FESTIVAL REVIEW: Britten@Menlo By Janos Gereben (Music@Menlo, "Mozart and the 20th Century," Wu Han, Gilbert Kalish, and Colin Carr, August 6, 2006)

FESTIVAL REVIEW

Music@Menlo
"Mozart and the 20th Century"
Wu Han, Gilbert Kalish, and
Colin Carr

August 7, 2006

Wu Han

Gilbert Kalish

Colin Carr

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Britten@Menlo

By Janos Gereben

The renowned cellist Colin Carr minced no words in addressing the audience before the opening of Monday night's Music@Menlo Festival concert, "Mozart and the 20th Century": "This is the best chamber-music festival in the world," he said. He may have a point.

There certainly isn't any other celebration of chamber music anywhere that can hold a candle to this 4-year-old. In a short time, Music@Menlo has become second to none in its caliber of talent, variety, and depth of programs — from the explosive young talent it coaches and who perform brilliantly to an overall sense of excellence.

After his bold statement, Carr made his own contribution to this best of all festivals with a landmark performance of Benjamin Britten's 1971 Third Suite for Cello, Op. 87. At Carr's request, St. Mark's windows (the sole source of air-conditioning) were closed during the performance to block outside sounds, and such was the magic of his playing that no one in the summer-night audience complained. To the contrary, the usually well-behaved festival audience exceeded its own high standards by holding its collective breath for some 20 minutes (save for a single, jarring cough) before giving the artist a heartfelt ovation.

A Cello Suite to remember

Britten wrote the Cello Suite for Mtislav Rostropovich, so he was not concerned about making it easy for the soloist. Carr — who professes and clearly possesses great love for this "deeply moving work" — didn't show the slightest effort in the performance. He made the instrument sing softly in a mostly muted, quiet conversation between two voices. Haunting and instantly memorable, the Cello Suite made the evening's earlier Britten resonate all the more.

One of Music@Menlo's many glories is the free series at 6 p.m. These "Prelude Performances" feature young artists from the festival's Chamber Music Institute playing works related to the subsequent evening's program. The Britten in this case was yet another little-known but vitally brilliant work, the 1961 Sonata in C, Op. 65.

Young but already accomplished, cellist Yves Dharamraj and pianist Gloria Chien brought outstanding technique and fluid musicality to the work, lacking only the overflowing (but not gushing) heart in Carr's performance. Hesitation, surprising turns, and complexity are recurring elements of the Sonata. Dharamraj's lyrical cello and Chien's bravura piano kept up with the work's high demands.

The finest Shostakovich never wrote

The haunting Dialogo is followed by a bouncy Scherzo-Pizzicato, leading to the core of the work, Elgia, a superb movement and perhaps the finest one Shostakovich never wrote. It had all the complexity and irresistible power of the Russian master. A manic Marcia is resolved in a surprisingly restrained Moto Perpetuo, a most satisfying ending that drew a well-deserved storm of applause for the young musicians.

Mozart — the theme of this year's festival — got his due at the Prelude Performance, with the String Quintet in G Minor, K. 516, performed by violinists Andrew Beer and Bella Hristova, violists Edward Klorman and Frank Shaw, and cellist Jacqueline Choi. Virtuoso soloists in a close-order ensemble performance, the musicians made special impressions in the surprisingly rough passages — at the edge of dissonance, unusual for Mozart — in the second movement; the third movement, reminiscent of the quiet, majestic moments in the contemporary Magic Flute; and in the unexpected gravity in the following Adagio, as the mood turned uptempo, on the way to a bright, concluding Allegro. (The Quintet's unusual structure has two Allegros — opening and closing — two Adagios, and one Allegretto.)

The Mozart allotment on the evening program was the Quintet for Piano and Winds in E-flat Major, K. 452, with a phenomenal lineup: pianist Gilbert Kalish, oboist Allan Vogel, clarinetist Anthony McGill, bassonist Dennis Godburn, and French horn player Richard Todd. It was with the greatest reluctance that I missed this late-evening performance, our publication schedule pending.

Four hands equal one (big) brass section

I understand that Kalish did show up for the Quintet, even though he had a far more compelling excuse than I to forgo it. For a half-hour just before the Mozart piece, he and Wu Han pounded one piano with all their might in a four-hand performance of Stravinsky's The Rite of Spring! Yes, it's true: one of the loudest, angriest, and most extreme orchestral works in all creation ... on a piano. And with a volume that seemed to match that of the Chicago Symphony in full flight.

Wu Han took most of the f-f-f-f passages, her fingers working as jackhammers in a stunning cross between virtuoso playing and a kind of parlor trick, as if to say: Watch my two hands outplay a whole brass section. From today's perspective, the odd thing (orchestral and ballet performances of Sacre come to mind) is that the piano version was Stravinsky's original intent for the music. If Stravinsky had the power of time travel in 1911, and experienced music history's greatest audience revolt in 1913 at the Champs-Elysées orchestral premiere under the baton of Pierre Monteaux, he might never have thought of burdening a humble piano ... or orchestral-strength players such as Wu Han and Kalish.

Varied, surprising, and excellent, Music@Menlo is the "world's best" or something close to it. So that you don't miss out on it, it's worth repeating information about ways to catch up with the festival: American Public Media both broadcasts and allows free downloads of the music, and live recordings of previous years' concerts are available from Music@MenloLIVE.