Classical Review: Midwest Premiere of Charles Martin Loeffler’s Octet

Visiting musicians, including the Loeffler restorer, join in the Ariel Concert Series

Last Wednesday (April 23) at Webster University, the Ariel Concert Series presented its most recent concert of this season at Browning Hall, Webster’s science education building. While a slightly offbeat choice of venue, Opera Theatre of Saint Louis has featured pre-performance talks at Browning Hall, so its use for music has precedent. Originally scheduled for Webster’s Community Music School, the venue change was announced relatively late, which also may have explained more latecomers than usual. The crowd numbered 41 at the start, but reached about 60 by the final work. That final work was the concert’s main and quite noteworthy justification, a truly unique, one-of-a-kind “hook”.

The concert began with an arrangement by Thomas Adès (born 1971) of the solo harpsichord work “Les barricades mysterieuses” by François Couperin (1668-1733), from Couperin’s Ordre 6ème de clavecin, that suite’s fifth movement, a work with a quite steady ‘walking’ (rather than ‘marching’) pulse. Growing up in the 1980’s, I recall the harpsichord original in a station ID for the old, and much lamented, Philadelphia classical music station WFLN 95.7 FM. The Adès transcription is for the offbeat (i.e. violin-less) ensemble of clarinet, bass clarinet, viola, cello, and double bass, played respectively in this concert by Graeme Steele Johnson (the evening’s first featured visiting guest musician), Tzuying Huang, Shannon Farrell Williams, Davin Rubicz, and David DeRiso. While very well played, the Adès arrangement didn’t make me miss the original.

The next selection was by Arthur Foote (1853-1937), A Night Piece for flute and string quartet, from 1919. Foote was one of the late 19^th century “Second New England School” of composers who initiated an American branch of what’s called “classical music”, though still very much indebted to European models. Foote’s work could easily have dated from the previous century. It’s mellow and enjoyable, if not with highly memorable themes (unlike the concert’s next work). This is no reflection on the very good performance by flutist Garrett Hudson (the evening’s second out-of-town guest musician), SLSO string players Eva Kozma, Seul Lee (both violins) and Ms. Williams (viola), with Mr. Rubicz again as cellist.

The two visiting musicians joined forces for the third selection, Mr. Johnson’s own arrangement for string quintet (two violins, viola, cello, double bass), harp, flute, and clarinet of the Prelude à l’après-midi d’un faune by Claude Debussy (1862-1918). The Debussy original featured with the SLSO at the Touhill late last month, with no less than Mark Sparks, the SLSO’s retired former principal flute, returning to the orchestra to play the iconic flute part that all classical flutists need to know. In principle, one would expect any arrangement of the Debussy original to keep that flute part intact, and that was so here. Mr. Johnson’s arrangement also retains the original’s harp part (and redistributes the crotales part to the harp, for one), with harpist Megan Stout completing the ensemble. During this performance, it was noticeable how often the string players (all from the SLSO), violinists Ann Fink and Ms. Lee, violist Xi Zhang, cellist Alvin McCall, and Mr. DeRiso on double bass, looked at Mr. Hudson, probably because of his de facto “leader” status of the ensemble (depicted in the above picture), precisely because of that iconic solo part. (Or it also might have also been a bit of sussing out the “new kid on the block”.)

The concert closed with the STL, and indeed Midwest, premiere of the work that justified Mr. Johnson’s visit, the Octet of Charles Martin Loeffler (1861-1935), scored for string quintet (as above), harp (ditto), and two clarinets (un-ditto). Loeffler’s Octet premiered in Boston in February 1897, evidently to a very happy initial reception, per Mr. Johnson’s program notes. A second performance in Boston followed in March 1897. However, since then, the Octet fell through the cracks, into unpublished near-oblivion. In his program notes, Mr. Johnson mentioned his research into another Loeffler chamber composition during the COVID-19 pandemic, which led him down the Loeffler rabbit hole, and eventually to rediscovery of the manuscript of Loeffler’s Octet in the Library of Congress. From the Loeffler manuscript, he prepared both a viable performing edition and his D.M.A. dissertation. The first performance of this new edition was in March 2024 in Phoenix, AZ. Four subsequent performances in 2024 followed, essentially along the Northeast Corridor, as well as a commercial recording (which, as any good entrepreneur would do, Mr. Johnson was selling in the lobby afterwards). This St. Louis concert was the sixth live performance of this new edition of Loeffler’s Octet, and thus, by geographical default, the Midwest premiere.

The work falls into three movements (not mentioned in Ariel’s program handout, although this audience was savvy enough not to applaud after the ‘Allegro moderato’ first movement), in the late 19^th-century Romantic musical idiom standard of that era. The second movement (marked ‘Adagio molto’) had a more noticeably rich and lush sound. The third movement is marked “Andante – Allegro alla Zingara”, which drastically oversimplifies the movement’s multi-sectional nature, with more than two discernible “mood swings”. That final movement began with a ‘grazioso’ intermezzo-like section, before switching to an edgier and brisker trio-section, with a more march-like section down the line, along with something like an American cousin to a Brahms Hungarian Dance, even if Loeffler was actually German (like Brahms) and arrived in the USA only in 1881, taking citizenship in 1887.

Given the caliber of the musicians here, the performances throughout this one-hour concert were unsurprisingly of a high standard (one or two tiny scrambles aside). At one point during the third movement of the Loeffler, the lights went out for a few seconds, but the musicians kept playing without mishap. The other immediately visible campus buildings still had their lights on, so presumably someone accidentally flipped the light switch.

Speaking just for myself, I experienced the Loeffler ‘cold’, without tracking down the commercial recording or the video of the May 2024 performance from the Library of Congress in advance, to experience the work without preconceptions (although I’ve heard Loeffler’s La mort de Tintagiles on recording, a slab of high-calorie Romantic sonic decadence well worth reviving by any orchestra willing to find a viola d’amore player). Based on just one hearing, I don’t know that I would call the Loeffler Octet a “lost masterpiece”, or anything like that. However, it is certainly a fine piece and well worth Mr. Johnson’s musical archaeology. If not necessarily a ‘great’ piece, to quote from Dr. Strangelove, “it’s great to be fine”. Its eccentric instrumentation may be a barrier to future performances, but hopefully not. For anyone interested further in Mr. Johnson’s rescue work, some other Library of Congress videos are accessible (for now) here and here, in addition to the LOC concert video for folks who missed the STL live performance, to get a sense of what they missed.