Bargemusic Saturdays

This is an enjoyable concert series, as it’s informal, usually not too crowded, and you never know what you’re getting until you get there. The program is announced from the stage. Saturday brought a few solo violin pieces and four piano pieces—Debussy and Chopin. Mark Peskanov (violin) is the Executive Director of Bargemusic, and the pianist was Doris Stevenson.

Mr. Peskanov opened the program with a movement from the J.S. Bach Partita #3. It was very well played; I was especially impressed with his nice control of the range of dynamics.

Ms. Stevenson played pieces that had references to water—appropriate, as we were on a moored barge in the East River (on the Brooklyn side). She began with Claude Debussy—Gardens in the Rain and Reflections in the Water. Les Jardins had a few washes of Impressionistic color that I associate with Debussy, but it also had a bit of heft. Both Debussy pieces were very well played, the first from memory and the second with the score, though I didn’t see her checking the score often or at all.

She followed these with two of the four Chopin Ballades—#4 in F minor (Op. 52) and #1 in G minor (Op. 23), both played from memory once again. They are familiar to me, though I don’t presume to know the scores thoroughly. My notes include “disjointed,” but that’s not quite what I experienced. I was aware of the individual sections, rather than a free-flowing rendition. Sort of a different interpretation, yet it also let me experience being aware of the technical variations in the different themes and how Chopin achieved these. Once again, pretty playing, hitting all the marks, just in a slightly different way than I’m used to hearing.

In her introduction to the Ballades, Ms. Stevenson made a reference to attributing them to different epic poems of [Adam] Mickievich. News to me, and more fodder to follow up on.

Mr. Peskanov finished out the program with the Adagio and Fugue from Bach’s solo Sonata in G minor—again, very well played.

In the brief Q&A session, various topics were explored such as practice time (amount thereof), how to concentrate on memorizing the works, and how to focus during the actual playing process. Music and information on how it’s done, all in one brief program. Lots of fun.

ConcertMeister