When Craft, Not Fashion, Drives Programming

 

When Craft, Not Fashion, Drives Programming

A January 13  concert at Mercer University brought together three composers—Sergei Taneyev, Moritz Moszkowski, and Ernő Dohnányi—whose music once occupied the center of European musical life and now sits largely outside the standard repertory. What united the program was not novelty or rediscovery for its own sake, but a shared commitment to musical density, structural seriousness, and late-Romantic craft.

It was repertory chosen by musicians confident enough to trust the music and the audience.

Taneyev: Structure Without Weight

Taneyev’s Trio for Two Violins and Viola opened the evening with intellectual rigor and formal clarity. A student and close associate of Tchaikovsky, and a figure respected by Scriabin and Rachmaninoff, Taneyev synthesized Russian lyricism with Germanic discipline, favoring counterpoint and structural logic over surface warmth.

The four movements unfold with classical balance and constant activity among the voices. Yet the scoring creates a specific expressive challenge. Without a cello or bass to provide downward pull, the music occupies a narrow vertical band, concentrated largely in the middle and upper registers. The ear follows continuous motion without the grounding effect lower voices typically supply. The density is linear rather than cumulative, producing activity without corresponding weight.

In a large hall, this can feel diffuse despite the intricacy of the writing. The trio might register more persuasively in a much smaller space, where proximity could lend intimacy and focus to its finely worked textures.

Moszkowski: Refinement Without Pressure

Moszkowski’s Suite for Two Violins and Piano, Op. 71 offered a contrasting aesthetic. Once celebrated for his elegance and brilliance, Moszkowski writes fluently and idiomatically, with an acute sense of balance between instruments. The two violins converse gracefully while the piano sparkles without dominating.

Rooted firmly in the late-Romantic German tradition, the suite unfolds through characterful movements that emphasize lyricism, polish, and ensemble clarity. Its pleasures are genuine but largely self-contained, satisfying in the moment without generating the sense of pressure or inevitability that compels return. Where Taneyev accumulates detail without weight, Moszkowski avoids accumulation almost entirely.

That restraint, however accomplished, helps explain his marginal position today.

Dohnányi: Density Fulfilled

Dohnányi’s Piano Quintet No. 1 closed the program and immediately asserted its scale and ambition. Drawing heavily on Brahmsian models, Dohnányi intensifies that inheritance through thick harmonic layering, massed sonorities, and frequent unison writing reinforced by the cello.

Here, density becomes expressive rather than problematic. The sound is saturated, muscular, and unapologetically full. Where Brahms compresses energy, Dohnányi amplifies it. The melodic writing is generous, the climaxes forceful, and the emotional temperature consistently high.

Despite its derivative language, the piece succeeds because it commits fully to its aesthetic. Among the composers on the program, Dohnányi emerged as the most persuasive, not by transforming the late-Romantic style, but by mastering its demands.

Performance and Perspective

The performances were musically and technically first-rate, marked by clarity of ensemble and sustained commitment to demanding repertoire. These works may be out of fashion, but they were played as if their value were self-evident. Special commendation is due to the Mercer students—Benjamin Linton, Isaac Willocks, Brinson Moore, and Kathryn Fakely—whose playing approached the level of their mentors in assurance and musical intelligence. The faculty—Amy Schwartz Moretti, Robert McDuffie, Lawrence Dutton, and pianist Albert Tiu—brought commanding technique and deep musical authority to every page.

This was an extraordinary concert not because the music was forgotten, but because it was treated as worthy of serious attention. Revivals of this kind are not undertaken lightly. They require musicians secure enough in their craft, and confident enough in their judgment, to program music that does not flatter, simplify, or explain itself.

That confidence was audible throughout the evening.