♪ opening music ♪ This program is made possible in part by a grant from Consolidated Foods Corporation with additional funding from the ETV Endowment of South Carolina.

[sound of bell ringing] Hi, I'm Bob Edwards, and this time in Spoleto our subject is chamber music.

Question.

Why do they call it chamber music?

Well, obviously it's not the same as auditorium music.

It's smaller, more intimate.

Music for a room, instead of for a philharmonic hall.

Conversation size, like a handful of people talking to each other.

But elegant conversation, the sort you would expect to hear at a place like the Dock Street Theater built 20 years before Mozart was born.

Musical dialog among a handful of witty and eloquent friends.

That's chamber music here at Spoleto, at least.

And our first example is a trio sonata in A Major by Antonio Lotti ♪ chamber music ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ [applause] Paula Robison the flutist in Lotti sonata is also a co-director for the Spoleto Chamber Music Series, along with her husband, violist Scott Nickrenz.

During the winter, Scott and I spent many hours together thinking about possibilitie for music, what kind of music we would like to present here, what artists whom we would like to hear playing here.

Some of it is based on the fact that these are artists whom we have known for many years and with whom we enjoy very much making music.

A very important part of our program here is to present young artists who haven't played so much in such a public way in this country, some of whom have found careers in Europe.

For instance, Dong-Suk Kang who's a wonderful Korean violinist, has played a great deal in the United States, but he's living in Paris now.

So this is a wonderful chance for us to be with him and make music for him for two weeks.

So it's a lovely combination of things which makes us decide what music we want to present.

Often it's, I think it's because we'll think of an artist whom we love to listen to and play with and then think, oh, this person would play, Oh, this sonata so beautifully, or wouldn't this person play Mendelssohn beautifully?

And then it sort of comes, it'll grow out of that.

Yeah, it's we keep coming back to this idea of being cooks, making up menus.

I hate to always, always talk in those terms, but you think of a piece that would be a certain dish, like a casserole, and then we really want to present this casserole.

All right.

So that would be of, say, a Mendelssohn sextet and then we say, well, okay, what are the ingredients going to be?

<Paula Robison> The quality that we look for in people who come here, is the ability to to hash out things, to talk about things, to to fight if necessary for ideas, and then to give them up when necessary so that the whole performance will come together in a beautiful and clear way; A way that will be available to the people who are listening to it.

So now we've prepared this dish.

Now we have to have a complete menu, right?

What else is going to go with, you know, what's a clear soup, for instance?

So then we'll say, Oh, this Paul is very strong in the baroque sort of because of her flute playing.

So she'll say, Well, what about this Lotti piece?

Or what about this Telemann piece?

Who can we use for that?

That would be beautiful first course.

And then it's the second course.

So it, not to be corny, but this idea of preparing menus and getting the right ingredients is a great correlation here.

<Paula Robison> And we feel that we have a great responsibility so that the joy of making music and the pleasure we take in preparing the concerts is very much there.

That great fun we have and the laughing and all the craziness is very much there.

But there's also a desire to play the best possible concerts we can.

<Scott Nickrenz> And what Gian Carlo Menotti really wants at a festival like this, there's not that we fall into some pattern of success and say, okay, now this is successful, you know, don't change a thing.

He's quite the opposite.

He likes to stir things up.

<Bob Edwards> And stir things up they did.

As was traditional in the 18th century, Scott and Paula substituted instruments of similar range, in the Lotti trio sonata.

In this case, the 20th century saxophone for the 17th century oboe d'amore, creating a fresh sound that was both old and new.

♪ chamber music ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ [applause] <Paula Robison> We hope that the kind of liveliness which in the planning of the music and in the deciding about music and the desire for the music to live and come alive and sparkle in any concert situation which we did.

That's what we try to accomplish in our own instrumental playing.

When we ourselves are giving concerts that the music comes alive.

That's the kind of quality we respond to in other artists.

And when we hear it can be someone with whom we've played for many years.

It can be an old friend or it can be someone we, Scott will come home one day or say, I heard this most wonderful player at this concert, and let's find out about this person and where does he or she live?

And could maybe, could he or she come to the festival?

<Scott Nickrenz> We're also presenting, we're taking great jazz public not that, we hope we're not sneered at, but we're presenting a Jimmy Dorsey piece on the opening concert called "Oodles of Noodles."

Here we have a marvelous artist who happens to play the saxophone.

He could he could play the kazoo, he could play anything.

He's just a great artist.

He plays the saxophone.

We wanted to present this artist.

He is so marvelous.

So we start digging around in the saxophone repertoire.

And Jimmy Dorsey is an important American composer.

So, by Jove, we're going to present it at our concerts.

♪ jazz music ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ [applause] Well, I think the best secret to success is just to have a lot of fun, as much fun as possible, and yet to have, without sacrificing the quality of the music.

And so, we have the ingredients for a sure fire success because we have great literature, some of the greatest music ever written, and we always managed to get some of the greatest performers in the world down here.

So you mix those two together and you're bound to have good results.

<Bob Edwards> Over the years, Charlestonians have watched three and a half year old Elizabeth Nickrenz grow up with the festival.

