The Orion Ensemble

The Orion Ensemble

Forthe third concert program of its 2009–10 season, the Orion Ensemble performsthe work that inspired its season-long theme of “Musical Connections,” RobertKritz’s “Connections,” written expressly for Orion, along with works byBaermann and Tchaikovsky. Performances are Sunday, March 21 at Fox ValleyPresbyterian Church in Geneva; Sunday, March 28 at the Music Institute ofChicago’s Nichols Hall in Evanston; and Wednesday, March 31 at RooseveltUniversity’s Ganz Hall in Chicago.

Chicago composer Robert Kritz has had a long-term “connection” with theOrion Ensemble and its members. “Connections” for Clarinet, Violin, Viola,Cello and Piano, which he wrote for Orion in 2001, refers to internal andexternal aspects of the work. Internally, a motif connects the three movementsof the piece, like many late 19th century works. Externally, Kritz writes musicthat is virtuosic, jazz-influenced and warmly romantic with a goal of enablingand enhancing human connection—between composer, performers and audience. To him,those human connections are the meaning of music and the essence of life.

An infrequently performed work on the program is the Quartet in B-FlatMajor for Clarinet, Violin, Viola and Cello, Op. 18 by Heinrich Baermann. The19th century “Rubenstein of the clarinet,” Baermann inspired several prominentcomposers with his superb artistry on the instrument, including Mendelssohn,Weber and Meyerbeer, all of whom wrote works for him. Baermann also wrote hisown works—quartets, quintets and concertinos—which show his lively musicalmind, winsome personality and keen awareness of the clarinet’s expressivepossibilities that made him a favorite performer and friend of composers.

 Peter Ilyich Tchaikovskywrote the Trio in A Minor, Op. 50,for Violin, Cello and Piano as a memorial to his mentor and friend NikolaiRubinstein, premiering it on the first anniversary of Rubinstein’s death in1882. The first movement is in a standard romantic sonata form, and the secondis a large set of variations that starts simply and builds in power and energybefore returning to the first movement theme in funeral march garb. OneTchaikovsky scholar asserts that all the different forms in the variations arerecollections of Rubinstein, which the funeral march finally brings to a close.