MUSIC
Tuesday, August 9, 2005; C02
'Sounds of
The Capitol Hill Chamber Music Festival gave its second "Sounds of Slovenia" concert Sunday at St. Mark's Church, and the few but stalwart attendees were presented with an epic exploration of music by recent Slovenian composers.
The program offered a wide variety of sounds and styles. Composer Brina Jez was present at the concert, and her work employed technical effects such as using a recording as second player to violinist Branko Brezavscek in "Silence or They Are All So Nice and Handsome."
In contrast, Ivo Petric's Sonata for Flute and Piano, performed by artistic director Jeffrey Cohan and pianist Jeffrey Chappell, reminded one of sonatas by Prokofiev and Shostakovich.
But the crowning work of the evening was a world premiere -- "Four Temperaments," by Igor Dekleva. This set of songs was hauntingly performed by soprano Kate Vetter Cain and Chappell. The final song, "Cholera," memorialized the cholera epidemic of 1998, and mixed in elements of the Catholic requiem chant "Dies Irae" with the Slovenian text in a heart-rending and twisted waltz.
Although hearing several works of eight composers gave a broad overview of
styles, it also created a sensory overload. It was such a massive 2 1/2 hours
of music that it wasn't easy to process any one part of it. But, perhaps in
smaller doses, the music of
-- Claire Marie Blaustein
© 2005 The Washington Post Company
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