San Francisco Classical Voice

RECITAL REVIEW

Shared Spotlight

Febraury 1, 2004

Jean-Michel Fonteneau

Axel Strauss

Mack McCray

By John Lutterman

A faculty recital, especially at a world-class conservatory or school of music, is intended to serve the interests of two audiences: the general concert-going public and the students of the conservatory. There are several ways to address the sometimes conflicting interests of these two groups, and it is always interesting to see how a faculty performer will approach this mission. One way is to treat the recital like any other professional public performance, allowing students to draw their own conclusions from an unadulterated formal concert, while at the opposite pole is the lecture-recital. The approach taken by cellist Jean-Michel Fonteneau at the San Francisco Conservatory on Sunday afternoon fell somewhere between these two extremes.

The cello faculty at the San Francisco Conservatory have long had a strong reputation, as performers and for their distinctive approach to pedagogy. Fonteneau, although he stems from a different musical lineage, is a welcome addition to this tradition. He has a fine reputation as teacher and has given several impressive first performances of works by Bay area composers. In Sunday's program he offered examples of various roles a cellist can play in more mainstream repertoire: as unaccompanied soloist in Bach's G Major Cello Suite; as duo-partner, with pianist Mac McCray, in Louis Vierne's sonata of 1910-11; and as chamber musician in Tchaikovsky's string sextet, Souvenir de Florence.

Public performances of solo Bach are always challenging, especially when the performer's students are in the audience, and the G Major Suite that started the program is a work that virtually every cellist has studied. Fonteneau's performance made few gestures toward "authenticist" ideas about performing Bach, but his approach shows a good understanding of the structure of the music. The sound was somewhat forced in the prelude, but he changed gears in the second half of the allemande, and the rest of the performance was much more convincing. It was a pleasant surprise to hear the way he worked with resonance in the sarabande — mainstream cellists often treat the sarabande as a kind of operatic slow movement. He even added a few somewhat self-conscious but tasteful ornaments on the repeats.

Uncommon gem

Louis Vierne's Sonata in b minor, Op. 27, a rarely performed work, was the center of the program. Vierne (1870-1937), born virtually blind, was part of a long line of talented blind keyboard players, stretching from Landini and Paumann in the middle ages to Stevie Wonder today. A student of Claude Franck and the teacher of Maurice Duruflé, he was an influential organ teacher and a major figure in the late Romantic Movement in French-speaking Europe. The b minor sonata is most reminiscent of Fauré's late chamber music, sharing a tendency to unfold in sprawling forms and expansive, wandering phrases. This style is something of an acquired taste, though it certainly has rewards for those patient enough to find them. The cello sonata is an attractive work. It shows more of the influence of Franck's dark, rich, chromatic harmony than Fauré's work does, and there are many exquisitely poignant moments.

Fonteneau's approach was carefully thought out and Mack McCray was a sympathetic partner, though most of the time he was too much in the background. Fonteneau has a gift for pulling maximum resonance from his instrument and an exceptionally good sense of intonation — something that shouldn't be taken for granted, as the work of some major recording artists has shown. When there were occasional glitches, they stood out more because the overall level was so high. His sound was always warm and he projects a sovereign sense of control, a good thing for the most part, though it sometimes seemed a bit too calculated.

The generally earnest quality of Fonteneau's playing is very appealing, but this piece would probably come off better if approached with more of a sense of humor. There are lots of melodramatic passages that seem designed for tongue-in-cheek treatment. That said, convincing performances of late Romantic French music are notoriously difficult to pull off and Fonteneau made a good case for the piece. The slow second movement was especially moving and his use of the bow and vibrato in shaping phrases was superb.

Students shine

The pedagogical character of the recital was most evident in the final work on the program, the Souvenir de Florence, which featured students Mahjinka Reiche Stebbins and Emma Sheppard on the second violin and viola parts. The group was led by violinist Axel Strauss and rounded out by violist Jodi Levitz and cellist Dana Putnam. For the most part, ensemble was excellent, though the fugato in the final movement was a bit dicey. As in so much of Tchaikovsky's work, much of the power of Souvenir comes from carefully orchestrated ensemble effects that demand well-developed technical control from each player.

The pizzicato sections of the third movement were particularly effective yesterday, as the performers created a sense of motion in space in which sounds seemed to dance around the stage. Most of the tunes go to the first chair musicians and it was fun to hear Strauss and Fonteneau thrust and parry like Errol Flynn and Basil Rathbone in the more swashbuckling passages, but each performer gets a moment in the spotlight and even the accompanimental figures require a sophisticated command of the bow. Strauss is a phenomenal player, with an imaginative sense of color, texture and timing, and the students seemed to have no difficulty following his lead.