Concerts at the Crossroads @ Christ Episcopal 10/25 Concerts at the Crossroads is a fairly new entry into the recital series concept being presented around town by various churches. This one takes place at Christ Episcopal, which is indeed located at a crossroads, by some accounts the busiest in the county. The organizer is Nathan Carterette, music director at the church, and an excellent pianist in his own right. Currently, they're engaged in a three recital series of song cycles by Robert Schumann. The first one featured soprano Amy Hall and Mr. Carterette. On November 22, she will return for a joint presentation with Saturday's soloist, tenor JR Fralick, a professor of music at Baldwin-Wallace.

Four songs from various opus numbers opened the program displaying Mr. Fralick’s ringing tenor voice and ability to convey emotion, whether the words were sweet, happy, a fantasy or an appeal to the loved one. Singing from memory throughout, his high notes, especially, were sung with great confidence and beauty of tone.

Mr. Carterette then presented one of Schumann’s more emotional suites for piano, Carnaval, op. 9. Schumann suffered from mental illness throughout most of his life, and in this piece he readily displays the various emotions he was experiencing, as well as his formidable musicianship. Unfortunately, the sanctuary is extremely lively, acoustically speaking, and when the tempo was fast or the volume at all loud, the notes tended to muddle together into a rather indecipherable mush, somewhat indicative of Schumann’s manic state. Not everything was portrayed in that manner, however, and there were times when the pianist’s lyrical quality was evident. He obviously had the music in his fingers as well as his mind, in what was truly a bravura performance. (Perhaps a carpet beneath the piano would help to alleviate some of the boominess.)

After a brief intermission, Mr. Fralick returned for one of the standards in the repertoire of art song, Schumann’s Dichterliebe, Op. 48, set to poems of Heinrich Heine. The songs range from outright romantic to visions of flowers or birds, bemoaning lost love, happy remembrances as well as sad, and finally, perhaps giving in to the lure of the Rhein River. As he had earlier, Mr. Fralick displayed the appropriate emotion for these songs as well as clear diction, rendering the words understandable, even in the German. Happily, the acoustics are more kind to the vocalist, allowing the softest sounds to carry easily, while not creating any kind of echo in the more declarative portions.

The enthusiastic audience was rewarded with an encore, Widmung, perhaps Schumann’s most well-known song, according to the soloist.

A reception followed the recital. Tickets are available for the final program in this series, on Sat 11/22 at 4:30PM. Tickets will be available at the door. There is also a Midday Musical Mosaic Series, beginning TODAY November 5 at 12:15PM. For more information, call 991-3432.

From Cool Cleveland contributor Kelly Ferjutz artswriterATroadrunner.com

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