Some performance groups go for gusto in the bleak midwinter months, but the Eroica Ensemble will greet 2012 with calmness, contemplation and some unfinished business.

The Eroica Ensemble plays its first pair of 2012 concerts Feb. 4 and 5 featuring Parisian viola player Marc Desmons playing Bela Bartok’s unfinished viola concerto. (Photo: Courtesy of Eroica Ensemble)

A rare performance of one of Bela Bartok’s final works highlights upcoming concerts Feb. 4 at 7:30 p.m. at First Congregational Church and Feb. 5 at 2:30 p.m. at the Germantown Performing Arts Centre.

“I love Bartok,” said Michael Gilbert, who conducts the ensemble. “Obviously there’s something that keeps his viola concerto from being played the most. Possibly he wasn’t at the top of his game when he wrote this because he was dying.”

Still the piece makes good fodder for the orchestra, which prides itself on bringing world-class musicians to perform in free concerts, often in churches or other stage-less spaces where the audience can sit within a few feet of the musicians.

Written in the summer of 1945, the viola concerto was left unfinished when Bartok died of leukemia. Gilbert compared it and Bartok’s third piano concerto, also left unfinished, to Beethoven’s work just before his death.

“I’m surprised that in the second movement, the marking is ‘andante religioso,’” Gilbert said, referring to a walking pace with religious feeling, like the walk of monks on their way to morning prayers.

“I don’t know if he was traditionally religious. He didn’t write any masses, but there’s this very peaceful quality to the music – a contemplative calm.”

The solo will be performed by Gilbert’s friend and longtime artistic collaborator Marc Desmons who studied at the Conservatoire de Marseille and the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Paris. In 1992, Desmons became the assistant principal viola for the Paris Opera Orchestra and since 2010 has been principal viola for the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio-France.

“What I love about Bartok is that he has this incredibly smart quality,” Gilbert said. “He uses number theory, he was fascinated by proportions, and at the same time he did all this research into folk music. For me it’s a marvelous mix of feelings.

“What I’m hoping is that we play it well enough that people don’t react to it as morose. I hope it flies off the page.”

If it doesn’t, Verdi’s Overture to “La Forza del Destino,” the concert opener, most likely will. “The Force of Destiny” takes place in Spain and Italy and follows typical operatic themes – unrequited love, competing social classes and disguises all culminating in tragic death.

“Verdi was a great overture writer, and this is a blood-and-guts type of plot,” Gilbert said. “We see it as exciting. When I was growing up my dad would do overtures to start programs. You get these pieces that you know people will enjoy or you’re just convinced they’re wonderful pieces.”

If the mix of themes between Bartok and Verdi seems a bit stretched, Gilbert said he’s OK with that. While all of Eroica’s concert typically have an overture, a solo piece and a symphony, the point is playing strong pieces of music rather than lining up tightly-knit themes.

The finale proves the point.

The concert will end with Brahms’ Symphony No. 2, an upbeat and pastoral piece written for a complete orchestra with paired woodwinds and a full brass section.

Gilbert said the happy mood of the symphony and of Brahms’ works in general are revealing about the true character of the composer despite his reputation as a heavy drinker and womanizer.

“Brahms was so careful about what he put out (musically) that they’re all wonderful pieces of music,” Gilbert said. “One thing he often does that you might not expect is that he uses the word ‘dolce’ (‘sweetly’) many times. He had the reputation of being this crusty guy who smoked his cigars and went to the pub with his friends and his lady friends. So it’s a context for what was really Brahms.”

In keeping with the Eroica Ensemble’s mission of providing easy access to classical music, both concerts are free. The orchestra will perform paired concerts every month through June 2012. The schedule is available at www.eroicamemphis.org.