It can be hard for a European music ensemble to compete with American independence. The Vienna Piano Trio, a well established and refined ensemble of musicians originally based in Austria, came to Princeton last Thursday night on the cusp of the 4th of July holiday weekend to present a concert of wide-ranging chamber music. Accompanied at times by the sound of nearby fireworks, the Trio nevertheless captivated a full house at Richardson Auditorium, and demonstrated a diverse performance skill set in music which crossed nearly a century and a half.

The Vienna Piano Trio was founded in 1988, and has made a worldwide name for itself playing music of composers closely associated with Austria. The program last Thursday night expanded that range into early 20th-century Spain and late 19th-century France. In keeping with the initial concept of the ensemble, violinist Bogdan Božovic´, cellist Matthias Gredler, and pianist Stefan Mendl began the concert with an elegant performance of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s Piano Trio in C Major, K. 548. Composed late in Mozart’s life, this work was both playful and complex, and the Vienna Trio showed immediate command of this three movement intimate conversation among three instruments. Pianist Mendl led the first movement with sharp dotted rhythms and a very even right hand in the flowing passages, showing an ability to switch musical gears easily. Mr. Gredler accompanied piano and violin subtly in a lighthearted second exposition of the first movement.

Both Mr. Gredler and Mr. Božovic´ played instruments of Mozart’s time, with Mr. Božovic´ playing a 1685 Stradivari violin, and Mr. Gredler playing a 1752 Guadagnini cello. These instruments did not generate overwhelming sound, although they were well up to the task of the late 19th century music heard later in the program. Mr. Gredler was particularly able to play both decisively and delicately, and Mr. Božovic´ provided a consistently sweet sound throughout the concert.

Early 20th-century Spanish composer Joaquín Turina was overshadowed by the more towering Spanish composers of his time, but as his 1926 Piano Trio No. 1 in D Major showed, Turina’s music is fresh and melodic, reflecting his cosmopolitan musical life in Paris and Madrid. Turina named the three movements of this work with titles drawn from music history, but the traditional forms were infused with the outdoor feel of a Paris café and the jazz flavor sweeping France during the early 20th century.

In the opening “Prélude et Fugue,” Mr. Gredler’s cello accompaniment was much more dramatic than in the Mozart work, and Mr. Božovic´ played a violin melody recalling a stroll along Parisian streets. The Vienna Trio was able to pick up speed and intensity uniformly, communicating well with one another. In both the second and third movements, Mr. Gredler provided cello melodies which were exceptionally rich, from an 18th-century instrument. Throughout this impressionistic and somewhat jazzy work, Mr. Mendl played with a great deal of flow.

The closing five-movement Piano Trio No. 2 in E Minor by French composer Camille Saint-Saëns offered a much richer piano part than the previous two works, accompanied by a much darker cello line. A duet between violin and cello was almost Russian in its opulence, with steady chords provided by the keyboard. Using significant pedal, Mr. Mendl played with nonstop Romantic flow and particular fierceness in the upper octaves of the keyboard. Mr. Božovic´ played contrasting chipper melodic fragments and motives, also participating in a lyrical conversation between cello and violin in the third movement. One could easily hear Bach’s structure and musical construction in this work, with a touch of Beethoven as an exacting coda brought the piece to a glorious close.

The Princeton Festival has been exploring some new performance genres this year, including Indian music and dance, and country music. The Festival presented an evening of Baroque music last Wednesday night with a high-level of playing and a bit of audience education from the musicians. The performance by the Festival Baroque Orchestra in Princeton Seminary’s Miller Chapel proved to be both entertaining and informative.

For Wednesday night’s performance, Princeton Festival Artistic Director Richard Tang Yuk assembled a chamber orchestra of young players, all with a connection to the renowned music school at Indiana University. Dr. Tang Yuk also cast himself in a rarely-seen role as continuo harpsichord player. The nine string players and one oboist in the Festival Baroque Orchestra focused their performance on works of 18th-century masters, as well as two lesser-known but equally as important composers. Concertmaster Juan Carlos Zamudio, together with Dr. Tang Yuk, transformed the performance into more of a lecture/recital with a brief discussion beforehand on Baroque performance practice, instruments, and tuning. These introductory remarks gave the audience some insight into the challenges of the music heard, as well as an appreciation for how well the players, who live throughout the United States and came together for this performance, presented a cohesive and well-executed program.

