|
CHAMBER MUSIC REVIEW
Brahms and February 10, 2002
|
By Benjamin Frandzel
While the Bay Area is host to a wonderful assortment of fine and longstanding
chamber groups of all kinds, that doesn't prevent their members from cooking
up special projects on a regular basis. The chamber music series at Noe
Valley Ministry, which hosted Sunday's performance by the Chamber Ensemble of
the Pacific in particular seems to provide a home for many of the ad-hoc
groups that rise up each season. But do we need yet another group of
freelancers coming together for what seemed to be a one-shot concert, and to
play standard repertoire, no less? The answer, in response to Sunday's
moving concert, is a resounding Yes.
Despite the group's stolid name, this is simply a piano quartet made up of
some of our area's very best musicians: pianist Eric Zivian, violinist Ian
Swensen, violist Benjamin Simon, and cellist Andrew Luchansky. After
Sunday's performance of the Brahms and Fauré quartets in C minor, I know I'm
only one of many who hope this will become an ongoing ensemble.
Opening the program, the Brahms Op.60 quartet began with an immediate sense
of the work's profundity, its descending appoggiaturas handled with a
devotional level of care. The intensity that soon gave way provided a
headlong rush, Brahms at his most emotionally raw and insistent. The
life-and-death urgency of the quartet's approach was riveting but it seemed
afterwards that there was little room to go anywhere from there, so many
depths had been plumbed already.
In fact, the same demonic approach gave plenty of vigor to the scherzo that followed, but at the cost of contrast. The same intensity, powerful as it was, made this seem too much a continuation of the first movement. The scherzo's short lyrical section might have provided an opportunity for some broadening and breath, but the quartet continued its emphasis on momentum. This was my only real quibble of the afternoon, but I was worried that the ensemble might sink into a relentlessness for the course of the concert. These concerns proved to be short-lived. The contrast is, of course, built into the work itself, and the players gracefully answered the call in the following andante. The movement's sweet sense of melancholy, growing from its primary theme on the cello, received a very graceful buildup and the careful passing of lines among the string players was exemplary. Zivian and Swensen applied some of the most beautiful playing of the day to the final movement's delicate opening statement, each note of the violin's gentle lines receiving just the right weight. Here the interpretation seemed most complete, the movement providing a template for both tenderness and fury, not just the unswerving intensity that marked the opening. The ensemble's performance of the Fauré quartet, Op.15, was even finer than the Brahms. The opening allegro molto moderato movement was handled with thoughtful restraint. The work's architecture emerged clearly, as detail and linear elaboration increased, all in ideal proportion. The scherzo that followed was a delight, its rapid pizzicatos and spinning piano figures performed with just the right mix of warmth and playfulness. Zivian set the tone with his sprightly approach, and the lead role was no less lively when passed to the strings.
The adagio movement that followed provided the most moving music of the afternoon, paced to reveal its bittersweet and serene aspects as fully as possible. At least one audience member in front of me was moved to tears, and I'd guess he wasn't the only one. I was especially struck by Simon's full, beautiful tone as he applied it to Fauré's expansive melodies. When the players gave the audience a choice of movements for an encore, this won out, and again received an affecting rendition. The quartet returned to their most dramatic mode for the closing allegro molto. Their approach also revealed some surprising common ground between the two works on the program, as string lines soared over rolling piano arpeggios, much as they had in the finale of the Brahms. Although I tend to see Fauré as a brilliant melodist, not a composer who cooks up a Brahmsian level of drama, it was unmistakably present and right. The quartet was completely up to the movement's demands, handling its fiery passages with complete command to end a rewarding program. (Benjamin Frandzel is a Bay Area musician and writer. In addition to writing concert music, he has collaborated with dance, theater, and visual artists, and has written about music for many publications and musical organizations. He is currently a graduate student in composition at San Francisco State University.) ©2002 Benjamin Frandzel, all rights reserved |