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CHAMBER MUSIC REVIEW
Trio Meeting "Under Cover Of Dark" While Brahms Speaks For Himself
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By John Karl Hirten
Chamber music is intimate by nature, but does that characteristic demand
subtlety from its performers, or does it merely allow for it? This is a
question that surely haunts chamber music performers and lovers alike, and no
doubt was lurking the halls of Old First Presbyterian Church on Sunday as William Klingelhoffer, Karen Bentley and Dmitriy Cogan joined forces
in music of Beethoven, Harbison and Brahms.
The program began with violinist Karen Bentley and pianist Dmitriy Cogan playing
Beethoven's Sonata No. 10 in G major, Opus 96. Dating from 1812, the piece
wears the emotional clothing of the Eighth Symphony, essentially pastoral,
but containing occasional stirrings of his later period. The first movement
is a perfect example, comprised of mostly serene moments punctuated by
expressions of doubt and even occasional foreboding. Cogan and Bentley chose
to enhance the former moments and downplay the latter. While his pianism
lacked the crisp fire one would have wanted, especially in the later Scherzo
movement, Cogan's sweet-tone and subtle phrasing made up for it, as in the
brief but haunting "snowfall" sequence in the first movement. Bentley's clean
and precise approach made an interesting counterpoint to Cogan's more diffuse
one, but even at that, her expressiveness lay more in her use of dynamics and
shading rather than phrasing.
William Klingelhoffer brought his affecting French horn playing into the mix
for the remainder of the program. John Harbison's Twilight Music for Violin,
Piano and Horn from 1984, was described by the composer in the program notes
as sheltering "abstract structural origins beneath a warmer exterior," a
piece which was written for instruments he felt would meet best "under cover
of dark."
Harbison treats the horn and the violin as strange bedfellows, while the
piano functions as the adhesive that tries to hold them together. Any merging
of the violin and horn should be seen, according to the composer, as
trompe-l'oreille (if it were violin and trumpet, would that be
trompette-l'oreille?) and any shared material only exists to show off the
difference between the two.
In the first section, Klingelhoffer's playing was a model of pinpoint precision with Bentley in frequent unison passages, while
Cogan's soft touch created a mystical wash. In the turbulent second section,
appropriately titled Presto, ossessivo, Bentley's intentionally strident and
aggressive tone held it's own against Klingelhoffer's ringing rumblings. In
the crucial third section of the work, with its knowingly pedantic
homophonic statements almost railing against an inevitable collapse of dogma,
any remaining seams between the horn and violin dissolve into the closing
section. There they drift further apart while the piano almost yearns for the
false unity of earlier times. Although all performers shone in the work, Bentley
especially showed that she has an affinity for this music.
As if to return to a simpler time, the program closed with Brahms'Trio for
Piano, Violin and Horn in E flat, from 1865. Of course, there is no such
thing as a "simpler time" where Brahms is concerned, and so this was
particularly astute programming. What began during a walk in the woods near Baden
Baden (where the composer was inspired to write the opening theme when "the sun
came out") became one of the great pieces of nineteenth century chamber
music, and begat this dilemma as well: how much intimacy is enough?
When you have a composer as "big" as Brahms--and we're not talking about
his girth here--the temptation is to emphasize certain details of a
complicated work in order to clarify it. A noble goal, but in chamber music,
the risk in doing this is that if everyone in the group doesn't buy into the
importance of those details, you end up with a lopsided interpretation.
Fortunately, there is an alternative-- to let the music speak for
itself, which is exactly what occurred at this performance.
The opening movement, a pastoral reminder of the earlier Beethoven piece but featuring
more sinister moments, shows that Brahms himself is more capable of bringing
the listener into his world than any interpreter. As another example, in the
scherzo he seems to give most of the interesting writing to the piano and
violin, until the listener notices the horn adding color here, punctuating
there and finally getting its own way with the theme. But Brahms never lets the
horn part get in the way (and Klingelhoffer was obliging in his approach). If
anything, one would have wanted from the players a bit more clarity and
direction, and perhaps a bit less emotional restraint, but the essentials
were there. As a chamber music performance, could one ask for more?
As an encore, the trio performed a transcribed excerpt from the Concerto for
Guitar and Orchestra by Joaquin Rodrigo, who died earlier this week. It was a
brief but tantalizing display of what this trio could be capable of
dramatically, but we'll have to wait until their next outing for that.
(John Karl Hirten is Director of Music at St. Stephen's Church, Belvedere, a frequent recitalist in the Bay Area and a composer.)
©1999 John Karl Hirten, all rights reserved
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