Composer Heinrich Biber is not one of the most well-known of the early Baroque, but this Austrian performer and composer was one of the most important creators of music for the violin of his time. Composers of this era often interpreted events in musical forms, including Biber’s Battaglia á 10 in D Major, a multi-movement piece depicting the action and atmosphere of a battlefield. Recreating the noise of battle in an ensemble without brass might seem like a challenge, but Biber’s eight-movement work used effects from the strings to replicate cannon fire, drums and trumpet calls. The string players of the Festival Baroque Orchestra followed concertmaster Mr. Zamudio well, playing with unified strokes as soldiers marched, and long melodic lines in reflective passages.

Throughout the concert, the upper string players reshuffled themselves into different combinations of players, creating a solid overall sound for Georg Muffat’s Florilegium Primum: Fasciculus I – a set of six dance movements introduced by an Overture. The Baroque Orchestra easily captured the energetic dotted rhythms and lilt of this late 17th-century work, as well as demonstrating well-executed ornaments from the upper strings.

The two undisputed powerhouses of the Baroque – Georg Friedrich Handel and Johann Sebastian Bach – were rooted in similar compositional techniques, but at the height of their careers, these two composers were writing very different music. Handel took the concerto form and expanded it to juxtapose not only soloists but also small ensembles of players against full orchestra, and Concerto Grosso, Op. 6, No. 10 was a consummate example of a mature 18th-century instrumental concerto. For this work, the strings of the Festival Baroque Orchestra were joined by oboist Sarah Huebsch, whose playing made a significant difference in the orchestral color.

The Baroque Orchestra easily executed the rhythms of the opening Overture, achieving a wide range of dynamics. The players also found the varied characters of the seven different movements, including the stateliness of an Allegro which reflected Handel’s choral writing, and the precise articulation of the faster movements. In a courtly Allegro, each violinist had a chance to take the lead.

In contrast, Bach’s Concerto for Two Violins featured soloists Mr. Zamudio and Reynaldo Patino in a complex battle of strings. Each half of the orchestra was uniform among its players, with the sequential passages well interpreted. Both Mr. Zamudio and Mr. Patino were confident players, with Mr. Patino a particularly decisive musician as each solo violinist answered the other. In the second movement Largo, Mr. Zamudio introduced the melody without vibrato, creating a more majestic effect answered by Mr. Patino. The Orchestra as a whole built intensity and dynamics well, providing graceful cadences. The third movement Allegro was marked by little motives traveling around the ensemble as the Orchestra controlled the busy activity, coming together to close the movement well.

The upper strings were featured in each of the four works on Wednesday night’s program, but no less key to the success of the concert were cellist Brady Lanier and double bassist David Casali. These two players provided consistent underpinning to the other instrumentalists, enabling the music to flow within a solid structure. A very sprightly and historically accurate playing of Johann Pachelbel’s Canon in D as an encore showed the ensemble’s ability to develop motives from short and dry phrases to long melodic lines, bringing the concert to a well-appreciated close.

One of the benefits of staying around Princeton in the summer is taking advantage of the Princeton University Summer Concerts series, which presents free chamber music performances in Richardson Auditorium.  This summer’s offerings include two string quartets, the first of which was featured this past Thursday night.  The Aeolus Quartet, currently Graduate Resident String Quartet at The Juilliard School, mesmerized a nearly full house at Richardson Auditorium with a concert of masterworks from the string quartet repertory. Violinists Nicholas Tavani and Rachel Shapiro, violist Gregory Luce and cellist Alan Richardson thoroughly entertained the audience with music of Fran Joseph Haydn, Bèla Bartûk and Antonín Dvorák, each introduced by informative remarks by a different member of the ensemble.

The Aeolus Quartet, named for the ancient Greek god of the four winds, was youthful, energetic and clearly interested in engaging with the audience. Opening with Haydn’s String Quartet, Op. 71, No. 2, the Aeolus Quartet brought this work of the 18th century into the modern age, not only with musical exuberance and spirit, but also by the fact that at least two of the musicians of the Aeolus Quartet were playing from electronic devices, rather than printed scores. Haydn’s Quartet was full of Viennese gentility, with long melodic lines from the violins and clean underpinning from cellist Mr. Richardson.

In choosing its name, the members of the Aeolus Quartet sought to convey the idea of “a single spirit uniting four individual forces,” and each member of the Aeolus showed an individual musical personality. Concertmaster Nicholas Tavani was an earnest and sincere player, exhibiting clean fast fingering in Haydn’s “Allegro” passages. Second violinist Rachel Shapiro seemed to be always playing with a touch of a smile, while violist Mr. Luce and Mr. Richardson filled out the elegance and rolling accompaniments of Haydn’s music well.

