San Francisco Classical Voice

RECITAL REVIEW Vox Americana

March 19, 2002

By Michelle Dulak

On the cover of her debut CD, seven years ago, Leila Josefowicz was a smiling teenage girl with waist-length auburn hair in a cream-colored sweater, the Wholesome American Girl personified. Last Tuesday night at Herbst Theater, the outfit was a spaghetti-strapped spangly black top over what looked like the lower half of a tux and three-inch heels; and the long, flowing hair had been cut shortish (but boyishly tousled) and bleached.

It is of course unwise to read too much into these things. God knows that nine times out of ten the whole point of a change of image is to disguise the reality; but in this case I have a wild idea that the point was to emphasize the reality. I mean that the glittering severity of that image was an eerily close counterpart to Josefowicz' playing — strong, glamorous, and somehow passionate without warmth.

Hers is a style that most people would typecast immediately as "American virtuoso," though there aren't actually many American virtuosi that fit the profile. Joshua Bell, for example, is probably the best-known youngish American violinist, and a completely different kind of player. He tends toward the delicate if anything, fussing over colors and inflections in a way that sounds almost French (and indeed some of his earliest recordings were of Francophone standards — Franck, Ravel, Chausson . . .). She is all steely fingers and steelier nerves, and her approach to color is, well, Fauvist.

The love of the American vernacular

What's odd is that two players so different should both sound most at ease in American music, especially American music with a vernacular tinge. Bell, of course, has parlayed his American bent into what must be a blissfully happy marriage with Sony Classics (they love crossover, he loves crossover — what's not to like?). Josefowicz is with Universal/Philips, an outfit slightly less crossover-obsessed, but she has already done an album, titled "Americana," consisting almost entirely of transcriptions of American standards. I don't want to underestimate the amount of commercial calculation behind records like these, but I don't get the impression that either player was dragooned into making them. They love this stuff and they do it brilliantly.

In Tuesday's recital, certainly, it was the (American) second half rather than the first that showed Josefowicz at her best. Surely a flashy suite of songs by Manuel de Falla is a foolproof recital opener? Not this time. Paul Kochanski's arrangements of six of de Falla's Seven popular Spanish songs are marvelous vehicles for a particular kind of sultry sound. But Josefowicz hasn't got it, and she seemed rather to be working at sensuality than exuding it ("Step 1: Clamp rose firmly between teeth" . . .). As violin playing it was impressive, but as music it was pretty aimless.

Things improved from there. I can't say that Josefowicz made something actually happy of Shostakovich's 1969 Violin Sonata, but the bleak soliloquies and frantic ostinatos of music history's grimmest birthday present (to David Oistrakh, on his 60th) suited her well. I think that it was a crueler piece in her hands than in Oistrakh's — his tone was more human, and he could imbue even pitiless music with pity — but hers was a brilliant and implacably consistent performance.

On home turf

After intermission Josefowicz was on home turf, and unbeatable. John Adams' Road Movies might easily have been written for her; before I checked the program notes, I thought it actually had been. The outer movements are in that brilliantly unbalanced, akilter rhythmic vein that Adams does better than anyone else, incisively accented but unpredictable. This is music for rhythmic virtuosi, which Josefowicz and her recital partner, pianist John Novacek, certainly are. I was about to write that she sailed through the music, but that doesn't do her physicality justice — she forged her way through as though her bow were a machete. It was exhilarating.

The middle movement, titled "Meditative," involved the violin's G string being tuned down to F. It might have been very beautiful had the string not immediately risen a quarter-tone, as any string players reading this probably would have predicted it would.

As for the rest of the program — well, John Novacek obviously didn't take to heart the admonition printed on the top of every Scott Joplin rag ("Ragtime should never be played fast"), but his Four Rags were delicious, and only a violinist of Josefowicz' chops and temperament could have had such a good time with them. What a riot of wild, daredevil, splendidly, magnificently pointless fun! (I except the second rag of four, "4th Street Drag," which is a quietly slinky thing a little like "Makin' Whoopee.")

And best of all: an encore, Charlie Chaplin's "Smile," in an arrangement by Claus Ogerman — poised, natural, unbelievably pure and seductive of tone. Let the record show: Josefowicz can do sultry. American style.

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