American composer, instrumentalist and singer Rhiannon Giddens’ song about a young black slave woman with a new child, “At the Purchaser’s Option,” begins with the following lines:
“I’ve got a babe but shall I keep him
’Twill come the day when I’ll be weepin’
But how can I love him any less
This little babe upon my breast
You can take my body
You can take my bones
You can take my blood
But not my soul.”
The young mother is being put on the auction block. It’s the purchaser’s option whether to also take the child. One could clearly hear the rhythms and music of the poetry in the KSO Principal String Quartet’s playing of Giddens’ arrangement of her recent song “At the Purchaser’s Option, with Variations” that began the Q Series concert at noon Wednesday at the Emporium Center downtown.
Both the melody and the chorus were superbly played by the four instruments in the quartet: violinists Gordon Tsai and Edward Pulgar, violist Kathryn Gawne and cellist Andy Bryenton.
Violinists Gordon Tsai and Edward Pulgar, cellist Andy Bryenton and bassist Steve Benne play Rossini’s “Sonata No. 2 in A Major.”
The quartet, with KSO principal bass Steve Benne replacing violist Gawne, followed with a performance of Giacchino Rossini’s “Sonata No. 2 in A Major,” part of a set of six sonatas written for this instrument combination in 1804 when Rossini was an astonishing 12 years old.
One can hear the attention young Rossini had paid to the music of Haydn and Mozart in the series of cheerful arpeggios that rapidly stepped up and back down in the “Allegro” (“fast”) first movement, especially in Tsai and Pulgar’s violins. The “Andante” (“moderately slow”) second movement had darker emotions, switching the attention to the cello and bass, with Bryenton and Benne’s stellar playing.
The second half of the concert featured the KSO Wind Quintet: flutist Hannah Hammel, oboist Claire Chenette, clarinetist Gary Sperl, bassoonist Aaron Apaza and horn player Jeffery Whaley. They began with selections from “Porgy and Bess,” George Gershwin’s groundbreaking opera, prominently featuring the melody of “Summertime.”
Flutist Hannah Hammel, oboist Claire Chenette, French hornist Jeffery Whaley, bassoonist Aaron Apaza and clarinetist Gary Sperl play music from George Gershwin’s opera “Porgy and Bess,” arranged for wind quintet.
Then the quintet played Hans Abrahamsen’s arrangement of Robert Schumann’s “Kinderszenen” (“Scenes from Childhood”), Op. 15, originally composed for piano in 1836. Its 13 movements capture times in the life of a child, beginning with “Of Foreign Lands and Peoples.”
There were many lovely moments of solo playing, especially Chenette’s oboe and Hammel’s flute. Sperl’s clarinet was the leading voice in the “Pleading Child,” fourth movement. In the eighth movement, marked “At the Fireside,” Whaley’s French horn took center stage.
The final piece on the program was “Quintette,” written by French composer Hedwige Chrétien, a contemporary of Claude Debussy and a professor of music at the Paris Conservatoire. As a student at the Conservatoire, she had excelled in harmony and counterpoint, elements that took the forefront in the quintet, delightfully played by the KSO’s superb musicians.
The KSO’s equally wonderful chamber music series, William Shaub & Friends, will be performed at the Knoxville Museum of Art next Wednesday and Thursday, April 3 and 4. Like yesterday’s Q Series, those concerts also often sell out.
Information about tickets to Shaub’s series, the next Q Series concert on April 24 and other KSO concerts can be found online or by calling the KSO box office at 865-291-3310.