The Orion Ensemble March 21, 2010

For the third concert program of its 2009–10 season, the Orion Ensemble performs the work that inspired its season-long theme of “Musical Connections,” Robert Kritz’s “Connections,” written expressly for Orion, along with works by Baermann and Tchaikovsky. Performances are Sunday, March 21 at Fox Valley Presbyterian Church in Geneva; Sunday, March 28 at the Music Institute of Chicago’s Nichols Hall in Evanston; and Wednesday, March 31 at Roosevelt University’s Ganz Hall in Chicago.
Chicago composer Robert Kritz has had a long-term “connection” with the Orion Ensemble and its members. “Connections” for Clarinet, Violin, Viola, Cello and Piano, which he wrote for Orion in 2001, refers to internal and external aspects of the work. Internally, a motif connects the three movements of the piece, like many late 19th century works. Externally, Kritz writes music that is virtuosic, jazz-influenced and warmly romantic with a goal of enabling and enhancing human connection—between composer, performers and audience. To him, those human connections are the meaning of music and the essence of life.
An infrequently performed work on the program is the Quartet in B-Flat Major for Clarinet, Violin, Viola and Cello, Op. 18 by Heinrich Baermann. The 19th century “Rubenstein of the clarinet,” Baermann inspired several prominent composers with his superb artistry on the instrument, including Mendelssohn, Weber and Meyerbeer, all of whom wrote works for him. Baermann also wrote his own works—quartets, quintets and concertinos—which show his lively musical mind, winsome personality and keen awareness of the clarinet’s expressive possibilities that made him a favorite performer and friend of composers.
Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky wrote the Trio in A Minor, Op. 50, for Violin, Cello and Piano as a memorial to his mentor and friend Nikolai Rubinstein, premiering it on the first anniversary of Rubinstein’s death in 1882. The first movement is in a standard romantic sonata form, and the second is a large set of variations that starts simply and builds in power and energy before returning to the first movement theme in funeral march garb. One Tchaikovsky scholar asserts that all the different forms in the variations are recollections of Rubinstein, which the funeral march finally brings to a close.

Official Website: http://www.orionensemble.org