Article

April 7, 2005

Michael Huebner The Birmingham News
Pollick a great addition to local new music scene

All violinist Karen Bentley Pollick needs to carry out her career in the eclectic world of contemporary music from her newly adopted home of Birmingham is a nearby airport. But it’s apparent from her duo recital with cellist Craig Hultgren on Wednesday that Pollick (a k a the first lady of Birmingham-Southern College) also wants to tap into the local new music scene as long as she’s here.

Composers and other followers of the avant garde couldn’t be happier.

Most of the program at Saint Paul’s A.M.E. Church of Smithfield rested at the fringe of popular music, summoning tango, ragtime, fiddle tunes, Hungarian folk dance and spirituals. Pollick was polished in each, especially so in a bluegrass medley of “Lime Rock,” “Liberty” and “Orange Blossom Special” in which Hultgren imitated train whistles with his cello

“Dance Card,” an inventive collection of new-age ragtime and tango by Pennsylvania composer Scott Eggert, had trouble getting off the ground, but by the third ragtime movement, the duo had settled nicely into its angular tonalities and cleaned up earlier intonation problems.

The centerpiece was Erwin Schulhoff’s Duo for Violin and Cello. Composed in 1925, it combines the best of the expressionism and nationalism – a little Schoenberg, some Berg and a lot of Bartok’s pulsating rhythms and folk music stylings.

Schulhoff, a Jewish composer who died in a concentration camp, demanded a lot in this score, and each player met its challenges admirably. Wide melodic leaps, aggressive rhythms and difficult double stops were executed with ease, allowing for an insightful look at this prolific, often neglected composer.

Following a perfunctory medley of spiritual tunes, Pollick switched to viola for “Tango Orientale.” Newly arranged for this duo by its composer, the Dane-Swede Ole Saxe, it proved an uplifting finale.

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