festival continues Saturday and Sunday.