San Francisco Classical Voice

The piano sonatas of Franz Schubert have taken a surprisingly long time to find their place in the concert repertory. Even the great final Sonata in B-flat, finished in just three weeks on September 26, 1828, less than two months before the composer's death, gained acceptance only through Artur Schnabel's late 1930s recording. The British pianist Stpehen Hough made this particular sonata the centerpiece of his recital at Herbst Theater last Tuesday. The work is a challenge because of the appearance of outward calm and serenity in it, which is one of the reasons for this late acceptance. The overt intensity and drama that are the hallmarks of, say, a Beethoven sonata are not readily apparent here, much as the bold, painterly qualities characteristic of a French Impressionist work may not be apparent to the first-time viewer of a Chinese Scholar-Literati painting.

From the very opening notes of Schubert's B-flat sonata--a repeated B-flat followed by A, B-flat--one is plunged into a composition as tightly constructed as a work of Bach. In fact, this 3-note motive is a significant building block throughout the work, functioning on both a melodic and harmonic level. To tease the listener out of his trance, the performer must pay special attention to tight rhythm and direction in order to maintain the structural spine of the long-spun phrases. The involved listener then senses, even without conscious reflection, the dark and disquieting rumble beneath the tranquil flow of the melodic line.

Hough's performance generated an appropriate dreaminess, but missed when it came to showing the inner core of the music. He made a diminuendo and delayed the first movement's opening sustained high D, which broke the tensional effect of the line. This also lessened the impact of the momentary aching dissonance of the E-natural against that D, in the left hand. The disturbing bass trill that occurs at the end of the opening phrase was too muffled, too smooth to upset the surrounding reverie. Again in the slow movement, the fateful rhythmic ostinato of the bass in the opening, and later at its return, where it embraces the opening motive of the first movement, was relaxed and soothing rather than sharp and portentous. Similarly, the startling G octave, which begins the final movement, was played as though it were expected and natural.

These few examples may suggest that this was a performance that lacked teeth, though Mr. Hough attempted to infuse it with drama by overstating the accents in the Trio of the Scherzo, and raising the dynamic level in all the movements where the score called for it. These efforts, however, seemed carefully orchestrated attempts to lift the emotional edge of what was otherwise a cool engagement. Even more unsettling to the dramatic flow was a subtle lack of rhythmic integrity. Without tight control over the performance, the music failed to realize fully the magical inspiration, that struggle between innocent joy and inevitable mortality, which is at the heart of the work.

The Haydn Sonata in C Major (Hob. XVI:48), which opened the program, is in two movements: an Andante con espressione followed by a Rondo:presto. It was rendered in a pianistically expert and musically stylized fashion, with elegant diminuendi, and elaborately shaped phrases, but made one wish for more simplicity and directness.

George Tsontakis' Ghost Variations, 1990, written for Hough, is a piece built on enormous contrasts in sound. It contains clangorous repeated chords on simple harmonic progressions, repeated melodic fragments of pieces by past composers, a rich collage of aural shards, and even a theme from Mozart's Piano Concerto K. 482, treated to its own mini-set of brusque variations. All these elements are presented in a shocking and raw manner, until at the conclusion of the work's second scherzo--a frantic Tarantella-- the threads are brought together in fervid lyricism that fades in a knock-knocking out against the piano case, ghost-like, of the Mozart theme. It was high drama, certainly, and played with convincing élan.

(Paul Hersh is a pianist and violist, and, since 1972, the James D. Robertson Professor of Piano at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music.)

©1999 Paul Hersh, all rights reserved