Cerberus

[vaneramos]

In the sculpture garden at Macdonald Stewart Art Centre


This afternoon djjo and I attended a free concert by Cerberus string trio at Macdonald Stewart Art Centre. These musicians will be included in the instrumental ensemble accompanying Rainbow Chorus during next Saturday's performance.

The first half consisted of three Frank Zappa songs arranged by cellist Alan Stellings, Walter Piston's Three Counterpoints (1973), and Gary Kulesha's Trio for Violin, Viola and Cello (1971). The Piston could be politely described as inaccessible. Stellings called it tonal music, but to my ear it might as well have been Schoenberg, and I could not find a single note I would care to hear again. It didn't help that ventilation in the performance room was poor, and the audience grew hot and oxygen-deprived.

The second part of the program was devoted to Beethoven's Trio Op. 9 No. 2, more agreeable, though not one of the composer's most ingenious works.

Most interesting was the juvenile work by Kulesha, whom Stellings described as one of Canada's most important living composers. The third movement (Presto), reminiscent of a Dvorak or Borodin scherzo only darker, contained an agitated theme alternating with pizzicato sections. The meditative finale (Grave) consisted of gently shifting sound curtains evoking a hazy urban sunrise.