Starting the new season off in the same venue where the previous season ended, the Georgian Chamber Players returned to Eddie’s Attic Wednesday and continued its goal to take classical music to non-traditional venues.
At first it was a bit surreal to see classical musicians in elegant evening wear taking the stage in a room usually reserved for acoustic guitars and mellow songs.
For the robust audience packed into the homey Decatur venue it was an opportunity to appreciate the compositional intricacy and dazzling virtuosity of the classical world with a degree of up-close detail not normally available. The Georgian Chamber Players — violinist David Coucheron, pianists Elizabeth Pridgen and Julie Coucheron and violist Zhenwei Shi, along with frequent collaborator Charae Krueger on cello — were able to showcase their prodigious chops in a space that showcased each array of sounds in a fascinating collage of auditory detail.
The evening commenced with the Coucheron siblings performing Tomaso Antonio Vitali’s Chaconne in G minor. The piece is built around a deceptively repetitive foundation with the same eight-bar chord structure quietly evolving but always gently pulsating in the background. The violin provides an equally haunting melody that dances on the outer perimeter of the gentle, insular piano phrases. That minimalist formula felt right at home at Eddie’s Attic, where folk balladeering often showcases similarly hypnotic chord patterns.
David Coucheron’s impassioned playing was as richly detailed as it was emotive, and the immediacy of the space gave listeners a rare glimpse into the full tonal depth of his instrument. The nearly 300-year-old Stradivarius — one of only around 1,000 of its kind — more than lives up to the elite heritage the name implies. Experts have speculated for years as to what combination of chemicals, geometry and engineering gives the Stradivarious its superior sound. But whatever the reason, that extraordinary tone was…
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