Shostakovich figures prominently in string chamber music. Several of his 15 string quartets are landmarks of 20th-century music while his music for piano and strings, if less impressive, is substantial and quite popular. In marking both the 110th year of his birth and the 40th anniversary of his death, the Montclaire String Quartet - Anton Shelepov, violin, Christian Fatu, violin, Bernard Di Gregorio, viola, Andrea Di Gregorio, cello - is featuring one of his masterworks in each concert of its 2015-2016 season.
Pianist Victoria Fatu, Christian's wife, joined Andrea Di Gregorio and him and for Shostakovich's Piano Trio No. 2 in E Minor, Op. 67.
The enigmatic opening movement had a haunting melody in high cello harmonics against a low violin melody at the start. The main section of the movement seemed to ask a series of questions without ever answering any of them. It stopped mysteriously with only a vague hint of resolution.
The scherzo was fierce and rhythmically lively. It's melodies fired off with the rat-a-tat of great drumming while accented chords in the piano stamped to build foundational support.
The enigmatic quality returned in the third movement with Victoria Fatu striking loud well-spaced chords at the beginning. Those chords, softened, continued under a dialogue between violin and cello that ended in unresolved mystery like the first movement.
The finale had folk-like chugs and hops under melodies in the vaguely distorted folk idiom that Shostakovich adopted to survive in the Soviet regime (if you want to picture that sound, imagine a Stravinsky piece that has had reconstructive cosmetic surgery). This muscular music was obliterated by a return of the enigmatic music to close the piece.
Andrea Di Gregorio and the Fatus played it delightfully and brilliantly.
To conclude the concert, Victoria Fatu joined the quartet for a well-paced account of Dvorak's Piano Quintet No. 2 in A Major, Op. 81 that was ruminative, probing and poetic. Perhaps some of the loudest music in the finale was too stentorian, but it never sounded brittle.
Shelepov and Bernard Di Gregorio began the program with Johan Halvorsen's Passacaglia for Violin and Viola after Handel's Harpsichord Suite No. 7 in G Minor. A passacaglia has a short bass pattern that variations are essayed over. Halvorsen's music started gently but grew increasingly animated and difficult. By the end the players had flown through tremolos, bustled through dizzying plucked passages, bowed furious scale patterns and mastered ringing double-stopped chords.
A crowd of about 60 attended at the University of Charleston's Emma Byrd Gallery.