|
RECITAL REVIEW
Serious Teamwork February 19, 2002
|
By John Lutterman
The program of 20th-century Russian music which David Finckel and Wu Han
gave Tuesday night was an opportunity to experience the durability of
full-throated romanticism in that country. While much has been made lately
of the supposed tyranny of modernist composers during the past century, in
Russia the modernists rarely wielded significant power and state policy
often made life difficult for those few who occasionally ventured beyond
the bounds of late Romantic aesthetics.
The three sonatas offered on Tuesday are staples of the cello repertoire, popular with performers and audiences alike. In these works there is little
sense of the modernist attempt to create unique creative utterances through
experimentation with new materials and structures. Instead,
familiar tonal gestures — ubiquitous lyrical tunes and distinctively
profiled rhythmic figures, sometimes dramatic, often comic — are set taking
advantage of the big sonorities favored by the Russian approach to string
playing and the modern concert grand piano. Unlike the more intimate
mainstream chamber music repertoire of earlier eras, these sonatas are
tailored to the modern concert stage.
David Finckel is considered a major American cellist of
his generation and it was interesting to see many Bay Area cello luminaries
in the audience. While best known as cellist of the Emerson Quartet, he
has had an active solo career. Finckel has also gotten a considerable amount of
publicity for having followed the example of the "indies" in the pop music
world, founding his own recording company, "ArtistLed," with his long time chamber music partner and wife, pianist Wu Han.
Finckel and Han are a wonderful team and their playing in the Schnittke and Rachmaninoff was superb. However, certain aspects of this partnership are rather curious. Finckel, who studied with Rostropovich, makes effective use of the carrying power offered by a modern cello equipped with steel strings, but there were actually times when he was too loud in relation to the piano, which often sounded muddy and too much in the background. This may have had something to do with the acoustics in Herbst Theatre, but was exacerbated by having the piano located toward the back of the stage and at some distance from the cello. In addition, although there are precedents for playing chamber music from memory (most famously the Kolisch Quartet), the fact that Wu Han played with music while Finckel did not was a bit distracting. Combined with the physical location of the players on stage and the problems of balance, it contributed to an unfortunate impression of a separation of roles: the cellist as soloist and pianist as accompanist. These problems were most noticeable in the Prokofiev Sonata which opened the program and which I found generally disappointing. Finckel has clearly mastered the technical demands of the work but the many long, passionately lyrical lines were fragmented and he came across as somewhat stiff and calculating. His use of portato was excessive and distracting and there was a tendency throughout to be slightly sharp. The most effective moment came in the A section of the second movement, where the sense of stiffness gave the rather comical impression of a mechanical toy soldier.
It was a relief to be captivated immediately after that by the Schnittke, a masterful, brooding piece. Written in 1978, according to the program notes the sonata has been called a "grim portrait of Breshnev gloom." Like the Liszt b-minor Piano Sonata, it is an ambitious work which uses principles of sonata form to unify its three movements. Finckel seemed more willing to take risks here and with both players working with a wonderful pallet of color, the result was a compelling performance. The Rachmaninoff was also very moving. While I would have preferred less portato and a more flexible rhythmic treatment, their approach was much more convincing. Individual gestures were clearly characterized and the connections from one idea to the next flowed dramatically. There was some wonderfully subtle use of vibrato, especially in the gorgeous third movement, and both performers seemed to really throw themselves into their roles. (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.) ©2002 John Lutterman, all rights reserved |