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RECITAL REVIEW
A Recital Lavish On The Showy
April 30, 2000
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By Stuart Canin
With the physical moves of a dancer from the show Forever Tango, violinist Gil Shaham powered his way through a not-too-adventurous program Sunday evening at Davies Hall. The main musical revelation was a charming suite taken from the Strauss opera Der Rosenkavalier, arranged by Vasa Prihoda, the Czech violinist who died in 1956. It was played to the hilt by this extraordinarily gifted 28-year-old violinist.
With a lavish tonal quality that he slathered on almost every note in every selection, Shaham definitely has the goods. Technically, in the demanding second half of the program, he proved his acrobatic talents during the swirling passagework of the Rosenkavalier Waltzes, and one of the encores, the Carmen Fantasy, arranged by Sarasate.
For the J. S. Bach Sonata No. 3 in E Major for violin and harpsichord, which opened the program, Shaham and his top-flight partner, pianist Akira Eguchi, opted for the full open lid on the Steinway grand. Purists in the audience, of whom, I'm sure, there were very few, could not have been pleased with this setup. But Shaham and Eguchi transformed the music to fit their concept, and it worked. The sound was rich and rewarding. The performance proved that Bach can be all things to all people.
The Beethoven Sonata, Op. 30, No. 2, in C Minor, however, brought problems, musically speaking. The duo performed it as if it were grand opera, with vast gobs of sound and unbelievably soft sections where the quiet contrasts took prominence over the notes that Beethoven put to paper. The slow movement was magnificently played. But the Scherzo and the final movement were tossed off too glibly. The Scherzo lacked charm, and the final movement would have profited from a slower, but more weighty, approach, to show the power that was uniquely Beethoven's. After intermission came the Five Melodies, Op. 35, of Prokofiev, not particularly memorable bonbons. They were followed by the Ukulele Serenade of Aaron Copland, in a technically fluent performance, but again one that was totally overinflated, given the place of the ukulele in music history. The Rosenkavalier Waltzes were sublimely played. With every musical nuance in place, it was a revelatory delight. The program ended with the two-part (slow-fast) Bartok Second Rhapsody. Again, Shaham and Eguchi were in their element, replicating the rough Hungarian folk quality with sterling affect. The audience responded with huge ovations and drew two encores from what must have been an exhausted duo: the Carmen Fantasy, arranged by Pablo de Sarasate, and the Poupée Dansante of Ede Poldini, arranged by Fritz Kreisler. (Stuart Canin, is former Concertmaster of the San Francisco Symphony and of Hollywood film orchestras, and the former Music Director of the New Century Chamber Orchestra.) ©2000 Stuart Canin, all rights reserved |
