SEEN AND HEARD INTERNATIONAL

Other Links

Editorial Board

Google Site Search

Vaughan Williams, Glière, and Jim Cockey: Corey McKnight (countertenor), Robyn Wells (piano), Jack Koncel (double bass), The Langroise Trio (Geoffrey Trabichoff (violin). David Johnson (viola), Samuel Smith (cello)), Langroise Recital Hall, College of Idaho, Caldwell, Idaho, USA. 25.4.2009 (PSh)


Ralph Vaughan Williams: Piano Quintet in C minor (1903 rev.1905)
Reinhold Glière: Suite (five pieces arranged by Frank Proto for violin [or viola] and double bass from Eight pieces for Violin and Cello, Op 39 (1909)
Jim Cockey: Early Snow, Six poems of James Richardson (2009


Last night’s concert was both a delight and a challenge, a whole evening of music previously unheard, completely new to this reviewer.  The Langroise Trio concerts are a mainstay of local musical life and it was a great disappointment when the February concert had to be canceled due to illness.  Geoffrey Trabichoff, graduate at 18 of London’s Guildhall School of Music, violin student of Sasha Lasserson, for many years leader of the BBC Scottish SO, and currently concertmaster of the Boise PO, became an American citizen last year.  Mr. Trabichoff tours frequently in Germany and has recently played the Elgar, all the Mozart, and both Mendelssohn concerti there.  David Johnson played viola in the Ft Wayne PO as a high school senior, graduating with honors from Indiana University, playing in the University Doctoral String Quartet in Carnegie Hall.  After playing in many symphony orchestras around the world he is currently associate principal violist in the Boise PO.  He makes many very successful musical arrangements for the Trio.  Samuel Smith studied with Joseph Saunders at Ball State University whilst playing principal cello for three local symphony and two chamber orchestras.  In 1981 he became principal cellist of the Ft Wayne PO for ten years and became the founding member of the Langroise Trio in 1991.  He has performed the great cello concerti as a soloist with the Boise PO, including a concerto written for him by Idaho composer David Alan Earnest.  Mr. Smith is director of the College of Idaho Sinfonia, founder of the Sawtooth Cello Festival, and is active in martial arts.  Mr. and Mrs. Smith very kindly received me in their home at the post-concert reception where I was able to meet with all the participants in this concert.  The Langroise Trio’s four commercial CDs, not including any of the music on this concert program, may be purchased via swsmith@collegeofidaho.edu.

Robyn Wells began her musical studies at age six in Idaho.  She studied for a time at Moravian College in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, graduated from Pacific Lutheran College in Tacoma, Washington, and obtained her Masters from Miami University in Oxford, Ohio, studying with Dr. Viktor Polonsky.  She is on the adjunct faculty of College of Idaho, also maintaining a private studio of twenty students, and since 1993 has concertized widely in the US and abroad.

It’s hard to consider a work composed by a 31 year old master as a “juvenile work” even if Vaughan Williams did live to be 86.  Although employing the same performers as the Schubert “Trout Quintet”, the work is generally denounced as “Brahmsian.”  Of course it sounds nothing like Brahms and everything like Vaughan Williams; everywhere in evidence are the embryos of the dramatic structures and textures he would expand so masterfully in the symphonies. The last movement in particular is a masterpiece and should be performed and recorded as often as the other gigantic works of this composer.  This last movement theme was re-used in the composition of the Sonata for Violin and Piano, but the Quintet was withdrawn in 1908 and performance was embargoed after 1918, and by the composer’s widow until 1990.  Fortunately the work has been recorded several times recently.

During their performance of a Brahms piano quartet last year, the stage area was enclosed and the sound was somewhat congested.  However, the sound, as well as the performance, last evening was exemplary; with the stage expanded, the sound was rich, clear and open, all of the lines clearly audible.  Ms. Wells’ gentle appearance belies the powerful tone she coaxes from the mid-size Steinway grand, blending with the others or commanding the stage as appropriate.  All aspects of the performance lived up to the very high standard of beautiful sound and expressive power we have come to expect from these performers.

