Onyx Chamber Players    Bernard Friedlander, for Concert Review Online:

    "We are fortunate to live in a time when there are many good performers who can help us admire our favorite works by the great composers. But Onyx stands out above talent, above craft. They take Beethoven to a higher level - beyond superb skills, beyond exquisite beauty - with their inspired playing of his intensely personal piano, violin and 'cello trios. David White, Cecilia Archuleta and Meg Brennand penetrate into the heart and soul of the maturing Beethoven as his art expanded into the immense territories of daring musicianship and transcendent humanity that his succeeding works would explore with larger forces.

    "These gifted artists and their rich display of these jewel-like works lift us into that glowing world of special illumination which music lovers dream of and only seldom find."


"PIANO TRIO GIVES A FRESH TWIST TO CLASSIC WORKS", Everett Herald, July, 2006


Philippa Kiraly for The Seattle Post Intelligencer, June 21, 2007:

A Mozart-based season ends for theOnyx Chamber Players

    This is the seventh season for the flourishing Onyx Chamber Players (though this name emerged only three years ago). The group began in Seattle, but pianist David White moved to Chicago in 2002, while violinist Cecilia Archuleta and cellist Meg Brennand remain here, which makes for concentrated rehearsal schedules.

    The Onyx now performs in both cities and elsewhere, including an annual series at Town Hall.

    The group prefers exploring one composer in depth for these series. This season, the three Seattle concerts, the last of which is Sunday afternoon at Town Hall, have focused on Mozart's trios and quartets, including rarely played chamber music fragments from his sketchbook.

    Sunday's fragment is an early "Menuetto" in G Major. "You never hear these, so they're of special interest," says White. "This one is probably the earliest. Mozart left it unfinished, and it was rather extravagantly completed by his friend Maximilian Stadler."

    The Onyx aims at re-creating performances as they would have been in the composer's day. The musicians do diligent research to find performing editions true to the composer, and play as though they were coming forward from an earlier time, rather than looking back at the music from today's perspective.

    They use historical performing techniques, though theirs are not period instruments. "We try to sweep away 20th-century heaviness and stuffiness, so the experience is more like sitting in a salon in Vienna with Mozart at the piano," says White.

    "We play all the embellishments and cadenzas that Mozart used, but we almost never rehearse these," he goes on, commenting that spontaneous additions were typical of the day and keep a performance fresh. "For instance, maybe Cecilia ornaments a phrase and I pick up on it and repeat it."

    Most of Onyx's performances include interaction with the audience, talking about the music, the performance practices the composer would have taken for granted, and trying to give a heightened awareness of how the music fit into the composer's life and times.

    Besides the "Menuetto," Sunday's program includes the Piano Trios in B Flat and G, and the E Flat Piano Quartet, with guest violist J. Melvin Butler.


    Darden Burns, classical pianist, folk guitarist and director of the First Sunday at the Commons concert series. For more information about the series go to   www.firstsundaysconcerts.org

    "I’ve been listening to music with keen interest all my life. But last Sunday afternoon my musical experience reached a memorable highpoint as I sat in the Bainbridge Commons listening to the music of Shostakovich."

    "A year ago I attended a rehearsal of the Onyx Chamber Players, a trio comprised of Cecilia Archuleta on violin, Meg Brennand on cello, and David White on piano. I was particularly impressed with David, the pianist, and thought the group played well together. And so I invited the trio to perform on my series First Sundays at the Commons. I started this concert series in January of 200 after acquiring a grand piano for the space with the goal of presenting outstanding classical and jazz programs featuring the most talented musicians of our region I could engage. Although it has been a challenge to bring in a good sized audience to each concert, the programs have been great and well appreciated. I’m losing money but loving the project and hope that eventually it will catch on with more people on the island."

    "On their program last Sunday, the Onyx Chamber Players opened with a trio by Mozart, which was beautifully played with all the grace and charm of the classical style. The pianist’s playing was impeccable and the movements flowed by. The second piece on the program was Shostakovich’s Trio in e minor, which I had never heard before. Shostakovich, whose life and works are being celebrated this year since it is the centennial of his birth in 1906, is one of the giants on twentieth century composition. I have to admit that personally my experience and appreciation of his music is somewhat limited. There is a very likable piano concerto that I learned in high school, and then a set of piano preludes that I explored but never really liked enough to learn. About ten years ago, when I was running a home concert series on the island, the Seattle Chamber Players performed Shostakovich’s Piano Quintet, which is written for two violins, viola, cello, and piano. I vaguely remember that the music was intense and powerful, and slightly overwhelming for the audience all closely stuffed in my living room. I’ve also heard a few symphonies by Shostakovich, but I wasn’t anticipating the effect that the trio would have on me last Sunday."

    "The Shostakovich Trio begins with the cello playing very high in harmonics, joined then by the violin and finally the piano in a folk-like melody. The music was completely engaging and easy to follow thematically. The three instruments were distinctive in their voices, the string players employing some unusual tone qualities and the balance and interplay between the three instruments was perfect. This was some of the most compelling chamber music I have ever heard performed – intensely emotional and perfectly constructed. I was from the start completely riveted by the haunting themes, the rhythm, and the musical story, which was filled with tension and despair, but finally reached a place of profound peacefulness. At the end of the performance it was entirely still for several moments. Then instinctively everyone stood up with great applause and shouts of "Bravo!" I felt tears in my eyes and I knew I wasn’t alone. All of us in that room had experienced something special."

    "After intermission, the trio played a trio by Brahms with much confidence and warmth and then treated us with a short encore in the style of a Spanish dance. I enjoyed the entire program, but it is the performance of the Shostakovich Trio that I will always remember. I’ve spent a lot of my life passionately involved with music-making, teaching and listening to music, and it’s all been wonderful, but every once in a while the wonderful transcends beyond the normal experience into the realm of the sublime. It happens from time to time when I’m playing music alone, and it happens when playing with others where the communication becomes effortless, and sometimes it happens just sitting there in the audience as I was last Sunday afternoon."

 

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Mozart
Piano Trio in G major K564
Movement #3