San Francisco Classical Voice

February 7, 1999

A certain muddiness pervaded the sound of Sunday's concert at Grace Cathedral Chapel, the blame for which needs to be shared equally by the Clavion Quartet and the acoustics of the Cathedral itself. The program that Clavion chose was a sheer delight: a Mahler student work, his Piano Quartet Movement, the Ives Trio and the Schumann E-flat Major Piano Quartet. If programming were the sole determining factor, this concert would receive raves.

There is no denying the charm of the architectural setting, from the Bernini doors outside to the groined vaults inside, which contributes in all ways but acoustical to the concert-goer's experience. The Chapel opens off the main sanctuary and the echo from the far reaches of the Cathedral makes it difficult to hear the details of the next portion of each phrase. This in turn has the effect of spatially sundering the sound of the strings in the quartet from the piano. One has the impression of the sound coming from two acoustically disjoined locations. Adding to the difficulties is that the piano itself appeared to be an instrument that did not speak clearly.

Lack of clarity was also characterized the playing of the ensemble. The Clavion Quartet (Candace Guirao, violin, Kurt Rohde, viola, Leighton Fong, cello and Eric Zivian, piano) is an able group of younger musicians that still needs to mature as an ensemble. There was basically good rapport among the three strings but this was only occasionally shared by the pianist. The sound of the piano and the strings never truly blended and the group's playing was on the whole never thoroughly together.

Mahler's early Piano Quartet movement, written at age 16, challenges the listener to identify the composer we know. There were only traces of the mature Mahler's voice in the cosmic urgings of the opening theme, the expressionistic cadenza for violin and the emotional significance that attached itself to descending chromatic lines in the tenor. Also the repeated note figuration at the work's opening in the pianist's right hand, which though played without much definition, was vaguely reminiscent of similar figures in late Mahler, as in the middle sections of the final movments of the Ninth Symphony and "The Song of the Earth." Otherwise the work is in a comfortable non-Mahleresque harmonic idiom that sounds familiar without being attributable to any one composer's style. The work was performed smoothly and without many mishaps.

The Ives received a less satisfying performance. It takes a special set of talents to play Ives. These include the ability to hear things as if for the first time, together with an exquisite sensitivity to the shifting combinations of sounds and the emotional meanings that attach themselves momentarily to them. It requires the ability to stop time and regard the transient as eternal, the eternal ans transient, the unconventional as conventional and the ordinary as divine. This is a tall order. The performance was too conventional and skimmed the surface of the work. The phrasing missed the idiosyncrasies of Ives' manner of progress through time.

The greatest moments, where the twin powerful, distorting lenses of Ives' rhythm and harmony most transform the sonic environment, were played with little sense of transcendence. The complex rhythmic counterpoint sounded more labored than liberating.

In a slightly less aesthetically demanding universe than the one in which we live, the Schumann E-Flat Piano Quartet might be considered one of the great works of all time. There is so much that is special about the work: the harmonic improvisation, the use of repeating notes to inflame the lines, the sense of unrelenting energy and seeking, the symphonic textures that burst the seams of the work. The Clavion Quartet gave a respectable and felicitous performance of the work without reaching the work's heights. In the first movement, many of the piano runs were indecipherable, and the urgent pulsing of the piano chords seemed more a background glow than a furnace of driving enthusiasm. The ecstatic moments were hurried over and played in a matter of fact manner.

In the second movement the pianist set a tempo that he was hard put to maintain technically. In the third movement, the cellist failed to attain a deeply human and lyrical sound. The end of the movement however was very satisfying and the sustained low B-flat in the cello (the C string having been tuned down a whole step) was magical. The last movement ran apace, taking only spare notice of the marvels that surrounded it. In spite of my reservations, Clavion is a group I would want to hear again, preferably in a different acoustic venue.

(Joseph Bloom is a concert pianist and teacher, member of the San Domenico School music faculty, formerly on the Rutgers University and Bennington College faculties, and former WXQR classical radio host.)

©1999 Joseph Bloom, all rights reserved