Bartûk composed his final string quartet, String Quartet No. 6, in the fall of 1939, on the brink of World War II.  Bartûk built this quartet around a “Mesto,” a slow melody played “sadly,” which introduced each movement. Mr. Luce was very busy in this Quartet, introducing the melodic material and leading the rest of the players in unified intensity. The endings of each movement were particularly well executed, tapering away with unified bowings and dynamics which seemed to dissipate into the air above the audience.  Mr. Richardson led the jagged second movement “Marcia” with the “Mesto” melody played by the ensemble in controlled unsettledness, no doubt reflecting the times in which the piece was composed.

The Aeolus Quartet took a step back chronologically but further into Americana with the closing work on the concertó Dvorák’s String Quartet No. 12, Op. 96. Composed during the composer’s time in the United States, this work resonated with 19th century pioneering and wide open spaces. Beginning with a broad melody from violist Mr. Luce, the first movement unfolded with a “prairie” feel to the texture and a wide range of dynamics from the players. Concertmaster Mr. Tavani gracefully introduced a gypsy-like melody in the second movement, mournfully answered by Ms. Shapiro on second violin and accompanied by rich playing through all registers by cellist Mr. Richardson. Sections of this work had a hoe-down feeling as the players brought out the fresh and open character of the music. An encore of a Beethoven “Cavatina” reminded the audience of the Aeolus Quartet’s proficiency in grace and elegant playing.

There is a line in the movie Amadeus, spoken by the Austrian Emperor, that the music of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart has “too many notes.” One could easily apply this comment to Mozart’s 1786 opera Le Nozze di Figaro (The Marriage of Figaro); with four acts filled with recitative and arias, Figaro is one of the most multi-layered operas in the repertory. Princeton Festival presented this operatic powerhouse this past weekend at McCarter Theatre Centre, leaving the audience wanting more of those “too many notes.”

Le Nozze di Figaro was revolutionary in its time for a variety of reasons. Operas up to the mid-18th century had focused primarily on safe heroic subjects, and in many cases were vehicles for singers to show off their virtuosic abilities. For Figaro, Mozart took on the controversial Beaumarchais play of the same name, which dismantled well-established class lines to create a comedic drama between servants and the aristocracy. Figaro was musically revolutionary in its emphasis on the ensemble, rather than the solo singers, and in its continuous forward movement with the music. Having a number of “hit” tunes in its score also did not hurt in achieving world-wide popularity.

Princeton Festival selected Figaro as its main stage opera for the month-long festival, with opening night last Saturday night at McCarter Theatre Centre’s Matthews Theatre. Festival Artistic Director Richard Tang Yuk assembled a cast with solid national and international credits, and all had the complex and intricate opera well in hand.

The music of Mozart is deceptive. The lyrical melodies and rolling accompaniments look easy on the page, but the expressiveness and musical grace required are not for all singers. One singer in the Princeton Festival production who consistently aimed for Mozartean elegance and style was soprano Haeran Hong, who sang the role of Susanna. Ms. Hong was a sparkling voice from the outset, perfectly in time with the orchestra and even through the vocal registers. Her ariatic high point, and perhaps that of the entire opera, was her Act IV aria “Deh vieni, non tardar,” cleanly sung with refinement and plenty of time with the long lines.

Ms. Hong’s voice was particularly well suited to sing with soprano Katherine Whyte as the Countess, and their “Letter Duet” was full of Viennese sweetness. Ms. Whyte, although an edgier voice and character than other “Countesses,” brought out particular drama in her Act III aria “Dove sono,” and found a great deal of expressiveness in “Porgi amor,” which opens the second act.

The male counterparts to these two strong women were equally in control of their roles. Baritone Jonathan Lasch sang the role of Figaro with resonance and wit, especially in the Act I aria “Se vuol ballare,” and his vocal soliloquy in Act IV, warning the audience against the underhandedness of women was very appealing. Baritone Sean Anderson was imposing from the start as the Count, physically towering over other characters and convincingly making his point with commanding drama.

Pants roles were common in 18th-century operas, initially sung by castrati and later sung by women. The role of the page Cherubino was one of these roles, sung in this production by mezzo-soprano Cassandra Zoé Velasco. Ms. Velasco easily captured the adolescent yearning of the part, singing with quick and light coloratura, especially in the Act I aria “Non so più cosa son,” accompanied by light winds. The role of the gardener’s daughter Barbarina is small, but soprano Jessica Beebe sang it effectively as a saucy spitfire sashaying her way to accomplish her devious agendas. The Princeton Festival cast was filled out by solid singers, including Kathryn Krasovec as Marcellina, Ricardo Lugo as Bartolo, David Kellett as Don Basilio, Paul An as Antonio, and Vincent DiPeri as Don Curzio. A chorus well-trained by Robin Freeman added to the crispness of the ensemble scenes.

