“Musical Friends” Unveil the Unfamiliar at Mount Wilson

l-r: Kyle Gilner (violin), Jonah Sirota (viola), Geoff Osika (double bass), Micah Wright (clarinet),
Gigi Brady (oboe).

REVIEW

“A Celebration of Strings and Winds” by Hans Gál, Britten, and Prokofiev

DAVID J BROWN

In his usual welcome at the penultimate event in this year’s season of Sunday Afternoon Concerts in the Dome, Mount Wilson Institute Trustee and COO Dan Kohne asked for shows of hands from those who were making their initial visit and those who had been before. The rough split was about 60/40 in favor of the first-timers—doubly encouraging both because it showed that the word about these unique seasons and venue is well and truly out and, given that the seating area encircling the 100-inch Hooker telescope was healthily filled if not a sell-out, that today's relatively unfamiliar program was not an audience turn-off, either for newcomers or seasoned attendees.

Jonah Sirota.

The violist Jonah Sirota had curated it as an exploration by a group of “musical friends” of chamber works scored for both stringed and woodwind instruments; as he noted in his introduction, there’s plenty of repertoire for each family separately, but together? Not so much. Influenced by the venue, his choice had homed in on pieces written within two decades of the telescope’s opening, of which the first to be played was at once the last completed (in 1935) and by the oldest and longest-lived of the three composers, as well as the figure least known today.

This was Hans Gál (1890-1987), an Austrian/Jewish composer, performer, teacher and scholar who, when he wrote his Serenade for clarinet, violin and cello, Op. 93, had already had his academic career in Germany summarily terminated by the Nazis, and within three years would flee to the safety of Britain. This Serenade, though, bears no signs of personal turmoil, being one of many elegant and poised exemplars of the musical values enshrined in the great Austro-German classical tradition, composed by Gál throughout his very long career.

Hans Gál.

The first of its four movements, a sonata structure headed Cantabile, opens with a long, gently aspiring clarinet melody, played here with expansive easefulness by Micah Wright. Very soon, though, this initial serenity is subverted, first by a faster, rather spiky extension of that main theme, and then throughout the remainder of the quite lengthy and elaborate movement by quicksilver changes of rhythm and texture, masterfully distributed by Gál between the three instruments, and equally masterfully navigated by Mr. Wright and Kyle Gilner (violin) and Jonathan Flaksman (cello).

Their affectionate treatment was marked in the latter part of the movement by subtle drawings-out of apparently concluding cadences only for the music to quietly turn aside and continue, as if saying “No, we’re not quite done yet…”

Micah Wright.

The Cantabile, at well over one-third of the Serenade’s total length, is by far its longest movement and is succeeded by a Burletta—effectively a concise scherzo-and-trio whose vigorous and scurrying outer sections enclose a gentle, slow-moving contemplation led by the violin. The third movement Intermezzo, with its long-breathed clarinet melody over plucked strings, similarly showed Gál’s skill at conveying spaciousness within a brief span (just three minutes), its concluding clarinet cadenza running straight into the jaunty strains of the Giocoso finale—which nonetheless accommodates a reprise of the Intermezzo’s exquisite musings before the cheerful music returns.

Kyle Gilner.

This rare but memorable and gorgeously played opener was followed by the 18-year-old Benjamin Britten’s Phantasy Quartet for Oboe and String Trio, Op. 2 from 1932. This wasn’t the first occasion on which this work had been heard in the 100-inch Hooker telescope dome; series Artistic Director and cellist Cécilia Tsan played it with three of her own musical friends in the second concert of the third season on 2 June, 2019, and it was instructive to compare impressions of that performance (reviewed here) with this account from four different and equally skilled collaborators.

Gigi Brady,

More than in that earlier performance, I felt, the piece was dominated here by Gigi Brady’s oboe, which presented as a confident, even at times imperious, protagonist throughout the work’s several varied and linked episodes, beginning with its quasi-pastoral melody that blooms after the opening march from the three strings (Mr. Sirota here joining Messrs. Gilner and Flaksman).

Over 24 measures Britten builds this up from the most fragmentary, uncertain beginnings, muted, ppp, and played pizzicato sul tasto (on the fingerboard). The players’ assured handling of its assembly gave it just the right sense of growing aim from initial hesitancy.

Benjamin Britten in 1930.

Whither was the youthful genius Britten marching with such strutting purpose, and where from? As ever, his late-flowering contribution to this peculiarly English sub-genre of chamber music (always distinguished by that “ph” for “phantasy” to label the single, multi-section movement) impressed by his acute ear for striking sonorities, skillful creation of an original, complex, and unpredictable design, and remarkable maturity of expression overall.

