The stage stood empty, but the room was filled with music Friday night as the Chilmark Community Center hosted the Martha’s Vineyard Piano Quartet’s sixth annual Thanksgiving concert.
In previous Novembers, the quartet has performed from the stage at the Old Whaling Church in Edgartown. Their audiences, while attentive, came nowhere near filling the pews in the expansive sanctuary. This year’s change in venue allowed the Martha’s Vineyard Chamber Music Society, which presents the annual concert, to bring musicians and audience into a shared space.
Instead of taking the stage, the quartet appeared on floor level on the South Road side of the hall, framed by three standing lamps. About 85 listeners sat side by side, in a semicircle of four long rows that wrapped around the musicians.
Barely a seat was empty for Friday’s concert, a tribute to former chamber music society treasurer Tony Nevin of Tisbury, who died in September.
Mr. Nevin’s widow, Nora Nevin, is the society’s president and began the concert with a few words of appreciation before the musical program opened with a performance in his memory of Alexander Glazunov’s Elegie, Op. 44, for viola and piano.
Glazunov’s 1893 Elegie — thought to have been composed in memory of Anton Rubenstein or Tchaikovsky — brims with emotion, yet never overflows into pathos. Scott Woolweaver’s rich, dark opening phrases on the viola gave way to sunnier moments; Delores Stevens’s piano was both stately and expressive.
The sound in the pine-paneled room was lustrous, warm and intimate. Audience members responded with prolonged applause, honoring both the performers and the late Mr. Nevin.
More applause greeted violinist Stephanie Chase and cellist Scott Kluksdahl as they joined their fellow musicians to play, with precision and spirit, Mozart’s Piano Quartet in E flat major.
Brahms’s pulsating, dramatic Piano Quartet, op. 25, in G minor was both the climax and finale of the concert, sending audience members to their feet in an ovation.
Friday’s performance was the second chamber-style concert the society has presented in recent weeks. On Nov. 11, Quartet San Francisco played at the West Tisbury Free Public Library following a week in residence working with local students.
Co-founded by Ms. Stevens, the chamber music society celebrates its 49th summer season in 2019.
For more information, visit mvcms.org.
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