San Francisco Classical Voice

I thought it would be Mozart, but I discovered that it was Schumann (and the Bogases) that made Sunday's Master Guild Chamber Music concert at Holy Names College a truly memorable one. Violinist Rene Mandel, violist Geraldine Walther, cellist Sharon Bogas, and her pianist father, Roy Bogas, teamed up in piano quartets by Mozart and Schumann with the rarely heard suite for viola and piano by Ernst Bloch mediating between.

In words of introduction which preceded each piece, Roy Bogas confessed a special predilection for the Schumann Quartet, suggesting that we were being treated to an even more beautiful work than the much better known piano quintet, also written in the key of E-flat. The quartet is a more delicate work and certainly more difficult to bring off, demanding the utmost in subtlety and sympathy between the players.

It was in this work that I began to be aware of the unusually fine sense of balance between the pianist's left hand and the bass line laid down by the cello (as in the beginning of the Scherzo). When the heartbreakingly beautiful cello theme at the beginning of the slow movement sang forth for the first time with such passionate simplicity from Sharon Bogas' cello, the meaning of the whole work became clear. All of nineteen years of age, this remarkably talented young artist is able to express great longing and happiness at the same time, too rare in most performances of this music.

After this truly inspiring moment, violinist Mandel replied with his own soaring version of the theme, in canon with the cello, lovingly "accompanied" by piano and viola. From here on, the wonder of chamber music was demonstrated, as the performance came more and more to glowing life. Then, in the middle of the movement a strange thing happened. Our cellist seemed to drop out for a while in order to tune her instrument, something that usually happens only between movements. She then played a few pizzicato notes before answering our prayer to hear that heavenly theme again! As the movement ended, the mystery of the tuning was revealed: Schumann gives the cello the final bass B-flat to the cello, a note that is a whole step below the low-C string. Schumann must have especially loved the cello while writing this piece to judge from the fact that he quotes the opening of the finale of one of Beethoven's last cello sonatas all through his finale.

In the Mozart Quartet (his second, in E-flat) that began the program, the tempos were brisk and there was a sense of expectation that around the next corner a miracle might happen. Not just one, but several did, especially in the slow movement which, although played at more of an andante than at the indicated Larghetto, passed its lovely phrase back and forth between strings and piano, with telling effect.

A splendid performance by Walther and Bogas of the Bloch suite came before intermission. This large, passionate, virtuoso work can easily turn into bathos, which is what I remember from the previous performances. Here, Bogas had to walk a very fine line between accompanying and letting out the large sound frequently demanded by the music. This he achieved without sacrificing any of the drama and intensity of the big piano writing. Geraldine Walther (who had just that afternoon performed in the Mahler Ninth Symphony in San Francisco) and Bogas together played magnificently, showing how two players can be as compelling as a hundred.

(Jerry Kuderna is a pianist who teaches at Diablo Valley College and is a host (with Sarah Cahill) of the Berkeley TV program, Stop, Look, and Listen.)

©1999 Jerry Kuderna, all rights reserved