October 15, 1998

There is no guarantee that a first-class musician will be an equally fine teacher or vice versa. But new San Francisco Conservatory faculty cellist Clive Greensmith, in a long and demanding recital Thursday evening, certainly demonstrated his musical credentials.

The most striking feature of Greensmith's playing is an enormously flexible, forceful, and efficient bowing technique. His legato is seamless, his shorter bowstrokes varied and deft, his pianissimo playing unfailingly beautiful. And his full-out forte sound is a marvel: dense, centered, vibrant, and astonishingly powerful. It is not every day one hears a cellist overwhelm a Steinway with its lid full up.

Thursday's program was well-tailored to Greensmith's strengths. Beethoven's "Bei Männern" Variations (evidently a late substitution for an originally-scheduled Boccherini sonata) showed off a beautifully-judged cantabile line and a flair for detailed and occasionally witty articulation. The Debussy Sonata and (even more) the Prokofiev Sonata that followed it afforded numerous opportunities to unleash That Sound, of course; but Greensmith also adapted well to their contrasting characters, tracing a coherent path through the disjointed gestures of Debussy's odd "Sérénade," and rendering Prokofiev's slightly goofy scherzando passages and his acid-tinged lyricism with equal assurance.

Along the way Greensmith demonstrated, incidentally, a remarkable flair for pizzicato playing. In the "Sérénade" he contrived somehow to give his A-string the metallic twang of a guitar. The thrumming chords of the Prokofiev's central scherzo were full of energy and character, and at the opening of the slow movement of Brahms' Second Sonata (which followed after an intermission), the pizzicato walking bassline was full and rich.

The young Bulgarian pianist Aglika Angelova, now resident in San Francisco and on the Conservatory staff, joined Greensmith in all but the Brahms. Turning her own pages (which resulted in some awkward silences between variations in the Beethoven), she proved a skillful but perhaps too deferential partner, allowing Greensmith the limelight even where it was rightfully hers. The very opening of the Beethoven variations was a case in point: Mozart's theme is divided phrase-by-phrase between cello and piano, but even in the piano's phrases it was the cello's accompanying line that loomed, beautifully but not quite appropriately, in the foreground. In the finale of the Prokofiev, though, she came into her own, playing with a forcefulness to match even Greensmith's fortissimo, and looking (justifiably) as though she were having the time of her life.

Brahms's F-major Sonata, Op. 99, might have been written with Greensmith in mind. The titanic scale of the piece, its exalted lyricism, its unrelieved intensity, its affect of heroic struggle (all too often literally reinacted in performance, as the hapless cellist fights to be heard over the mammoth piano part) suit his gifts perfectly. The first movement, a few moments of insecurity in the highest reaches of the opening theme apart, was commanding; the slow movement was hushed and mysterious (with some beautiful pianissimo playing), the scherzo gruff and forceful. In the scherzo's trio, for once, Greensmith seemed to be working hard, and his tone became a little strident. But it was only at the opening of the finale that he seemed momentarily ill at ease, as though uncomfortable with its sunny geniality after so much passion.

Paul Hersh was the pianist, imperious, brilliant, and more than once giving Greensmith a run for his money in the volume department. It was a spendid ending to a very impressive recital.

(Michelle Dulak is a violinist and violist who has written about music for "Strings," "Stagebill," "Early Music America" and The New York Times.)

©1998 Michelle Dulak, all rights reserved