Classical Review: Excellent all-French program by Andrea Jarrett and friends at WCHoF

Last Thursday night (March 28, 2024), the World Chess Hall of Fame (WCHoF) presented a chamber music concert titled “The French Connection”. This all-French (but of course) program featured two musicians from the St. Louis Symphony, violinist Andrea Jarrett and violist Andrew François, pianist and WCHoF co-music director Brian Woods, and cellist and education director of the Chamber Music Society of St. Louis (CMSSL) Davin Rubicz. As Woods explained in the pre-concert talk, the idea for this concert began with his initial musical collaboration with Jarrett at an earlier CMSSL concert. Hence the program booklet cover read “Andrea Jarrett and friends”, where François, Rubicz, and Woods were “the friends” (although the cover’s portrait gallery unwittingly countered that idea, to be explained later).

While this concert was but an hour long, it followed the vintage classical concert template of “overture – concerto – symphony” in its way. The “overture” was “D’un matin de printemps” (“Of a Spring Morning”), by the all-too-short-lived composer Lili Boulanger (1893-1918), from 1917, in its original version for violin and piano. Although Boulanger suffered from ill health throughout her life, this short and sprightly work did not necessarily reflect any personal stresses, and was a very appropriate opener well played by Jarrett and Woods.

The “concerto” was the Violin Sonata No. 2 of Maurice Ravel (1875-1937), composed over the period of 1923-1927. The artists noted in the pre-concert discussion that the work’s three movements have essentially nothing to do with each other. Ravel himself said that this work explored his sense of the fundamental “incompatibility” of the two instruments, violin and piano, together. Even without knowing about the preceding 100+ years of compositions for violin and piano, one would probably not assent to Ravel’s “incompatibility” idea from the final result, nor would the very distinct natures of the three movements trouble you, because of Ravel’s superlative compositional skill in making the full work sound coherent. If anything, the evaluation of Ravel attributed to fellow French composer Claude Debussy that Ravel’s musical ears were “the finest that ever existed” seems more appropriate. Jarrett remarked in the pre-concert talk that this Ravel sonata was one of her bucket-list pieces. She clearly seized this opportunity with relish, splendidly capturing the distinct moods of each movement with very fine partnership indeed from Woods. Of the concert’s three selections, the Ravel has the most memorable melodies, IMVHO, and proved to be the concert’s centerpiece, despite not being the program’s largest work.

That largest work, or the evening’s “symphony”, was the Piano Quartet No. 1 in C minor of Gabriel Fauré (1845-1924), op. 15, originally composed in 1877 and premiered in 1880, but whose finale Fauré rewrote in 1883. Woods cited a description by Aaron Copland, no less, of Fauré as “the French Brahms”. The young Copland expressed that assessment in an October 1924 article in “The Musical Quarterly” of Fauré:

“It would be more helpful for the American music-lover to say that Fauré is the Brahms of France. This does not mean that he imitates Brahms in any way – but rather that he possesses a genius as great, a style as individual and a technique as perfect as that master.”

Furthermore, Copland wrote that Fauré’s music, “in spite of its apparent simplicity, has a certain ungetatable quality which must be disconcerting to the uninitiated”. For one, I take that point, because at least IMHO, Fauré’s melodic invention here is more subtle and less “earworm-y”, in line with Copland’s evaluation, compared to the Ravel. For this ~30-minute work, all four musicians obviously joined forces, and were on terrific form.

By conventional concert hall standards (e.g. The Sheldon, Wash. U.’s 560 Music Center, UMSL’s Lee Theater at the Touhill), the 3rd floor of the WCHoF has a relatively hard and dry acoustic, with a low ceiling, with limited room for tonal blend. This is understandable, since the 4652 Maryland Avenue building was formerly an office and boutique space, not designed for live music. Thus, the space’s sonic paradox is that (a) when the music goes full tilt, like during the Fauré, the sound can be quite ample, but also “edgy”, while (b) when the musicians dial it back for quieter moments, there isn’t necessarily much resonance. However, with musicians of this caliber, they work with the performing space on order in their stride.

The trivial quibble alluded to earlier about the program cover is that Jarrett’s photo was in the lower right corner. Or in other words, as the program listed the artists as “Andrea Jarrett and friends”, then her headshot should have been “first”, in the upper left corner. Probably no one else thought this besides me. What matters most, of course, is the music-making, which was on an excellent level throughout the evening. For concertgoers who’d like to “revisit” this concert, or for any non-attendees interested in checking it out, WCHoF has a video of this concert from its livestream available on YouTube.