Concert programmers often work hard to create thematic links between seemingly unconnected pieces and events. So it was refreshing to hear the pianist Pedja Muzijevic say lightheartedly, when introducing a performance at the Baryshnikov Arts Center that juxtaposed John Cage with a Mozart piano quartet, that there was no particular formula behind the choices.
But there were certainly links, as well as an appropriately salonlike spontaneity. Mr. Muzijevic pointed out that Mozart’s Piano Quartet in G minor was written for an informal setting, like the center’s Howard Gilman Performance Space, where Mr. Muzijevic, the cellist Edward Arron, the violist Max Mandel and the violinist Tessa Lark offered a vigorous, congenial performance on Monday evening that included readings.
“Mozart would have been shocked if you didn’t applaud,” Mr. Muzijevic said after a lively outburst of applause following the first movement rather than the usual moment, at the end of the work.
He said the choice of texts — sensitively read by Deborah Eisenberg and Wallace Shawn — reflected his own tastes and favorite authors. Poems by Samuel Beckett, “What Is the Word” and “Roundelay,” segued into Luciano Berio’s Sequenza VII for oboe.
Berio wrote a series of works for solo performers (which he called sequenzas) from 1958 to 2004 to illuminate the sonic possibilities of varied instruments. The Sequenza for oboe features a palette of shifting meters, fanciful passages, trills, extended techniques and unexpected timbres, evoking multiple personalities fighting for their turn. Over a drone played by Ms. Lark, the technical challenges were rendered with virtuosic flair by the oboist James Austin Smith — who also imbued the panoply of sounds with an alluringly wild edge.
Mr. Muzijevic offered a sensitive rendition of John Cage’s enigmatic “The Seasons,” inspired by the Native American concept of seasons. Cage wrote the piano version first and later orchestrated it for a ballet by Merce Cunningham.
A reading from Cage’s lecture, “Communication,” exploring the different meanings and interpretations of noise and music, seemed a fitting theme for such disparate pieces.
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