It could be argued that Gál’s designating his Op. 93 as a “serenade” might mislead some listeners to expect something more lighthearted and simple than the intricately wrought structure that it actually is, and conversely the simple formal title of Prokofiev’s Quintet in G minor, Op. 39 equally and thoroughly belies the zany, sometimes disquieting, circus romp with which these consummately skilled musical friends concluded their fascinating program.

Jonathan Flaksman.

The precise scenario envisaged under the title Trapèze by the ballet master Boris Romanov when he commissioned its score from Prokofiev in 1924 now seems lost to time, but as Prokofiev also conceived his work for concert performance, the music itself lived on, and presumably with the ballet in mind, the instrumental line-up he chose—oboe, clarinet, violin, viola and double bass—certainly enables extreme timbral contrast.

For this performance Micah Wright returned to join Gigi Brady for the work’s woodwind pairing, while in the strings Kyle Gilner and Jonah Sirota remained on stage, Jonathan Flaksman departed, and Geoff Osika came to the platform for the first time as double bassist to complete the ensemble.

Prokofiev and Stravinsky in Paris, 1920.

The first of its six brief movements (their overall cohesion here marred, sadly, by intermittent applause) is as with the Gál the longest, though not to such a marked degree. The implications of its heading Tema con variazioni are only fulfilled to a limited extent. There are just two variations, with the movement falling into two halves comprising (1) the long theme itself—given a notably tongue-in-cheek lachrymose quality in this performance—plus the equally extensive and medium-paced first variation, and (2) the second variation, Vivace, with gadfly leaps and glissando squeals all over the ensemble, followed by a full reprise of the lugubrious theme.

Next up is an Andante energico. Was Prokofiev teasing expectations and players’ abilities with this seemingly contradictory marking? If so, Mr. Osika responded as well as anyone could imagine with the elephantine thudding and chugging of his opening double bass solo, after which what is effectively continuous variation on that solo’s elements from all the players well lived up to what Mr. Sirota called the work’s “rag-tag circus band quality.” The movement’s unexpectedly long-drawn quiet ending gives way to more chugging and raucousness in the ensuing Allegro sostenuto, ma con brio, but for me the highlight was the fourth, Adagio pesante, movement.

Geoff Osika.

Played with measured intensity, this grim, lowering drama surely marked in the original ballet the entry of some sinister malefactor (a distant pre-echo of Pennywise, perhaps?), as well as in its latter stages recalling somewhat the great glistening, downward-sliding chords with which Prokofiev’s on-and-off friend and rival Stravinsky opens the second part of The Rite of Spring. Frenetic scurrying was back in the fifth movement, Allegro precipitato, the players here tending to zoom on through the qualifying ma non troppo presto.

Always unexpected, Prokofiev concludes his Quintet with an Andantino that begins with what sounds like a stately, slightly ghostly dance that then veers off into more discursive, dissonant scampering. The activity eventually dies down to a pizzicato double bass solo before the slow dance returns, Tempo primo. This builds up a considerable head of steam before violent sextuplets in the clarinet, viola, and double bass chase down, tumultuoso e precipitato, to a single, cut off, final chord.

Cécilia Tsan: Artistic Director, Sunday
 Afternoon Concerts in the Dome.

Perhaps the Mount Wilson audience was too discomposed by the sheer weirdness of the piece to give the five players the standing ovation they most richly deserved for their virtuosic and impactful performance. For this listener the whole concert was one of the richest and most rewarding yet in eight years of attending Cécilia Tsan’s and Dan Kohne’s truly unique series.

This season has been both the biggest (nine concerts compared with previous years’ six) and the most musically wide-ranging. In the greatest possible contrast, the final concert on Sunday, October 19, will be given by Los Angeles’ all- female Mariachi band, Mariachi Lindas Mexicanas.

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100-Inch Telescope Dome, Mount Wilson Observatory, Sunday 5 October 2025,
3 p.m. and 5 p.m.

Images: The performance: Taavi Sirota; Jonah Sirota, Jonathan Flaksman: artists' websites; Hans Gál: composer website; Micah Wright: Pasadena Conservatory of Music; Kyle Gilner: Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra; Gigi Brady: Pasadena Symphony and Pops; Prokofiev and Stravinsky: Legendary Musicians/Facebook; Geoff Osika, Cécilia Tsan: Long Beach Symphony.

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