Figaro is a very long opera, and its length may have led to some of the breakneck tempi taken by Dr. Tang Yuk and the precise orchestra he had assembled, especially in the recitative sections. Recitative musically replicates spoken dialog, but the speed at which the recitatives were taken in Saturday’s production made it difficult to understand the conversational style. However as the opera went along, its innate lyricism emerged. The music was well enhanced by Peter Dean Beck’s set design and Norman Coates’s lighting design, and director Stephen LaCosse made excellent use of the stage with the singers. Despite Figaro’s length, the audience at Matthews Theatre was engaged until the last note, confirming that one cannot really argue with the music of Mozart.

Greater Princeton Youth Orchestra (GPYO) wrapped up its 2014-15 season this past Saturday night with a very full concert at Richardson Auditorium. Presenting three of the ensembles within the GPYO organization, the concert both showcased the graduating senior musicians and demonstrated ensemble musical expertise.

This past year, GPYO added a choral performance element to its activities with the GPYO Choir, for singers grades seven through twelve. Conducted by Jennifer Sengin, director of choirs at East Brunswick High School, the small but very effective vocal ensemble demonstrated good tuning and choral technique in their six selections.

Ms. Sengin is known for her knowledge of diverse and multicultural music, and the six pieces she selected for the GPYO Choir began with a Zambian arrangement and ended with a bit of Broadway. Ms. Sengin taught movement to the 14 members of the choir to go with Andrew Fischer’s celebratory arrangement of Bonsa Aba. Accompanied by drum, the GPYO Choir sang with a clean blend among all the voices. In the second selection, Z. Randall Stroope’s flowing setting of Omnia Sol, the alto section of the women’s parts was particularly strong, topped by a light soprano sound. Through all these selections, it was clear that Ms. Sengin can train voices and impart style. The choir shifted gears again with the Robert Shaw/Alice Parker arrangement of the Italian Renaissance Fa un canzona, in which the irregular accents and odd meters were well handled.

GPYO has two principal orchestral ensembles under its umbrella — the Concert Orchestra and the Symphonic Orchestra. The Concert Orchestra amassed a full stage of players for three unique works. Tchaikovsky’s 1812 Overture is usually heard outdoors at this time of year, complete with fireworks, but GPYO’s Concert Orchestra made the piece work well within the confines of Richardson Auditorium. Conductor Arvin Gopal kept musical phrases crisp, with a lean string sound and clean winds. A quartet of horns was especially clean, and it was impressive how well the triangle rang in the hall from the percussion section.

Joseph Jay McIntyre’s Ghosts of Antietam captures the atmosphere of the Civil War as spirits of the great battle come to life through music. Beginning with low cello, chimes, and swirling winds, this was a dark piece, which the Concert Orchestra kept precise. McIntyre’s symphonic work incorporates Civil War tunes, passed among instrumental solos. Trumpeter Marie Petitjean provided an effective rendition of “Taps” to close the piece. The Concert Orchestra closed its portion of the evening with a sprightly rendition of Ronan Hardiman’s Music from the Lord of the Dance. This piece, also replete with familiar tunes, was well played by the orchestra, with elegant themes in the flute and brass.

GPYO’s Symphonic Orchestra, conducted by Kawika Kahalehoe, presented the winner of GPYO’s Concerto Competition in a movement from a challenging Chopin piano concerto. Seventeen-year-old Louis Petitjean has studied at some of the finest musical institutions in the country, and shares his talents with the Symphonic Orchestra as a member of the flute section. In the first movement of Chopin’s Piano Concerto No. 1 in e Minor, the Symphonic Orchestra presented the long dark orchestral introduction with a very clean sound, emphasizing the sinuous Romantic melodies. Chopin wrote no full symphonies, but this work was so close to a symphony one forgot that there was a piano soloist waiting to enter the musical action.

And what an astounding piano soloist he was — Louis Petitjean showed himself to be a very composed performer, taking plenty of time on entrances. Mr. Petitjean was a very strong yet agile pianist, elegantly playing fluid passages with a quick and nimble right hand. Mr. Petitjean demonstrated very strong octaves against the symphonic orchestral accompaniment.

