The weekend may have been dominated by opera in Washington and Baltimore, but there were plenty of instrumental concerts, too.
On Saturday afternoon, a daylong examination of Brahms' late chamber works presented by the Shriver Hall Concert Series culminated in an exceptional performance of Op. 120 - two sonatas originally for clarinet and piano, here offered in his arrangement for viola and piano. These pieces find Brahms at his most revealing; the music is tinged with nostalgia, yet brimming with confidence.
Violist Kim Kashkashian and pianist Robert Levin enjoyed tight technical rapport and shared an appreciation for the full range of poetry and emotion in the two scores.
Her solidly centered, mellow tone never failed to impress, especially in the second movement of the F minor Sonata, when it suggested a seasoned mezzo singing from the soul. Her bold, incisive articulation in the more outgoing movements of that work and the E-flat major Sonata paid high dividends. So did Levin's stylish, authoritative efforts at the keyboard. He burrowed deeply into the notes, getting to their marrow.
A few minutes after this event ended, Pro Musica Rara opened a well-stocked concert a few blocks away at Second Presbyterian Church. There were probably too many items on the program; some of them sounded decidedly under-rehearsed. But, at its best, the effort provided a colorful, spirited sampling of repertoire from about two centuries' worth of early music.
Violinists Elizabeth Field and Cynthia Roberts reveled in the almost improvisatory style of Marco Uccellini's La Bergamsaca. With Ivan Stefanovic, they tapped the ingenuity and charm of a sonata by Biagio Marini that calls for one violin to be echoed by two more offstage; intonation, though, was not always dead-on.
Richard Stone revealed the warm colors of the theorbo, an elongated lute, in a vividly performed Toccata by Johann Hieronymus Kapsberger. A few off-pitch notes aside, cellist Allen Whear delivered a winning account of a sonata by Vivaldi, accompanied stylishly by Stone.
In a welcome sampling of Henry Purcell's richly layered music, the players (harpsichordist Shirley Matthews completed the ensemble) brought particular lightness and lilt to the Chacony in G minor.
As usual, the acoustics at Second Presbyterian gave all the music a lift. I missed those acoustics terribly Sunday night back at Shriver Hall, where its dry sound cut into the brilliant playing by the Chamber Orchestra Kremlin. The violins, in particular, would no doubt have sounded much warmer in a better acoustical space.
This 17-member string ensemble from Moscow, led by founding music director Misha Rachlevsky, demonstrated almost military-level precision, but never settled for mechanical playing.
The shimmering Sextet from Richard Strauss' opera Capriccio unfolded with great sensitivity; this expanded arrangement did not cloud the interweaving lines or lush harmonies. Bartok's gritty Divertimento received a tense, electric performance.
And Tchaikovsky's Serenade for Strings came in for a fresh reading that never skimped on lyricism; the third movement, for example, purred beautifully and melted deliciously into the finale. But the group also never missed an opportunity to rock and roll. Rachlevsky took the finale at a breathless clip that had the young musicians operating at true virtuoso level.