Jack Koncel, violin maker and principal bassist of the Boise PO, is as big as his instrument and his mischievous smile as infectious as the obvious delight he brings to his playing.  Glière’s little masterpieces were performed with verve and élan, just a touch of portamento, and the very slightest bit of bluesy attack; the titles of the pieces are Prelude; Gavotte [w/musette]; Cradle Song; Intermezzo; concluding with a playful Scherzo of abruptly changing meters.  Glière is most famous for being Taneyev’s live-in deputy in instructing the teenage Prokofiev in Sontsovka, Ukraine; for writing the gigantic “Ilya Muromets” Symphony (his Third), as well as the wildly popular “Russian Sailor’s Dance,” the finale of his Red Poppy ballet.  These charming miniatures form a completely unexpected window into his art.

“Early Snow” was, apart from some movements of his Second Symphony, the first vocal music I had heard from the pen of Idaho composer Jim Cockey, and was as expected unlike anything he had written before.  These works are not songs in the usual sense of the word, the form of the poems generally being infrequently rhymed iambic pentameter.  The poems are discursive and reflective, assembling fleeting images into subtle and complex pictures and moods.  The first setting, “Early Snow,” was less an accompanied recitative than a tone poem for string trio with vocal obbligato.  The second, “As a Ghost,” was somewhat more lyrical.  “Nine Oaks” and “Evening Prayer” were the most immediately accessible of the treatments, with the finale “Late Snow” nearer to the earlier style.  There is just too much music here to take in fully at a single hearing but the depth and richness of the sound, the mood painting, the interaction between the vocal and instrumental lines, were a constant delight.  When they want to, the Langroise Trio has the ability to sound like a full symphony orchestra, producing an enormous volume of beautiful sound; sometimes you would swear you hear brass and percussion.  Although Cockey’s harmonic foundation is only a little to the left of late Rachmaninov, there were odd moments last night when I thought of Pierrot Lunaire.  The glory of being a twenty-first century composer is that it’s all available to you; and Jim Cockey uses it all.

Countertenor Corey McKnight collaborated closely with the composer in this work, which was written expressly for him.  He has a beautifully clear, sweet, dead on pitch, voice exhibiting absolutely none of the problems often associated with this range.  He can only be compared to the young Russell Oberlin, although McKnight’s voice is pitched higher and is more resonant.  Although it seemed to me that at times he ventured well into the soprano range he assures me he is thoroughly centered in the alto; not surprisingly he also sings baritone.  In addition to everything else it’s a pleasure to watch him sing; he is clearly enjoying himself and the music, and he affects none of the distracting grimaces and strains that some vocalists seem unable to avoid.  Mr. McKnight grew up in Nampa, Idaho (five miles southeast of Caldwell), and had his first voice lessons in 1984 with Dorothy Barnes at the University of Idaho.  Starting in 1991 he toured the entire USA, and much of the world, as a member of the Chanticleer ensemble, appearing on 12 of their acclaimed recordings.  In 2005 he released a multiple tracked solo album with a Catholic liturgical slant, “My Solitude,” to excellent notices.  Go to  http://cdbaby.com/cd/coreymcknight/ to audition tracks and purchase the MP-3 or CD; or buy the disk from your favorite dealer. 

James Richardson is Professor of English and Creative Writing at Princeton University and has published six books of poetry and two critical studies, winning a number of awards.  It was Mr. Cockey’s discovery of the poems that inspired the creation of this musical work, and the poems were set unaltered.  Mr. Richardson traveled from his home in New Jersey to Idaho to attend the premier of “Early Snow” and to accept the applause of the enthusiastic audience alongside the composer and soloist.  He is friendly, open, and accessible and must be a delight to his students.  All of the poems set are included in his book Interglacial which may be sampled on Amazon.com and Google Books; and you can find more of his work on the New Yorker magazine and Princeton University websites.

Paul Shoemaker


^{Back to Top                                                    Cumulative Index Page}