Saturday
April 27, 2024 
As winter begins to recede into the background, Bucks County music lovers have something else to look forward to; the weekend of Lenape Chamber Ensemble’s first spring concert at 8:15 p.m. Friday, March 3 in Upper Black Eddy and at 3 p.m. Sunday, March 5 at Delaware Valley University in Doylestown.
Two Lenape favorites: prize-winning pianist Marcantonio Barone and Tanya Witek, flutist with the New York City Ballet and Mostly Mozart Festival, will perform Carl Maria von Weber’s “Trio in G minor for Flute, Cello and Piano.”
Joining them will be Alex Cox, a cellist, new to the Lenape stage, who has appeared as soloist with the Boston Pops and New World Symphony.
The Trio was composed by Weber in sections at several different times and places: the beginning slow movement in 1813 when he was in Prague; the rest during a summer holiday in Klein-Hostawitz, Germany. Weber, founder of German romantic opera, and composer of “Der Freischutz,” included some operatic touches in this work of many moods.
Celebrated violinist Cyrus Beroukhim, member of the New York City Ballet Orchestra, joins Barone in Igor Stravinsky’s “Duo Concertant for Violin and Piano,” composed between 1931 and 1932. Stravinsky intensely disliked the sound of a piano playing along with a string orchestra, but solved the problem by limiting the work to just two instruments and having them played separately at first before joining them in a melodic interplay.
Years later, in 1972, George Balanchine choreographed his ballet “Duo Concertant” to Stravinsky’s score. The two often worked closely together until Stravinsky’s death in 1971.
Beethoven’s “String Quartet, Opus 59, No.1” was written in 1806, during his “middle” period, when some of his most significant pieces were composed. The three Opus 59 Quartets are known as the “Razumovsky” Quartets. Beethoven’s patron, the wealthy Count Razumovsky, Russian ambassador to Austria, actually hired a permanent professional quartet for Beethoven’s use. The Opus 59, No. 1 uses Russian folk themes as a compliment to the Count.
Violinists Cyrus Beroukhim and Katie Hyun, violist Caeli Smith, and cellist Alex Cox take the stage for this music “of bright light and deep shadows.”
The audience is invited to meet and chat with the musicians at a reception following the Friday concert and at intermission on Sunday.
Tickets at $20 for adults, $15 for seniors and students, and $5 for children are available online, at the door or by calling 610-294-9361. The Friday evening series is held at the Upper Tinicum Lutheran Church off Route 32, one mile north of the Frenchtown Bridge in Upper Black Eddy. The Sunday afternoon concerts are at Delaware Valley University’s Life Sciences Auditorium at 700 E. Butler Ave., Doylestown.
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