BCMS releases album featuring its commissions by Pierre Jalbert, David Rakowski, Scott Wheeler

For more information contact:
Wen Huang, Managing Director
617.349.0086 / whuang@bostonchambermusic.org

(July 28, 2023) Boston Chamber Music Society has announced immediate availability of its first release of recordings of works commissioned by BCMS. Our Art in Our Time: BCMS Commissions, Volume 1 features pieces by Pierre Jalbert, David Rakowski, and Scott Wheeler, all performed and recorded at New England Conservatory’s Jordan Hall during the 2022-23 season.

The new album is available for purchase and streaming on Amazon, Apple Music, YouTube Music, and Spotify, and in CD format on BCMS's website.  (Details about the three pieces are provided below.) 

Pierre Jalbert: Street Antiphons for Clarinet, Violin, Cello and Piano (2015)
Romie de Guise-Langlois, clarinet; Alyssa Wang, violin; Raman Ramakrishnan, cello; Max Levinson, piano

David Rakowski: Entre Nous for Oboe and String Quartet (2016)
Peggy Pearson, oboe; Alyssa Wang, violin; Jennifer Frautschi, violin; Marcus Thompson, viola; Raman Ramakrishnan, cello

Scott Wheeler: Sextet for Oboe, Clarinet, Violin, Viola, Bass and Piano (2022)
Peggy Pearson, oboe; Romie de Guise-Langlois, clarinet; Jennifer Frautschi, violin; Marcus Thompson, viola; Thomas Van Dyck, double bass; Max Levinson, piano

Commissioning Club and recording project

Since 2014, under Artistic Director Marcus Thompson, BCMS has commissioned and premiered one new work each season, and a number of these works have since been performed in other chamber series, inspiring positive responses and sequels. (See BCMS Commissioning Club.) To mark its 40th anniversary season in 2022-2023, BCMS committed to programming and recording new and prior commissions over a three-year period, furthering its mission to make the chamber music artform more accessible to all.

The recording project continues: in the 2023-24 season, works to be performed and recorded include a new quintet by composer Elena Ruehr for violin, viola, cello, double bass and piano (2/24, Sanders Theatre); George Tsontakis's 2014 Portraits by El Greco, Book I for Clarinet, Violin, Viola, Cello and Piano (1/21, Jordan Hall); and Daniel Strong Godfrey's 2018 Ad Concordiam: Quintet Variations for Oboe, Violin, Viola, Cello and Piano (10/15, Sanders Theatre).

About the works

"Street Antiphons attempts to present and contrast secular and sacred music. The “secular” music (music of the street) comes in the form of rhythmically driving sections, while the “sacred” music is often lyrical and suspended. The first movement is set up by each instrument entering and adding to a very syncopated groove (with many mixed meter changes). After a clarinet and violin canon-like duo over the rhythmic accompaniment of pizzicato cello and piano, the initial process reverses itself and the instruments exit one by one. The second movement really contains two movements in one—it begins as a lyrical and ethereal slow movement, with the use of many string harmonics, but gradually transitions into a rapid scherzo-like movement, with the use of the bass clarinet. The final movement is a set of variations—the theme is a Gregorian Chant entitled “O Antiphon”. The variations become more and more animated and after the final, extremely disjunct, variation, there is a reprise of music from the first movement, only to dissipate and once again recall the more “sacred” music from the piece." -- Pierre Jalbert

"Entre Nous is cast in a traditional three-movement structure, fast-slow-fast. The first movement begins pizzicato, which speeds up and develops into an antsy fast music where the instruments trade licks like they’re passing around a hot potato. It comes to a suddenly loud close. The second movement is a slow movement designed to highlight oboist Peggy Pearson’s marvelous playing; in it the oboe gets long lines against slow harmony, and, in the middle section, running notes in the strings. The finale is a devilish scherzo that develops entirely out of an opening tutti." -- David Rakowski

?"My Sextet began with my fascination for the 1924 Quintet for oboe, clarinet, violin, viola and contrabass by Serge Prokofiev. Originally written for a Paris ballet called Trapèze by choreographer Boris Georgevich Romanov, Prokofiev’s Quintet is a gem combining aspects of Russian folk music and French modernism. I thought if I added piano to this combination I could create an unusual set of musical colors that would be both entertaining and substantial, suitable for this fortieth anniversary season of the Boston Chamber Music Society.

The first movement of my sextet, “The Secret Journey,” includes a couple brief quotes from the Prokofiev quintet, along with echoes of a mysterious march from my opera Naga. The second movement is a scherzo, drawing on my setting of the poem “Readings” by Kathryn Levy. “I speak to the birds” is the first line of her wonderful poem. “Urban Nocturne” features the clarinet, pizzicato bass and piano. “The Alchemist” derives its title from a work I am currently developing with Doug Fitch and Stephen Greco, exploring aspects of the alchemist Paracelsus. This movement serves as an intermezzo, with solos for the contrabass and oboe. The title “Proverbs from Purgatory” is from the poet Lloyd Schwartz, using the basic structure of the music I wrote for my setting of Lloyd’s strange and delightful poem. Like the poem, this finale could be considered a dark comedy." -- Scott Wheeler

About the Boston Chamber Music Society

The Boston Chamber Music Society, BCMS, presents the most extensive and longest-running chamber music series in New England. Founded in 1982, BCMS is an ensemble of superb musicians who come together in different combinations to prepare and perform chamber music. Over the last four decades, BCMS has built a reputation for impassioned performances, ripened over time by the long personal and professional histories of its member musicians. BCMS invites guest musicians, chosen for their particular affinity for, and mastery of, the works they will play, to join the members, expanding the artistic possibilities to virtually all works in the chamber music repertoire.

BCMS's mission is to provide audiences with exceptional performances of chamber music repertoire from the Baroque era to the present day while fostering understanding and appreciation of the artform, making it more accessible to all.

BCMS is distinguished in Boston's musically fertile region for its enduring performance standards. The ensemble playing demonstrates the perfect combination of control and freedom that comes from years of collaboration: individual musical personalities find expression without dominating. The effect is one of the miracles of music-sheer aesthetic beauty.