by Mike Telin
On Friday, June 30, ChamberFest Cleveland presented a delightful evening of chamber music to a capacity audience at Dunham Tavern. The program, “Words Misunderstood,” included an oddity by György Ligeti, ear-catching 21st-century works by Caroline Shaw and Gabriella Smith, and some engaging German Romanticism by Max Bruch.
Performed without the “obligatory” intermission, the concert began with György Ligeti’s Poème symphonique (for 100 metronomes). An oddity or an absurdity, depending on your point of view, here the work was presented as Ligeti intended — as a serious piece of music. Ten musicians made their way to their groups of ten mechanical metronomes, each set to a different tempo, all of them sitting on the wooden shelf that ran along three walls of the venue.