PORT ANGELES, Wash. — Situated on the edge of the Olympic National Forest, an hour’s ferry ride from Victoria, B.C., Port Angeles seems an unlikely location for a world-class music festival. But thanks to two grown locals, Minnesota Orchestra violinist James Garlick and his childhood friend, Takács String Quartet violist Richard O’Neill, their two-week Music on the Strait summer chamber-music festival has been going strong (save for a pandemic-imposed hiatus) since 2018.
Headlining the festival’s Aug. 1 opening concert, which took place in the fine acoustic of one-year-old Field Hall, was pianist Jeremy Denk. A festival mainstay, Denk holds a special fondness for Port Angeles, where he performed on his first tour at age 24.
The program’s bedfellows were as unlikely as the location itself. Sandwiched between Beethoven’s Piano Trio in D major, Op. 70, No. 1 (Ghost), and Vinzenz Lachner’s chamber reduction of Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 4 in G major were two movements of Ives’ Piano Sonata No. 2 (Concord), making for an especially rich program.
Joining Denk for the Ghost were bright-toned violinist Stefan Jackiw and Seattle Symphony principal cellist and Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center member Efe Baltacigil. Heard from Row I Center Orchestra, which may be one of the best seats in the house, the instrumental blend was ideal. Baltacigil and Denk were compelling in soft passages, and the three musicians’ ability to effortlessly transition between lyricism and fury was so riveting as to impel many audience members into prolonged applause at the conclusion of the opening Allegro vivace e con brio.
Control was paramount in the ensuing Largo, with Denk’s pianism chilling in the first forte. Ghosts or no, I sat spellbound by the gorgeous mysteries of his sound, Beethoven’s solemnity, and the marvelously paced ending. The three musicians remained totally tuned in to each other during the furious concluding Presto.
Denk may have intentionally truncated the Concord Sonata to two movements in a concession to the energy limits of his mainly senior audience, but he shortchanged no one in virtuosity and interpretive brilliance. His forte riffs amazed as much for their power as for their complete absence of harshness, and his delight in decimating sacred piety with profane outbursts of limitless exuberance transported listeners to realms of transcendental discord far beyond the confines of heaven and hell.
Did Columbia, the Gem of the Ocean, really row their boat to a honky-tonk saloon? Ives and Denk seemed to think so. Following this madness with a lovely journey to the world of the Alcotts, where Beethoven’s music was reincarnated in all its gorgeousness in Concord, Mass., seemed a perfect segue to an intermission highlighted by the ability to gaze at the vessels navigating the strait that separates the United States from British Columbia.
Beethoven’s glorious Fourth Piano Concerto found Denk joined by violinists Garlick and Jackiw, violist David Auerbach, cellist Baltacigil, and bassist Stephen Schermer. The opening allegro was rendered with profound sensitivity as Denk tempered his touch to match the lightness of his chamber accompaniment. Garlick’s fetching sweetness stood out in soft passages, albeit at times a bit at odds with the musical argument, as the powdery ephemeral quality of the accompaniment deepened the experience.
Denk’s genius emerged once again in the Andante con moto as he effortlessly supplied the rainbow range of orchestral colors otherwise absent from the chamber reduction. After passages in which his instrument chimed wondrously in the high range, he proved so mesmerizing in his solo cadenza that the ensemble returned virtually unnoticed. Not every prolonged pianistic trill was perfect, and not every vigorous “orchestral” entrance was without the occasional growl from the violins, but the poignancy of Beethoven’s writing emerged intact.
As much as Denk delighted in the fast pace of the concluding Rondo, its demands occasionally stretched the limits of the other players and exposed muddiness lower in the range. Only as the finale approached did the chamber ensemble’s inability to generate the requisite force and impact of a full orchestra prove a minor detriment. Nonetheless, Denk’s surprisingly elfin steps on the keyboard propelled everyone forward to a rousing conclusion so thrilling that thoughts of what was lacking were quickly superseded by gratitude for the opportunity to experience so much life-affirming joy.