We asked Paula if she and Scott wanted her to go into music.

<Paula Robison> Oh, the poor kid.

She can't help but be exposed to music.

She's got music around her all the time.

I think we, we feel, we both feel that she's a gifted child.

She's a very, also very strong young lady.

And she's going to tell us what she wants to do.

♪ <Bob Edwards> Chamber music has proven a special delight to Charleston audiences since the inception of the festival in 1977.

The afternoon concerts were first begun at Spoleto, Italy, by series host Charles Wadsworth.

When the decision came to bring the concerts here as part of the American Spoleto Festival, it seemed for me an incredible moment, you know, when I could come home because my home is Georgia, come to South Carolina and into a place so beautiful and communicate with people that I feel very close to.

Making them realize they have no problems.

Chamber music is nothing to be frightened about.

If they'll just relax and they'll get into it and we've now seen the concerts in the Charleston doubling from once a day to two concerts a day.

<Bob Edwards> One of the trademarks of the concerts is the presence and participation of extremely gifted young artists like James Buswell.

<Charles Wadsworth> These, for me,one of the most extraordinary violinist, dash, musicians in the world.

You know, a person can be a great violinist and not be a great musician, but Jamie is at the age of only 32 or 33, I don't know.

He is one of the most amazing people in his field.

<Scott Nickrenz> You go on stage with Jamie, you've got to really be on your toes because he will do all kinds of different things in the performance.

So, as opposed to many groups that are well-rehearsed.

He'll go up there, he has this marvelous control of the stage as an instrument and his imagination starts working over time.

He's wonderfully fresh and inventive at the moment of performance, and he is so on top of everything that it gives him the freedom to adjust things at times, and if he decides, well, you know, this really would be much more interesting if we speed this up a bit here, or why don't I take a little more time with this?

This is really a wonderful play.

And the musicians around him are always very fine artists and they can go with this.

It makes the playing very alive.

It's wonderful.

It's never going to be dull.

<James Buswell> If you are well trained as a musician, as a chamber musician, it is a universal language and you can get together and play with each other.

A very important key to this is what I would call simple sensitivity.

You have to notice right away some of the little idiosyncrasies of your colleagues, some of the values that may be slightly different from your own, and then adjust to those and work as a team beautifully together so that you bring out the best in each other.

And that's something that it takes a great gentleness of spirit and love for the music to bring out.

But it's very possible when you have players of the caliber that you have here at Spoleto.

♪ My first year at the Spoleto Festival in Italy was 66.

Charles Wadsworth took a big risk bringing me there.

I was very young, very inexperienced in chamber music, and he gave me a chance.

Gian Carlo Menotti gave me a chance in that same way.

They took a risk on me.

And I'm very grateful to them for that because that was the beginning of my interest in chamber music, really.

Careful, second violins.

Da da da da da da da.

Don't do anything to push it.

Feel a little vestige of four Still in your bones.

Just a little hint of four.

One, two, three, four.

One, two, three, four.

One, two, three, four.

♪ What you learn between the ages of five and ten as a string player is just tremendously crucial and I had excellent teachers during that year.

And I would say that now, you know, in the middle of my thirties, when I go as I am this summer from festival to festival and I'm doing about 50 different pieces of repertoire in the next four months, I could never imagine doing that if I didn't have the basic technical background that I had had as a child, that makes certain things in my instrument a foregone conclusion so that I can take up a piece of music and in a day or two it's mine.

Music is my language and it is my profession, but my family is my love, and I would be fooling if I said to you that there isn't some difficulty in terms of the use of time in our profession.

What I ache for is a little bit more time at home to actually spend in the four walls of my own house with my family.

My life is not from professional challenge to professional challenge.

It's from individual piece of music to individual piece of music.

And no matter how much of a reputation you have acquired, there is always that next piece to play and it expects the best of you.

And it doesn't matter what your laurels are or what your past accomplishments are at that moment.

You simply have to give your best right then.

<Bob Edwards> And now with Stephanie Brown as pianist, we hear James Buswell, first violinist Scott Nickrenz and Lawrence Dutton, violist Colin Carr, cellist and James VanDemark on the double bass in the first movement of the Sextet in D Major Opus 110 by Felix Mendelssohn ♪ chamber music ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ [applause] It was wonderful.

It was a good variety and I think the artists were just excellent.

Absolutely first rate.

Marvelous.

The performers are excellent.

They're just really incredible.

I came last year, too, and I really enjoy it a lot.

I thought it was really unusual compared to the other performances.

It was a lot of fun.

It was some different stuff.

It's of such quality that one would find it hard to duplicate.

Splendid performance and a very interesting Tommy Dorsey number It was very good, very good.

The first piece excuse me, the first piece was very nice.

I like the baroque music anyway.

And the saxophone, the soprano saxophone that the man was using was just, you know, it's a good touch.

Well, it was good.

They were, I was watching the cello especially.

It surprised me.

It's the first one I've been to.

<Would it encourage you to go back?> Yeah, I think I'll be back next year.

This program was made possible in part by a grant from Consolidated Foods Cooperation with additional funding from the ETV Endowment of South Carolina.

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