San Francisco Classical Voice

CHAMBER MUSIC REVIEW Romanticism Alive

December 10, 2001

By John Lutterman

Clavion's concert in the Veterans Building Green Room last Monday contributed to an exploration of some often-neglected aspects of Romanticism in music. Romanticism in the arts is one of those ideas we refer to all the time but find difficult to pin down. Though originally associated with trends in late 18th-century literature, the term wasn't widely used to describe music until the early 19th century, and of course we tend to think of the 19th century as the Romantic era in music. However, one of the first to talk about musical Romanticism, the writer E.T.A. Hoffmann, used the term to refer not to the music of his own time but rather to the works Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven. Even stranger, in referring to these musicians as Romantic, Hoffmann was holding up their works as autonomous, as examples of what later came to be known as the ideal of "absolute music," an ideal often thought antithetical to the Romantic emphasis on personal expression.

The theme of Clavion's concert, "The Ultimate Romantics," and the music of Beethoven and Webern which they presented seem to recall Hoffmann's understanding of the term. These are intimate and intensely expressive works, but for the most part this expression came through in a less personal, more abstract form in Monday's performances.

The program opened with Beethoven's Piano Quartet in E-Flat, Op. 16. This early work is Beethoven's transcription of his quintet for piano and winds, itself a work modeled on Mozart's more famous example. While the piano quartet is not one of Beethoven's most profound creations, it is very well crafted and, like Mozart's quintet, has moments which are profoundly funny. Pianist Eric Zivian has a quicksilver imagination and technique to match, and brought out the witty character of the work beautifully. The ensemble playing was generally quite good but balance, always a problem when a modern concert grand is used, was less than ideal. I often found myself wishing for a more playful, responsive, conversational character in the relation between strings and piano. The string playing was colorful and well thought-out but the mood they conveyed was a bit severe. To be fair, the acoustics of the Green Room exacerbate this problem. In a rather dry acoustic like this, string players are forced to limit the range of their articulations in order to produce a sound that will carry.

Beauty in brevity

After the Beethoven, we were treated to Webern's entire production for cello and piano: three short sets of pieces that take less than 10 minutes to perform. The first set, written when Webern was fifteen, was the most conventionally romantic work of the evening. I enjoyed the way cellist Leighton Fong used color to shape these pieces, especially his subtle use of vibrato.

The Cello Sonata and the Three Short Pieces, Op. 11, both from 1914, are more typical of Webern's later style. Zivian and Fong did a great job with Op. 11, perhaps a masterpiece. Although the work lasts only three minutes, its ideas are extremely concentrated and must be carefully shaped in performance. I've heard that when Lynn Harrell recorded the Op. 11, it took several hours before he was satisfied, while the more prolix Prokofiev Sonata on the same album actually took much less time. As Schoenberg once said, Webern manages to express a "novel in a single gesture, a joy in a breath."

The program concluded with two works for string quartet: Webern's Six Bagatelles, Op. 9 and Beethoven's E-Flat Quartet, Op. 127 — like all of Beethoven's late quartets, a wonderfully quirky piece. The Clavion's strings were at their best in the Bagatelles, which, like Webern's cello pieces, are highly-condensed, epigrammatic works wherein each gesture seems pregnant with meaning. When the Beethoven started, the performers seemed to find it difficult to change gears, though by the end of the work they had managed to develop a convincing sense of momentum.

During the first two movements a well-focused, clear sense of direction was often lacking. While there were some beautiful sounds, there was a tendency to indulge in portato and phrases weren't always clearly shaped. Things got better as the piece went on and in the scherzando and finale there was a wonderful sense of concentration and rhythmic play. Perhaps I should confess my biases and note that I'm often disappointed with the way American string players approach Beethoven. The Clavion are clearly talented, thoughtful players, but I did miss the variety of articulation, color and gesture certain European quartets such as the Vegh and Mosaiques bring to these works. That said, it is always a pleasure to hear interesting programming and strong, committed performances like these.

(John Lutterman is a cellist and musicologist. He holds a DMA from SUNY Stony Brook and is currently pursuing a Ph.D. in historical musicology at UC Davis.)