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Two student ensembles from the University of Manitoba’s Desautels Faculty of Music are getting ready to present two early works from two of the biggest voices in the western classical music canon.
The unique nature of the repertoire featured in the concert It Takes a Village is that the piano quintets it features by Antonin Dvořák and Dmitri Shostakovich are pieces that were initially conceived at around the same age as the students who are playing them.
“You sort of feel that same sort of hesitancy and those feelings that you feel as a student that you don’t always hear about coming from some of the great composers of history like Beethoven or Mozart,” said violinist Josiah Wurch in an interview on Morning Light.
Wurch will be playing in the Shostakovich piano quintet, which was written in 1940 and represents the only work that the composer produced in the genre. An earlier attempt at a piano quintet had been abandoned by Shostakovich as a student years earlier, only to be revisited at the encouragement of the Beethoven Quartet.
In a similar fashion, Dvořák's piano quintet is also the only piece that the composer produced for this combination of instruments. An earlier attempt was made at one, but it was ultimately destroyed by the unsatisfied composer, its themes and melodies becoming parts of other works.
“Any time I’ve mentioned to any musician who knows the quintet that I’m playing it this year with my quintet at school, the reaction always get is, ‘Wow, you’re so lucky!’” smiles pianist Anica Warkentine. “It definitely is one of those pieces that is a joy to work on because it’s got wonderful parts for everybody in the ensemble.”
Nowadays, the Dvořák piano quintet is regarded as one of the pinnacle achievements of the genre. Warkentine admits that while approaching a piece of this caliber and reputation can be intimidating, she knows that, like the composers themselves, she’ll be able to come back to the piece throughout her career with a fresh perspective that will bring new inspiration to her performance.
“At the U of M, there’s a lot of encouragement to not be perfect the first time, but to take the time,” she explains. “So now, I feel excited for where we’ve come to as a quintet now, but I do hope to maybe even continue working with my quintet members because we love working together, and maybe even revisit this in a few years together to see how it’s changed as we all change and get older.”
For Wurch’s quintet, the joy of performing Shostakovich’s piano quintet stems from the opportunity to share the music of a composer that audiences don’t always have the chance to hear. “I think people tend to be a little bit more wary about approaching music from the 20th century because it can be a lot harder to parse,” he says, “but I think once you do, it can be just as rewarding as listening to any of the great romantic pieces from the 19th century.
It Takes a Village takes the stage at 7 p.m. at Westworth United Church on Grosvenor Avenue in River Heights on April 14. Tickets are free and can be reserved in advance here.