San Francisco Classical Voice

February 22, 1999

"Truth in advertising" might well apply to concert presentation. Robert McDuffie, appearing on the San Francisco Symphony's Great Performer Series in Davies Hall last night, is a finely equipped violinist but not yet a Great Performer. With pianist Charles Abramovic, McDuffie offered a very mixed bag of works ranging from Mozart to Enescu to Tobias Picker, then back-tracking to Fritz Kreisler and ending with Lehar, the "Merry Widow" composer.

To use a Mozart sonata, the E minor, K. 304, as an entrance vehicle to the stage for the evening was a serious error. It was dispatched in as perfunctory a manner as possible--not an auspicious beginning.

The 3rd Violin Sonata by Enescu, better known as Enesco to his legion of admirers, is an adroit work, replete with Romanian themes. McDuffie and Abramovic performed it with enormous skill, but did not always touch the audience with the piece's evocative powers. I have no quibble with the abilities of the players, but perhaps a more intimate venue than a large symphony hall might have served a display of folk music better.

After intermission came Tobias Picker's Invisible Lilacs, a work inspired by a paragraph from Proust's A la recherche du Temps Perdu. Picker, a student of Wuorinen, Carter, and Babbitt, learned well from his teachers, but he does not have as individual a voice as any one of the three. Again, the recitalists performed apparently without flaws.

Fritz Kreisler's famous bon-bons, Tempo di Minuetto, Schon Rosmarin, Tambourin Chinois, (which sounded, because of the incredible speed with which it was performed, like the Rush Hour in Hong Kong), and Liebesleid, unfortunately were performed in a manner of a businessman-violinist trying to re-create a memory that had already been exquisitely created by Kreisler himself. It is a very difficult task.

Franz Lehar's Hungarian Fantasy, for some reason, seemed to be closest to the duo's heart. It was superbly played and left a decent-sized audience in an excellent mood. In response to the demand for an encore, McDuffie played John Williams' tender and beautiful theme from Schindler's List.

(Stuart Canin, is former Concertmaster of the San Francisco Symphony and of Hollywood film orchestras, and currently Music Director of the New Century Chamber Orchestra.)

©1999 Stuart Canin, all rights reserved