Through the two closing works on the program — an excerpt from Holst’s The Planets and several movements from Rimsky Korsakov’s Scheherazade — the Symphonic Orchestra brought out the bright and chipper orchestration of the pieces, as well as rich playing of the familiar “I Vow to Thee my Country” hymn of Holst’s orchestral suite. Scheherazade in particular showcased a number of the graduating seniors in the orchestra as soloists, most notably cellist Michelle Zhou, clarinetist Anthony Wang and oboist Jennifer Park, as well as exquisite solo violin playing by concertmistress Dallas Noble. The graduating musicians joined the entire ensemble in closing the evening with a solid musical performance.

Opera popularity is often in reverse chronological order. Much is made of contemporary works, the most popular of the genre date from the 19th century, and enthusiasm has grown for Baroque opera in recent years. One does not often get the opportunity to hear the “Big Daddy” of them all — Claudio Monteverdi’s L’Orfeo, which upon its debut in 1607, set opera on its course to what we know today. Thanks to the continuing generosity of Scheide Concerts, Princeton was able to hear the best of the best last Wednesday night as the Monteverdi Choir and English Baroque Soloists presented L’Orfeo in Richardson Auditorium.

Sir John Eliot Gardiner and the Monteverdi Choir have spent the last half century exploring the depths of choral music from throughout history, including performing 198 Bach sacred cantatas in Europe. Most recently, the choir has turned its attention to Monteverdi, who changed the course of music history with his staged works, sacred choral music, and secular madrigals. Last year, the Monteverdi Choir celebrated its 50th anniversary performing Monteverdi’s towering 1610 Vespro della Beata Virgine, and this year has been touring L’Orfeo. With this opera, accompanied by the English Baroque Soloists (which Mr. Gardiner also founded), the Monteverdi Choir showed an incredibly rich level of talent within the ensemble.

In his commentary on Wednesday night’s performance, Mr. Gardiner wrote that he views L’Orfeo as a “secular sibling” of the 1610 Vespers. At the turn of the 17th century, opera was emerging from a combination of musical intermedios and stage plays; just seven years before L’Orfeo, Jacopo Peri composed the first official “opera,” also based on the Orpheus and Euridice story. With L’Orfeo, Monteverdi put opera on the map, with his expansive five-act production appearing throughout Italy and inspiring a new generation of composers. Even with this first opera, Monteverdi tested the limits of harmony and sonority at the time, using word-painting and a smooth synthesis of recitative and aria to support the opera’s text and drama.

The soloists for the Monteverdi Choir’s performance, who came from within the choral ensemble, were immediately up to speed with Monteverdi’s style of setting narrative to music. Four Shepherds — tenors Andrew Tortise and Gareth Treseder, alto James Hall, and bass David Shipley — all declaimed recitative text with speed, accuracy, and vocal weight suitable to the period of music. Mr. Hall sang with a rich vibrato in the counter-tenor register, and Mr. Tortise excelled at the voice of reason in a second act recitative. The two tenor shepherds were particularly clean in the climbing harmonies of a later duet.

One of the few female soloists in the opera, soprano Francesca Aspromonte sang the role of the opening narrator Musica with vocal sparkle and a great deal of character to set up the story. Ms. Aspromonte accompanied herself on the guitar in her opening musical monologue, enabling her to draw out the drama in the text. Ms. Aspromonte returned later in the role as Euridice, singing the role with nymph-like flirtation and always being dramatic within the style of the music.

As Orfeo, tenor Krystian Adam sang recitative passages like spoken dialogue, and as a somewhat dark and brooding character, sang the particularly dramatic arias with passion. Mr. Adam was able to shift moods easily, nimbly handling spirited and highly rhythmic passages as well as the lyrical and sensitive love songs.

The English Baroque Soloists provided solid accompaniment to the opera, with the addition of multiple lutes to the string and wind orchestra. The orchestra seemed to be divided into two ensembles: one of strings and lutes and the other of winds and lutes. Playing in Baroque style, the strings were not as loud as modern strings, which required the audience to listen more carefully. A trio of recorders enabled the orchestra to bridge the Renaissance and Baroque musical eras. The Monteverdi Choir sang with as full a sound as any sacred work of Bach, yet was able to be nimble and sprightly as an ensemble of “nymphs and shepherds.”

Wednesday night’s performance was the last concert William Scheide planned with great anticipation of hearing the Monteverdi Choir and English Baroque Soloists. Early opera maintained an emphasis on spectacular scenic effects; although there were no special effects in this production of L’Orfeo, the enthusiasm of the performers and diversity of talent among the performers was a visual effect in itself in an evening of great entertainment and high quality performance.