Last year the Deer Valley International Chamber Music Festival benefited from a strong Ukrainian presence in the form of violinist Oleg Krysa. Sunday that presence was doubled by way of his son Taras, filling in for the Utah Symphony's Leonard Braus, and pianist Mykola Suk, for many years professor at the Kiev and, later, Moscow conservatories.
It was applied, moreover, to a largely Russian program consisting of, besides Mozart's G minor Piano Quartet (K. 478), the Shostakovich Piano Quintet and Stravinsky's arrangement for clarinet, violin and piano of extracts from his own "L'Histoire du Soldat" ("The Soldier's Tale").The best of these in many ways was the Stravinsky, served up in lively fashion with a strong sense of character. And that was as true of Vincent Frittelli's flavorfully pointed violin solos as it was Suk's impassioned pianism, with Russell Harlow's clarinet falling somewhere in between.
Thus the soldier's music sprang vividly to life, as did the semi-raucous "Little Concert," here very "Petrouchka"-like, and the concluding "Devil's Dance," which worked up a nice head of steam.
But in terms of adding to our understanding of the piece itself, I would have to award the palm to the Shostakovich.
Composed in 1940, on the eve of the German invasion, its mingled gravity and wit have been seen, in the words of one Soviet musician, as "the last ray of light before the future sank into a dark gloom." But as with the Sixth Symphony from the year before, it is the gloom, or at least its foreboding, that stays with one, especially in this interpretation.
Once again Suk was clearly plugged into the music's mood and inner pulse, from the ringing introduction to the subdued brightness of the Intermezzo, where his playing glimmered quietly under the light screech of Frittelli's violin.
At the same time the music seemed to be deeply felt by everyone, whether in Frittelli and Krysa's idiomatic fiddling amid the sadness of the Adagio or in the cutting edge of the Scherzo, here vigorously sardonic.
Even Ellen Bridger's cello and Leslie Blackburn-Harlow's viola had their incisive stretches, as the pain of the slow movements mirrored itself in accordance with the piece's five-movement arch structure. For once, though, it also carried over to the Finale, which may have been on the slow side of Allegretto but whose deliberation and implacability echoed the darker overtones of the rest.
As a result the dance was less a release than something to be endured, followed by the bittersweet nostalgia of the finish.
The Mozart, which began the evening, likewise had its moments. However the piano writing, though set forth with fluidity and a wonderful singing tone, occasionally proved too much for Suk, and Frittelli often fell short on top.
Thursday at 7:30 p.m. at the Park City Community Church, Suk will be heard in music of Liszt and Glinka (the E flat major Sextet).