New York Classical Review

The Curtis Chamber Orchestra performed a trio of repertoire staples to perfection Sunday afternoon at the 92nd Street Y. 

The catch was that they did it without a conductor. Such ensembles exist, but it is quite an accomplishment for young musicians. Then again, they are students at the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia.

There is something special about precocious young musicians performing works by composers their age who were cut from roughly the same cloth. It’s that wonderful frisson created when youth meets youth, and such was the case with the Curtis Chamber Orchestra performing works by Barber and Mozart in the first half of the program.

Barber was only 26 and a student at Curtis when he composed his String Quartet in B minor, Op. 11. Its second movement impressed Toscanini, who urged the young composer to arrange it for string orchestra. The great Italian maestro then led the premiere of the newly dubbed Adagio for Stringswith the NBC Symphony Orchestra. 

The Curtis string players delivered a perfectly paced performance of the Adagio,achieved through their bowing, breathing, and playing as one. Its poignant melody was enriched by greater emotional depth than a mere increase in volume, while the piercing climax was similarly and ideally in tune. The tension intensified until it evaporated into a spontaneous, abrupt void created by silence alone. A final reprise of the exquisite melody cast an air of serenity that the audience was reluctant to disturb with applause. 

Mozart was 23 when his imaginative streak was sparked by the new instrumental forms and styles he had encountered on a tour to Mannheim and Paris. The result was one of his most popular and enduring works, the Sinfonia Concertante in E-flat major, K. 364, composed for violin, viola, and orchestra.

Violinist Erin Keefe and violist Roberto Diaz were the soloists in the Mozart. Diaz is internationally renowned as a performer, including serving as the Philadelphia Orchestra’s principal violist for 10 years, from 1996 to 2006. Since then, he has been the president and CEO of Curtis. Keefe, a Curtis alum, is the concertmaster of the Minnesota Symphony and performs as a recitalist and in chamber music ensembles. She joined the Curtis faculty in 2022.

In the Allegro Maestoso, the orchestra displayed the full richness of its string sound, enhanced with smooth, especially sonorous playing from the horns and oboe. Keefe and Diaz were a study in contrasts as they engaged in their intimate dialogue. She, being a far more expansive player, with a fascinating, rich, singing tone, while he was a model of courtly restraint with a corresponding eloquence to his stage persona and sound. They nonetheless combined to create a single musical voice, which was at its most expressive in the virtuosic cadenza that ends the movement.

The Andante found the Curtis musicians at their most tender and lyrical. Keefe and Diaz enhanced its plaintive melody with eloquent phrasing and sensitive dynamic shadings. Smiles appeared on many of the players’ faces as they joyously romped through the concluding Presto. The lightness and brilliance of their playing were the launchpad for the dual soloists to toss off Mozart’s arpeggios, triplets, and dazzling, rapid scales with elan and virtuosity. 

The program took a 180-degree turn with Beethoven’s String Quartet No.16 in F Major, Op. 135, his final finished work, and a sharp contrast to the preceding youthful bursts of creativity from Barber and Mozart. 

As with the Barber, the Beethoven was not performed in its original string quartet form, but arranged for string orchestra by James Ross, another Curtis alum who has returned to the school as director of orchestral studies. 

Beethoven conceived his Op. 135 in an intimate, classical style, as opposed to the colossal scale of his other late string quartets. Ross’s reimagining of it for string orchestra succeeds for much the same reasons that Barber’s own arrangement of the Adagio of his Op. 11. It retains the grace and wit of the work, while amplifying its emotional weight with increased tonal richness and depth. 

In the first movement, the players tossed its short motives about with teasing playfulness. The Allegretto’s exciting syncopations were played with impressive speed, precision, and dynamic breadth. In the third movement, the opening chord unfolded with an exquisite air of serenity. The solo violin melody, which is so similar to the one that opens the Benedictus in the Missa Solemnis, was simply stunning in its beauty, purity, and emotional depth.

The musical debate of the final movement gained gravity and earnestness with the addition of the contrabass to the heavy, deliberate motif played by the violas and cellos, which the violins answered with exuberant, high-pitched cries. The angst was soon banished with the sparkle and pizzazz of the strings’ brilliant pizzicato playing. Its final chord resonated not only with the sound of 17 instruments, but also pure joy.

The encore was the final movement of Beethoven’s String Quartet in C major, Op. 59, no. 3, again arranged for string orchestra. The Curtis players blazed through the fugal tour de force, treating the audience to one last chance to savor their superb musicianship.