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RECITAL REVIEW
October 25, 2005
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By Heuwell Tircuit
Hearing is believing, only it can sometimes be a little difficult to believe that what you are hearing is reality. That was the case last Tuesday as San Francisco Performances presented trumpet virtuoso Håkan Hardenberger in Herbst Theater. He and his estimable pianist Aleksander Madzar played a balanced survey of 20th century challenges to their virtuosity.
Their program was a bit altered and expanded from what had been announced. They opened with Arthur Honegger's Intrata (1947), followed by Georges Enesco's 1906 Legende and the one familiar work, Hindemith's 1939 Sonata for trumpet and piano. The second half again covered early and quite varied music — Luciano Berio's Sequenza X for Trumpet in C and "‘stummes' Klavier" (“dumb" piano) of 1984 — before Madzar took solo stage in two of Ravel's Miroirs. They ended with Gyorgy Ligeti's utterly madcap Mysteries of the Macabre, derived from his farcical opera, Le Grand Macabre. The performances were uniformly jaw-dropping.
The inclusion of the Berio and Ligeti was particularly timely, since October 24, the day before the recital, would have been Berio's 80th birthday. Ligeti's piece is rather high camp, from his opera mocking the concerns with death. (I loved the opera's final lines, “The important thing is to live life merrily.”) What with Halloween looming, essentially a camp event these days, the piece stood as prelude to the occasion.
The first two works were relatively short showpieces for trumpet, each cast in a basic slow-fast-slow ABA form. In Honegger's case, the Intrata was in flashy fanfare style, while Enesco seemed more interested in the instrument's lyrical possibilities. The principal contrast, however, was to be heard in the piano writing — basic piano accompaniment — while Enesco's Legende represents a true duo, the piano writing as demanding as the trumpeter's.
Hindemith's sonata belongs to the cycle he wrote for winds and brass instruments between 1936 and 1955. He wrote one each for every wind and brass instrument, plus, of course, many for the various string instruments. That cycle includes all orchestral instruments except percussion. Too bad. But what he built amounts to a major monument in the repertory. Naturally, quality levels vary, but none is a genuinely bad piece. The layout of Hindemith's three movements is unusual, especially for him. The sonata opens with a non-militaristic march in sonata form, followed by an intermezzo in light style instead of a scherzo. But then comes a slow finale marked "Trauermusik” (sad music), built on the ancient choral Alle Menschen müssen sterben (All men must die), which is as long as the other two movements put together. So one ends up with two relatively light movements followed by a noble, rather than anguished, requiem movement. (It was 1939, and the war had begun.) Slow finales are most unusual, especially in brass sonatas, where flashiness is the norm. Hindemith's sonata is thus the most imposing such work in the trumpet repertoire. Sequenza X belongs to a cycle of extremely virtuoso works for assorted solo instruments which Berio wrote to explore new performance techniques. The exception is Sequenza III for solo voice, but others feature solo flute, solo harp or piano, trombone, viola, oboe, soprano saxophone, violin, clarinet, alto saxophone and guitar. This list is five years old, so there may be more. In each case the music demands that the players be in total control of intellect as well as range and dexterity. Hardenberger presented it like a Paganini of the trumpet. A final note about the Berio: The most unusual aspect of Sequenza X is that it calls for a supporting dumb (speechless) instrument. The pianist never actually produces a sound, but rather supports the trumpeter, using the instrument's sound board: he holds the damper pedal down and occasionally depresses keys for chords without actually contacting the strings. The piano becomes a kind of echo chamber, creating a ghostly effect that suggests electronic manipulation. The piano box will pick up and faintly sustain some of the trumpet's notes. For stronger effects, the trumpeter is instructed to turn and play loud notes directly into the piano body, which, of course, will then resonate much longer.
(Heuwell Tircuit, composer, performer and writer, was chief writer for Gramophone Japan and for 21 years a music reviewer for the SF Chronicle, previously for the Chicago American and Asahi Evening News.)
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Håkan Hardenberger
