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CHAMBER MUSIC REVIEW
Tasty Sundae April 28, 2002
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By Jeff Rosenfeld
Chamber Music Sundaes at Berkeley's St. John's Presbyterian Church offer
some of the area's finest musicians, out of the San Francisco Symphony. No
matter who's playing or what the combination of instruments, you can count
on some virtuosity as well as seasoned teamwork. The latest in the
series, a matinee last Sunday, was no exception.
We expect pretty much the same from our composers as well — a high level of
polish no matter what the combination of instruments. Often, pieces are
written specifically in response to the inspiration of the instrument or one
of its proponents. This applies particularly to contemporary American
composer John Harbison, who's proven his facility with instrumental and vocal
color in large orchestral pieces and opera as well as in chamber works and instrumentally accompanied songs. Typically, his Six American Painters, a
two-year-old piece, was gratifyingly consistent.
Harbison's twelve- to thirteen-minute work is scored for flute or oboe with violin, viola, and cello, played here by the SFSO's principal oboist William Bennett, violinist Amy Hiraga, violist Adam Smyla, and cellist Peter Wyrick. Harbison based the piece on six paintings — or painters, actually — after a visit to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. He tried to evoke the experience of sight, which often yields general impressions, rather than that of listening, which often gathers only small fragments and details. Each movement is named after a famous American painter: George Caleb Bingham, Thomas Eakins, Martin Johnson Heade, George Inness, Hans Hoffman, or Richard Diebenkorn. Bennett showed reproductions of the paintings in an introductory talk. In each artist's movement, of only one or two minutes, Harbison did succeed in focusing on the general rather than the specific impressions. Tone-painting skills were evident in the very impressionistic "Inness" and the flitting light ahead of the coming thunderstorm in Heade's landscape. Eakins seemed appropriately clinical or cerebral; Hoffman abstract and bold. But impressions seemed general also because Harbison is a conservative, careful composer who doesn't often take chances or make huge gestures. There were no unpleasant harmonies, no weird sounds, and ultimately not much really new. It's finely-crafted, challenging music that anyone would enjoy playing and most listeners would consider very safe, straying not far from Baroque solo fantasias here, or Ravel and Copland there.
The two pieces following intermission were staples of the oboe quartet tradition: the Phantasy Quartet, Opus 2, by Benjamin Britten, and Mozart's Oboe Quartet, K. 370. In both, the performers seemed drawn toward speed and accents in the fast sections. The resulting excitement was palpable, as was the challenge of some quick staccato tonguing required of Bennett. If this wasn't the cleanest Mozart performance I've ever heard, the chances taken did succeed. The playing had great verve and grace with a gorgeously if somewhat loudly sung middle movement. The Britten was "edgier" than I'm accustomed to hearing but still basically congenial, and all the better as a result. The group imaginatively brought out the influence of Igor Stravinsky's A Soldier's Tale on the 19-year-old Benjamin Britten as he penned this quartet. The work is less of a solo turn for the oboe than the Mozart and most of the Harbison, and the integration was remarkable. Despite Bennett's sublimely sweet and tender tone, I couldn't help but notice the equally gleaming contributions from his collaborators here. This was a treasurable partnership, from the delectable, wry opening from Wyrick and Smyla to a perfect handoff between Bennett and Hiraga after the oboe's penultimate phrase.
Bennett pointed out that all three works on the second half were written for particular players. This was not true for the opening half of the program. Brahms did not write his Quartet No. 1 (Op. 51, No. 1) in C minor for particular string players or group. String quartets have enough cachet on a composer's resumé and Brahms felt compelled to write them regardless of who needed them. For Brahms, who had already written substantially for his own instrument in different settings, this apparently wasn't an easy task. He started writing string quartets at age 20, and ripped up more than a dozen sketches in various states of completion over nearly two decades before finally having this one pulled out of his grasp and into print by his publisher, Fritz Simrock, in 1876. The quartet on Sunday's program may have been in gestation for a decade and nearly complete for several of those years. Undoubtedly the dedication of this quartet to the composer's physician friend Theodor Billroth is a partly humorous reference to how, ultimately, friends and associates "surgically removed" the quartet from Brahms to get it published. Brahms was a perfectionist and as a result, his debut quartet has energy, beauty, and economy. He crafted a unique statement of his style within the rich heritage of the genre. I often find that this piece can't communicate, with its opulent, ready-made warmth, however. It responds well to boldness and clarity that come naturally to Brahms's favored piano but are sometimes difficult to achieve in a string quartet. The performance on Sunday (by Diane Nicholeris and Chen Zhao, violins; Seth Mausner, viola; and David Goldblat, cello) was undeniably beautiful and warm.
As proficient and expressive as the performance was, however, it favored smoothed transitions, blended textures and sensible balances. Overall, it muddied the liveliness of give-and-take and rhythmic drive (as in first-movement staccato passages) that make the work more youthful than Brahms's 40 years. On the other hand, I liked the care that went into building momentum in the second movement and the lovely release of tension at the end of the first. The last movement also picked up some of the energy that had seemed absent earlier. Perhaps best of all was the third movement, which always surprises with its genteel manner. It had a most lovely middle un poco piu animato. Nobody wrote more soothing allegretti than Brahms, regardless of the instrument he had in mind. (Jeff Rosenfeld is an oboist with the Kensington Symphony, West County Winds, and Pacific Wind Ensemble. He is a freelance science journalist and author of the recent book, Eye of the Storm: Inside the World's Deadliest Hurricanes, Tornadoes, and Blizzards.) ©2002 Jeff Rosenfeld, all rights reserved |