ECCO, Mar 30 2026
- ladiesvoices
- 3 hours ago
- 3 min read
Donna and I heard ECCO (the East Coast Chamber Orchestra) at Music Mondays on March 30, 2026. They're a group of string players who perform without a conductor. I'd seen them at least twice before, they're amazing. This concert had contemporary pieces on the first half and a 19th century piece on the second half.
They started with "String," a concerto for orchestra by Jennifer Higdon. A nice mix of pizzicato and arco (playing with the bow). There were a number of satisfying moments of arrival in this piece, that always feels good as a consumer. It was an expertly crafted piece. I should mention that all of the performances were at a very high level, marvelous playing, sensitive shaping, everything you could want.
The second piece was the New York premiere of Sunny Day, a divertimento for strings, by Philip Maneval. This was the clunker on the program, I understand why it hasn't been played in New York before. A bass player in the group introduced it and said that Maneval wrote it during Covid lockdown, he wanted to write a piece that expressed happiness. Donna said afterwards, "Happy? That was...happy?" The piece felt fragmented and ambiguous, but not in a way that was rewarding. There were a few moments where everything came together but those moments were fleeting. The music felt like it never really knew where it was going. A pseudo tango beat is no guarantee of a positive experience.
The third piece was a Concerto Grosso by Errollyn Wallen. The soloists were Tai Murray (violin) and Nate Farrington (bass), members of the ensemble, and guest pianist Shai Wosner. I liked how the first entrance of the piano grew out of the string texture, almost unnoticed. Virtuosic writing for the violin and some nice textures for the piano. I could see the bass player was going to town but because of the nature of the beast I couldn't really discern the individual pitches. It was much better when he played pizzicato, those notes spoke clearly. The first movement ended with some darling moments of rhythmic cheekiness from the piano.
The slow movement started with a longish sequence for the three soloists, gorgeous pizzicato from the bass and the violinist playing in a disembodied, sort of breathy way. I would have preferred that she play her solo à la Jascha Heifetz, really digging into the string, making a juicy tone, but I support her choice and who am I to tell her what to do?
There was a brief flurry of a third movement and the final movement closed with an urban attitude. Never a bad choice.
Here's a performance by the Academy of St. Martin of the Fields:
The second half of the concert was the Dvořák Serenade for Strings. I love contemporary music and it's refreshing and stimulating to hear something you haven't heard before...but there's nothing like hearing warm, tuneful Romantic music. It hits you where you live. I wrote in my notes at the end of the first movement, "Could you just die."
Did the waltz movement possibly go on a little too long? The scherzo started with a brisk playfulness but go figure it pretty quickly morphed into that magic hour dreaminess that Dvořák does so well. I'm not mad at that. Some of the chord changes caused me to moan aloud.
Certain moments in the larghetto seemed to actually throb (a neat trick). It had a transcendent final chord. I wrote down one word for the finale: "impetuous!"
Here's a performance by the Norwegian Chamber Orchestra, like ECCO performing without a conductor (at least in this performance):
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