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CONTEMPORARY MUSIC REVIEW
A Composer's Birthday
April 2, 2001
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By Heuwell Tircuit
It's not all that uncommon for a composer's muse to die long before he does. But that is definitely not the case with Andrew Imbrie, whose 80th birthday was on April 6. That event is being celebrated with four concerts of two chamber music programs, each repeated, at four different Northern California cities: Berkeley, Davis, San Francisco, and Santa Cruz — in the last case, at 8 p.m., April 11, in the UC Santa Cruz Recital Hall. The odd thing is that none of the area's orchestras bothered to honor so distinguished a resident figure when 17 distinguished composers chose to do so. But that's life in today's orchestral scene.
Last Monday's opening program in Berkeley's Hertz Hall closed with the west coast premiere of Imbrie's year-old Piano Quartet. This was played by the Chamber Music Society of Minnesota, who commissioned the work. John Swackhamer's Trio (for A.I.), a rather cubist-like set of variations on the famous "Happy Birthday" tune, opened the program. A very serious set of Variations for Solo Viola followed, by distinguished scholar-editor Edward Cone. Then came Jerome Rosen's Toot Suite, a divertimento for wind quartet; Jonathan Kramer's Imbrication for flute, clarinet, and string trio; and Ross Bauer's Tribute for cello and piano. The first half of the evening closed with Olly Wilson's utterly charming toccata for mixed quintet of winds and strings plus piano and percussion, Andy's Chorus.
But that was merely the first half! After intermission came the passionate Leon Kirchner Solo for Violin and Fred Lerdahl's Imbrications for pairs of winds and string, plus piano and percussion. All these relatively short tributes preceded the large Imbrie Quartet, a work of about a half-hour's duration. Except for the Kirchner and Imbrie, all pieces were premieres. Imbrie's music has garnered just about every award a modern American composer can imagine. While still in his early 20s, he took the 1944 New York Critics' Award for his First String Quartet — a composer's hole-in-one. Many of his early works have similarly remained undimmed by time, such as the Piano Sonata of 1947 and the 1952 Trio for flute, viola, and piano. And, of course, there are five important string quartets. Imbrie aims to foster the art of music, not merely to titillate the crowd with the comfortably familiar. But for all Imbrie's outstanding efforts in the field of chamber music, he has also contributed two operas, three important symphonies, seven concertos, choral works, and much else to the repertoire. And he has always maintained serious intent as well as the highest sort of craftsmanship, no matter what the medium. Never given to follow the latest fads, Imbrie has maintained an openly proud tradition of intellectual seriousness within a constantly expanding ideal of artistic grandeur. As with Elliott Carter, Imbrie's full musical stature requires time and repeated exposure to appreciate.
This was apparent in the strength and impact of the three-movement Piano Quartet. It's a piece fit to stand with the great works of Mozart, Schumann, Brahms, and Copland in the form — something worth every penny of the commission. One immediate clue to its ability to grab and maintain interest was that I wondered at the conclusion why it was so short. But a glance at my watch then shocked me into realizing that the piece is of Brahmsian length. There's just no baby fat in the score. Every ounce brims with communication. The performance of the Minnesota players in this complex, virtuosic work was superb in every detail. These are all first-level musicians of the highest order. Adding to that impression were two solo performances by members of the Minnesota ensemble. Violist Sally Chisholm — also a member of the Fine Arts Quartet — performed Cone's Variations, and violinist Young-Nam Kim performed Kirchner's Solo for violin. (Kirchner is writing a concerto for Kim.) The acclaimed and much-recorded Gilbert Kalish served as the ensemble's pianist, glittering through Imbrie's several soloistic passages. Yet in some ways, I could only marvel at French cellist Jean-Michel Fonteneau, who joined the faculty of the San Francisco Conservatory in 1999. His was a heroic effort, taking up Imbrie's cello role on short notice when the ensemble's standard cellist, Fred Sherry, suffered a hand injury. As if to confirm his mastery, Fonteneau added a second convincing appearance as soloist in Bauer's Tribute, premiered with Kalish as partner — partner, not merely accompanist. (Fonteneau has played with a variety of France's leading organizations — opera and symphonic orchestras, chamber groups — besides his work as a teacher.)
Bauer's passionate music appeared to be a more direct tribute to the Imbrie concept of proud intellectuality. It displayed a grand sweep of emotional vista, start to finish. Much the same proved true when Kim tore into Kirchner's rhapsodic violin solo. Both of these works had Standard Repertory sounding out from their every note. Of course, that they were so stunningly played added to that impression. Most of the contributions naturally aimed toward the festive aspect of the occasion. So the whole added up to a beautifully built evening, as opposed to a parade of odds and ends. We heard the giddy, the charming and the ultraserious juxtaposed in handsome proportions all evening long, ending with Imbrie's Piano Quartet, which managed to summarize all these qualities in one piece. The second program, which opened at the SF Conservatory and will be repeated in Santa Cruz on April 11, opens with the West Coast premiere of Imbrie's Spring Fever for ten players. That is to be followed by tribute contributions from Mario Davidovsky, Wayne Peterson, Sung-Jae Lee, Gunther Schuller, John Harbison, William O. Smith, Elliott Carter, Robert Helps, and Hi Kyung Kim. All but two of these, Schuller's piano work and Carter's for guitar, are world premieres. (Heuwell Tircuit, composer, performer, and writer, was chief writer for Gramophone Japan and for 21 years a music reviewer for the San Francisco Chronicle, previously for the Chicago American and the Asahi Evening News.) ©2001 Heuwell Tircuit, all rights reserved |