Chiara String Quartet
Offers World Premiere
By M. D. Drysdale

There are many reasons to look forward to Saturday’s performance of the Chiara String Quartet in Chandler Music Hall—but two of them stand out.

For Brookfield composer Erik Nielsen, it will be the opportunity to hear the world premiere of his String Quartet No. 2 by one of the finest young chamber ensembles in America.

For noted American cellist Norman Fischer, formerly of Norwich, it will be the chance to play his favorite of chamber music masterpiece in collaboration with his daughter, Chiara’s first violinist Rebecca Fischer.

Nielsen has held the Chiara ensemble in high esteem ever since they premiered his clarinet quintet in Vermont—and played it even better than when it received its world premiere at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. He was thrilled to get the chance to write a major work especially for them.

That opportunity came when Chandler celebrated its centennial in a daring way by commissioning new music from three Central Vermont composers—Gwyneth Walker, Kathy Eddy, and Nielsen. He’ll hear the piece for the first time Saturday. Needless to say, he can’t wait—and if his quartet reaches the artistic peak attained by the other two new compositions, the audience is in for a treat.

For cellist Fischer, who now teaches at Rice University in Houston and at Tanglewood during the summers, Saturday will be like a trip home. During the 1970s and 80s, he performed many times at Chandler Music Hall with the Dartmouth-based Concord String Quartet.

"It was our favorite hall to play in, no question," he said in a phone conversation from Houston last week. At the time, his daughter Rebecca was wending her way through grade school and high school before heading off to Julliard Conservatory.

That’s where the Chiara Quartet was formed, and where it mentored for two years with the legendary Julliard Quartet.

Norman Fischer returns to play with the quartet because of one notable piece of music—the Schubert string quintet, which adds a second cello to the usual combination of instruments. Fischer speaks of the piece with awe in his voice.

"The Schubert quintet is probably the greatest piece of chamber music ever written," he said. "It is magical from the very first note, a transcendent, amazing, expansive journey."

One of the high points, he said, occurs near the end of the second movement when the three inner voices play a quiet chorale, while an intricate, delicate duet is played by the first violin and the second cello.

Saturday evening, those players would be Rebecca and Norman Fischer.

"To play this with my daughter is just something that I can’t describe," Fischer exclaimed.

The third piece on the program Saturday is another classic—Beethoven’s Grosse Fuge.

Mucky Duckers

The Chiara Quartet is that rare group of musicians that are at home at New York’s Lincoln Center and also at Mucky Duck in Houston or The Hideout in Chicago—non-classical venues where they play exhilarating contemporary works. They’ve just been accepted as artists in residence at Harvard University.

"Other musicians would kill for such shapely phrasing," ccommented William Stibor of National Public Radio in a recent review.

Thus, Erik Nielsen had no hesitation when he was approached by Chandler’s Rebecca McMeekin and asked to write new music for an ensemble of his choosing as part of the centennial.

"I knew right away—I said if you can get Chiara to come back, I would like to write for them," he recalled this week.

He wrote the piece, he said, thinking of them specifically. "I had in mind something about their particular sound and energy level—they’re a very energetic group of young people, willing to take risks."

The concert will usher in a busy time for the Brookfield composer. Next month the Vermont contemporary Music Ensemble will premiere a new string quintet, and in May at the Barre Opera House there will be a premier of a short work for "virtual orchestra" followed by a song cycle, "The Falling of Trees" June 1 in Northfield.

Commissioning three new works for a single season is an enormous undertaking, and depended on funding from several sources, said McMeekin, who organized the centennial season. The project was supported by the Vermont Arts Council, the Vermont Community Foundation, the New England Foundation for the Arts, the Max Seaton Charitable Trust, and the Mascoma Savings Bank Foundation.

Saturday’s 7:30 p.m. concert is also sponsored by Dandelion Acres. Tickets are available at 728-6464.