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CHAMBER MUSIC REVIEW
October 22, 2006
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Flawless Performance, Faulty Programming By Heuwell Tircuit
A good-size crowd turned out for the opening of San Francisco Symphony’s Chamber Music Series on Sunday afternoon at Davies Symphony Hall, but it could have been larger if only the programming were a little less cautious. It goes to prove the depth of quality musicianship within the orchestra, as 11 of musicians from various sections participated.
The matinee opened with Mozart’s Quartet No. 20 in D Major, K. 499, followed by an oddity, Franz Doppler’s Fantasy on Hungarian Themes for two flutes and piano, Op. 35. After intermission, the program concluded with Schubert’s Quartet No. 14 in D Minor, Death and the Maiden. Performing the Mozart were violinists Chen Zhao and John Chisholm, violist Yun Jio Liu, and cellist Barbara Bogatin. For the Doppler, we heard flutists Robin McKee and Timothy Day with pianist Marc Shapiro. And a different quartet appeared for the Schubert: violinists Sarn Oliver and Amy Hiraga, violist Nanci Severance, plus cellist Peter Wyrick.
The approach of each quartet group was as different as individuality requires, and in a way that was refreshing. Mozart’s quartet was beautifully elegant and avoided any hint of sentimental milking as if it were Brahms — a common flaw in Mozart performances. Faultless intonation and superb balances among the instruments added a good deal to the overall effectiveness of the performance.
But even they couldn’t cover up the fact that it is one of Mozart’s blandest chamber works. Geniuses have their off weeks, like everyone else. It’s a common fallacy to think that every single work of a given composer is worthwhile; in fact, they all created a few clunkers. (If you think I’m kidding, take, for instance, the Beethoven double cello quintet or one of the Tchaikovsky piano sonatas.)
The Schubert group took a more romantic approach, which is perfectly viable for so emotive a work. The players employed a wider range of dynamic extremes — the quiet passages were especially quiet, and the loud ones bristled with tension. There was also a wildness to the Schubert performance, and the musicians seemed less inhibited. Intonation and balances sometimes slipped a bit as each player let individual passions go. Of course, for a quartet nicknamed for a song pleading with the Grim Reaper to be spared death, that seemed reasonable. If all this seems a tad serious, it was; but the two quartets were separated by the sheer bravura of Doppler’s Hungarian camp. The Doppler brothers, Franz and Karl, were two of the leading flute virtuosos of the 19th century. They held posts with the Pest Opera before moving to Vienna. They also toured Europe together and composed works, including a considerable body of flute music. Franz, however, was far more absorbed in composition. He wrote several successful operas in Budapest, and when he later became conductor of the Vienna Opera’s Ballet, he wrote 15 ballets. The Hungarian Fantasy is 12 minutes of unyielding hell for the players, after a short, pompous piano introduction. The thing never lets up, which is amazing to me. Try exhaling full-force for 12 minutes, and see if you can remain level-headed. (I suggest sitting down before you try.) Of course, the piece is more than a tad hollow in its determined vaudevillian silliness. It was designed as a showstopper, and if it’s more than a little vulgar, it is deliciously so. As one of my Jewish friends used to say, “If you’re going to eat ham, might as well get your face greasy.” There is nothing halfhearted about the Doppler. And the Fantasy, a kind of confectionary potpourri, is go-for-the-jugular Doppler. I loved it, mostly because the flute playing was superb. McKee and Day breezed though Doppler’s demonic filigree with no more trouble than someone flicking away a meddlesome fly. When the piece was finished, I noticed that they took their bows with wry smiles, and maybe just a touch of embarrassment at having played such a naughty raid on the repertory's cookie jar. I’d never heard the Doppler before and am grateful for the exposure to it — but if I never chance upon it again, that’s just fine.
Wonderful playing aside, it seems to me that the Symphony’s chamber series missed the programming boat. Why play quartets at all when there’s already a heavy supply of quartet performances around the Bay Area? After all, with a nearly infinite supply of instrumentation available from within the orchestra, why not go for larger mixed groups, especially unusual ones? There’s no shortage of masterpieces among those, so why waste your opportunities by presenting well-played duplications? What about the Schubert Octet, the two Brahms string sextets, or that sensational Brahms G-major double viola quintet? Speaking of quintets, Mozart’s string quintets contain the greatest of his chamber compositions. Not far behind those are the Serenades and Divertimentos for winds. There are fine works involving brass instruments such as (don’t cringe) Saint-Saëns’ Trumpet Septet; for percussion ensemble, there’s the Chavez Toccata, or for that matter, Mozart’s nutty A Musical Joke Divertimento — subtitled “The Village Musicians.” It’s brimming with deliberate wrong notes and overt sarcasm, like some sort of forerunner to Charles Ives' wackiness. And it always brings down the house. It wouldn’t hurt to sneak in some quality piece of 18th century American chamber music either, of which there’s a considerable body: the Antes string trios, the six Peter double viola quintets, or those woodwind Water Music Partitas, written for Sunday picnics on Lehigh River. This is all charming, skillful stuff, even if admittedly not superior to the European masters. Such choices are absolutely viable commercially, if only given a chance.
(Heuwell Tircuit is a composer, performer, and writer who was chief writer for Gramophone Japan and for 21 years a music reviewer for the San Francisco Chronicle. He wrote previously for Chicago's American and the Asahi Evening News.)
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