San Francisco Classical Voice

March 6, 1999

Jeffrey Kahane

Fred Hersch

It probably takes some courage for Fred Hersch to play a Bach concerto in public, as it no doubt does for Jeffrey Kahane to improvise in front of an audience. But at Saturday's joint recital at Herbst Theater, jazz pianist Hersch and classical pianist Kahane looked as though they were having too much fun to let nerves get in the way. Apparently after years of mutual admiration, the two teamed up for works for two keyboards by Bach, Barber, and Billy Strayhorn, as well as two-piano improvisations and solo turns.

Although they come from different genres, Hersch and Kahane have much in common: gorgeous tone, dazzling technique, and an ability to reveal the structural underpinnings of a piece without sacrificing expression. In three of Mendelssohn's Songs Without Words, Kahane showed what well-constructed gems they are, subtly emphasizing harmonic twists in the bass and voicings that other pianists bury in passagework.

Hersch, in a solo set that included Hoagy Carmichael's The Nearness of You and Rodgers and Hammerstein's It Might as Well Be Spring, typically began with a dismantlement of the tune, picking out keys here and there, then slowly built it back up into a recognizable song. When he introduced Irving Berlin's Let Yourself Go and launched into a series of sparse staccato notes ranging around the keyboard, he might as well have been venturing into Stockhausen or Morton Feldman. Hersch's style is extremely economical; you never get the sense that he's "noodling around." Like Kahane, he's always in control.

For most of Saturday's concert, control was an admirable quality in both pianists. Kahane's brilliant reading of Mendelssohn's Spinnerlied defined effortless virtuosity, and Hersch's rapid-fire repeated notes and intricate polyrhythms in It Might As Well Be Spring were equally impressive. But when Kahane prefaced Chopin's Polonaise-Fantasy by telling us that it "gives a hint of what it was like to hear Chopin improvise," he set us up for a much more exploratory performance. Here he gave the impression that he knew exactly what was around the corner and that he had distinct plans for it.

As for the shared improvisations, at two pianos, it was impossible to judge how much Hersch and Kahane were actually inventing on the spot. In Rodgers and Hammerstein's My Favorite Things, their ensemble work was impeccable; trading off pointillistic jabs at the keys, accented grace notes, and swirls of wistful arpeggios, they converged in witty rhythmic irregularities and novel chromatic chord changes.

Hersch and Kahane share another quality, which is a seemingly infinite shading of piano and pianissimo. Bach's Concerto in C major for Two Keyboards became delightfully light-hearted, and the pianists' solo sets made us lean forward to listen closer. But just as too much loudness can numb the listener, too much pianissimo can be tiring. By the last two pieces, Barber's Hesitation Tango and Billy Strayhorn's Tonk (arranged respectively by Gold & Fizdale and Jed Distler), it was time for a big whammy, but none came. Tonk needs some muscle, and though this delicate rendition was interesting, it came across as mannered after a program of so much hushed quiet.

(Sarah Cahill is a pianist and a music critic for the Express, and hosts a music show on KPFA (94.1 FM) every Friday from 10 am to noon.)

©1999 Sarah Cahill, all rights reserved