Rocky Mountain News, CO
Feb 23 2005

15-member Camerata a quartet at heart
By Marc Shulgold, Rocky Mountain News
February 23, 2005

Let’s get a few things straight about Camerata Sweden.

First, we really shouldn’t call it Camerata Sweden.

“After next season, we’ll officially call ourselves Camerata
Nordica,” said the group’s music director, Levon Chilingirian. “We
have players from several Scandinavian countries and from the Baltic
countries, so the old name has never really fit.”

On Sunday the 15-member chamber orchestra will be appearing in an
Artist Series concert at Macky Auditorium in Boulder.

Oops – did we say orchestra? That’s not right, either.

“For us, orchestra is a dirty word,” said Chilingirian.

“Some in the group are chamber-music players (including the music
director, who is first violinist of the venerable Chilingirian String
Quartet), and some are concert soloists. In fact, on this tour, three
players are members of the same string quartet.”

One more thing: Chilingirian is leader of the ensemble, but he’s not
the conductor. There isn’t one.

“We’re like an extended string quartet,” he explained. “All of us
stand (except, of course, the cellists). I’ll take the lead in terms
of an interpretation, but the players are far more active with their
input than in a normal chamber orchestra.”

The Armenian violinist came aboard in 1997, when a former student of
his, now a member of the 30-year-old ensemble, invited him to help
solidify the group’s sound. He shares the leadership role with
associate director Terje T?nnesen.

Now that we’re clear about the chamber-music roots of Camerata Sweden
(uh, Nordica), it should come as no surprise that the group’s
repertory focuses on settings of string quartets.

The Camerata – which consists of five first violins, four seconds,
three violas, two cellos and a double bass – will play quartets by
Shostakovich (No. 8), Mozart (No. 2) and Grieg (No. 2), as well as
the Violin concerto by Swedish composer Anders Eliasson.

“It’s a fantastic experience for them,” Chilingirian said of the
impact this repertory has had on the musicians.

“When we played through the Beethoven Opus 59, No. 3 (not on Sunday’s
program), it really stretched us. It added to the whole chamber-music
experience.”

Not every quartet lends itself to such string-orchestra settings.

“I would never do any of the Mozart Quartets dedicated to Haydn, but
the early works (such as No. 2, played Sunday) work wonderfully. And
I believe that large-scale pieces such as Schubert’s G-major
(Quartet) and the C-major (String) Quintet would simply be too
ridiculous to attempt.”

Chilingirian stressed that these settings are not meant as
improvements of the originals.

“You can say they all work best as string quartets. But, on the other
hand, some of them were conceived just as pieces of music. Of course,
the pure form is the quartet.”

The task of converting a four-voice piece into a 15-voice piece
involves more than adding more instruments to each part, he noted.

“I’m thinking about repertory all the time – about what will work and
what won’t. It’s important in the arrangements to have everyone play
as much as possible.”

He acknowledged that the Shostakovich No. 8 also exists as the
Chamber Symphony, orchestrated by Rudolf Barshai.

“We’re doing the Eighth (Quartet) – simple as that,” the violinist
said. “This version is lean and small.”

In other words, when converting quartets to larger-size ensembles,
too many notes can spoil the score.

“Years ago, I did the (late Beethoven) Grosse fuge with a string
orchestra, and was handed the (Felix) Weingartner edition. I stayed
up all night with the white-out, getting it into shape.”