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CHAMBER MUSIC REVIEW
May 30, 2004
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By Benjamin Frandzel
In its opening season, Chamber Music San Francisco has struck a successful
balance between presenting interesting artists from out of town and featuring some of the finest local players who don't often get to shine in a chamber setting. One such is Peter Grünberg, who has mostly made his mark as pianist and coach with the San Francisco Opera. On Sunday at the Florence Gould Theater, he demonstrated his considerable abilities as a chamber player in an all-Mozart program.
The performance peaked at its end, with the G-minor Piano Quartet, K.478. Grünberg's
colleagues — violinist Jeremy Constant, violist Don Ehrlich, and cellist Emil Miland — summoned a wonderful collective tone. They also made the most of the
work's inherent drama, where music in conversational tone between the instruments is juxtaposed abruptly with bold tutti statements.
In this great work, Mozart's ideas are so rich that they can be repeated as solo lines or by the full ensemble, and can assume many characters, quiet and questioning or fiery and powerful. And humorous too; Grünberg availed himself freely of the third movement's many opportunities for rhythmic playfulness. But fine as the outer movements were, I was especially carried away by the ensemble's expansive lyricism in the middle Andante movement. Sadly, the horrific Sunday traffic at the Legion and on the way there prevented me from hearing most of the ensemble's opening piece (minus Ehrlich), the Trio in E Major, K.542. The portion I did catch shared the grace and exuberance of the Quartet; Constant's singing violin line stood out. Grünberg was joined in two works for piano four-hands by John Churchwell, a fellow member of the San Francisco Opera staff. The Sonata in F major, K.497, is a major, if seldom-heard, work. Mozart's ideas here are substantial and moving, and clearly develop from an orchestral conception of the piano duet. The opening introduction, for example, recalled the composer's opera overtures, with spare musical statements moving through the piano's full range before a fuller texture and driving momentum take over.
The imitative passages that opened and closed the middle movement were especially striking, as the players traded off the lead role with equal energy. In between, the duo was fully in tune with the organic growth of the music, with its structural and expressive expansion going hand in hand. The concluding movement's glittering surface was a reminder of Mozart's ability to treat the most basic musical transitions and chord progressions with elegance and invention. It also gave the audience a chance to savor Grünberg and Churchwell's shared ability to play the movement's rapid melodic runs with clarity and a sense of delight, while delineating the music's broader architecture. The Theme and Variations in G major, K.501, is a shorter, simpler work, growing out of a sweet theme. Unlike the lengthier works on the program, this one showcased Mozart's ability to make something lovely out of a common form, more than his ability to transform it. This was yet again a chance to enjoy Grünberg's many fine traits a player. He has a wonderful legato as well as a propulsive rhythmic sense, and the unfailing ability to beautifully shape a phrase. Churchwell was a late substitute for Bryndon Hassman, but the duo's playing betrayed no sense of hasty preparation, and the pianists share many of the same appealing qualities. They both have a keen and sympathetic sense of ensemble, and Churchwell — playing the lower part in both works — added great energy to the music with his powerful runs in the bass register.
(Benjamin Frandzel is a Bay Area musician and writer. In addition to writing concert music, he has collaborated with dance, theater, and visual artists, and has written about music for many publications and musical organizations. He is currently a graduate student in composition at San Francisco State University.)
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