Bridgehampton Chamber Music launches its summer season on Sunday with an array of music cleverly centered on the themes of transformation and love. There will be 12 concerts, through Aug. 11, highlighting the masters from Bach to Gershwin and contemporary composers, plus a touch of jazz, two commissions, and a world premiere.
Setting the stage, the program on Sunday begins with Mozart’s Duo for Violin and Viola and ends with Schumann’s Piano Quintet in E flat, inspired by the love of his wife, Clara. Between these timeless staples, the theme of transformation will be portrayed in “Viaje” (“Journey”) by Zhou Tian, a contemporary Chinese-American composer and Grammy Award nominee for best contemporary classical composition in 2018. The theme of love, in this case Godly devotion, will be explored in Florence Price’s “Adoration.”
The program takes place at the festival’s main venue, the Bridgehampton Presbyterian Church, which has proven to be an ideal setting for chamber music. The start time is 6 p.m., as with most of the concerts.
The second concert, next Thursday, features George Rochberg’s “Variations on Pachelbel’s Canon,” from 1978.
Marya Martin, founder and artistic director of the festival, spoke last week about some of the transformations that are in the festival. “One of them is the way composers can take a piece by another composer and base their piece on it, and completely transform it. Rochberg starts off with Pachelbel’s Canon, and then in the middle there’s nothing of the Pachelbel Canon; you hear two beats of it, then it goes somewhere else, and two beats and it ends up with the Canon again. And it’s such a beautiful piece!”
The evening also has two large Beethoven works and a quartet by Carl Reinecke influenced by Schumann.
A world premiere of a work by Sebastian Currier, a New Yorker who teaches at Columbia, will take place on July 21. Written for harp and string quartet, it has the intriguing title of “Ongoingness.” The piece was co-commissioned by three entities in addition to BCM.
Speaking of the process of choosing pieces for the festival, Ms. Martin said that with every concert “there is something that gives us a feeling of longing, that I’m sure is being brought out in me by all that’s going on in the world. . . . ‘Ongoingness,’ I think, is a very good word right now -- we have to keep going!”
The July 21 concert also features Gershwin, Ravel, and Debussy’s beloved “Prelude a l’apres midi d’un faune” in a new arrangement by Graeme Steele Johnson, a clarinetist who will also be performing.
For those who may be yearning for more of the master of the masters, July 25 will bring an evening of all Bach concertos: Concerto for Two Violins in D minor, Triple Concerto for Flute, Violin, and Harpsichord in A minor, and the blockbuster Brandenburg Concerto No. 5 with its extended harpsichord solo.
The Atlantic Golf Club will again be the site of the annual benefit concert on July 27, called “For the Love of It.” Along with Schumann and Brahms, there will be Philippe Gaubert’s “Piece Romantique” for flute, cello, and piano, and Michael Stephen Brown’s “The Argument,” from “Relationship,” for clarinet and violin.
Appearing with BCM to perform “The Argument” will be the husband-and-wife team of Osmo Vanska, the Minnesota Orchestra conductor laureate and clarinetist, and Erin Keefe, the former Minnesota Orchestra concertmaster. Mr. Brown spoke last week about writing this piece: “Knowing Osmo and Erin for a few years now, I did my best to capture their unique dynamic, from its fun-loving nature to some raw, brutal honesty, hence the movement ‘The Argument.’ You’ll see which instrument, or person, has the final word.”
Mr. Vanska and Ms. Keefe are appearing with BCM for the first time. With a roster of some 30 world-class musicians appearing throughout the month, there is a mix of veterans and about six debuts, in numerous combinations. This is not only refreshing for the audience, but it brings a vibrant energy to the performances.
Two large-scale works will fill the evening on July 28, with Beethoven’s heroic Piano Trio in B flat, nicknamed the Archduke Trio, and Richard Strauss’s Piano Quartet in C minor, described in the festival’s release as burly romanticism and Schumannesque.
Midway through the festival, on Aug. 1, another composition by Mr. Brown will take the stage, this time with the premiere of a commission by BCM. “I was deeply moved by Tennyson’s poem ‘The Lotos-Eaters,’ “ Mr. Brown remarked. “It vividly captures mariners yearning for a life of peace, rest, and even death. They arrive in a land where people do nothing but eat the lotus flower, causing them to lose all desire to return home and resign themselves to a life without struggle.”
“When reading this poem, I was struck by the musical nature of the language and inspired to compose a piece for flute, cello, piano, and percussion. Writing for percussion is like being a kid in a candy store for me -- so many possibilities! I spent time experimenting with shakers and striking random household items around my N.Y.C apartment to capture the essence of ‘The Lotos-Eaters.’ “
The 14-minute work is in five movements with different colorful combinations of instruments and percussion, with each section inspired by evocative lines of the poem. The composer will be at the piano.
Two large Mozart quartets begin and end the program, and another living composer often brought to the stage by BCM, Kevin Puts, will be represented in “And Legions Will Rise,” for clarinet, violin, and marimba. In the composer’s words, it is “about the power in all of us to transcend during times of tragedy and personal crisis.”
Another musical transformation will be offered on Aug. 4, with Arvo Part’s “Mozart Adagio” for piano trio, a reflective meditation on a movement of a Mozart piano sonata.
One performance that started during the pandemic and has become an annual occurrence takes place at the Parrish Art Museum in Water Mill, outdoors on the terrace. “And that has become very popular,” Ms. Martin said. While she usually doesn’t enjoy playing outside because of the poor acoustics, “it’s a beautiful sound under the iron roof.”
BCM regularly expands its offerings and tries new things, but, perhaps to the disappointment of some, a collaboration with the Madoo Conservancy in Sagaponack, this year’s new venue with only 50 seats, is already sold out.
On Aug. 9, jazz meets Bach in the sculpture garden of Channing Daughters Winery, in the annual Wm. Brian Little Concert. Stephane Wrembel, a jazz guitarist, and his band return to join a string ensemble and flute, with an interweaving of Bach and Django Reinhardt, the famed Belgian jazz guitarist and composer. The evening includes food and wine in a scenic outdoor setting with the concert taking place under a sizable tent.
Topping off the lineup for BCM’s 41st season is the finale on Aug. 11 with two string octets: Mendelssohn’s masterly Octet in E flat and the monumental Octet in C by the 20th-century Romanian composer George Enescu.
The monthlong festival is packed full of music, from treasured standards to the fresh and innovative, with thoughtful connections to overarching themes. Not all of it is mentioned here; you can find more at bcmf.org or by calling 631-537-6368. Tickets for most events are $50 or $75, $10 for students, $35 at the Parrish, and $175 at Channing Daughters.
