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RECITAL REVIEW
March 27, 2004
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By Scott MacClelland
Even at the end of a delicious evening of clarinet playing, it was the program-opener that haunted the memory. Neither Weber, nor Milhaud, nor Brahms could deny Francis Poulenc's end-of-life sonata its inherent expressive potency and dignity. David Shifrin knows better than most the paucity of great works for his instrument. But he may not have accurately anticipated that he had saved the best for first in a recital with distinguished pianist Andre-Michel Schub, heard at Carmel's Sunset Theater last Friday. (While both artists had previously performed in Carmel it was the first time they appeared together.)
Of course, execution counts as much as repertoire, indeed even more. On this occasion, where the Poulenc's wistful soul was bared, the Brahms sonata in E flat sounded more workaday than deep, more about the craft than the art of making music. In both cases — in all cases actually — there could be no denying the mastery of the instrument that Shifrin consistently displayed, not least for his pure, straight tone. His lack of vibrato is a refreshing tonic for the ear all too often finessed by musicians of unreliable pitch.
The Poulenc sonata, a virtual paraphrase of his melancholy Sonata for Flute, carries the same expressive ambivalence that torments the character Blanche de la Force in his opera Dialogues des Carmelites. Even the work's Offenbachian finale only partially succeeded in putting on a jovial face. In turn, however, Darius Milhaud's brief Grand Duo dispelled any residual ambivalence, turning the evening into champagne, a frothy atmosphere that was further confirmed by the Grand Duo of 1816 by Carl Maria von Weber. For better or worse, it was the Weber that gave Schub his first big chance to soar en solo, to take his stand in a display piece of high-flown superficiality.
Separating the Weber from the Brahms was the brand new, ink-still-wet Chinese Ancient Dance by Chen Yi, a work that had been premiered only the night before in Portland. In six short minutes Shifrin at least doubled the color palette and expressive range of his instrument. Here was Chinese-style tone painting of pungent richness, with bent notes, slowly measured vibratos and pentatonic allusions. While Shifrin's part was soloistic and ‘oriental,' Schub's ran parallel as ‘occidental' outbursts, sounding more like percussive accompaniment than equal partner. But Schub once again claimed equality in the Brahms sonata, one of that small handful of clarinet masterpieces that emerged late in the composer's life after he took unexpected inspiration from the clarinetist Richard Mühlfeld. If less transporting than the exalted Quintet in B Minor, the work's pages — and those of its companion Sonata in F Minor — are filled with beguiling felicities and turns of phrase. Most engaging were the variations of the final andante. Answering a warm audience response, Schub and Shifrin returned for the allegretto grazioso from the aforementioned Sonata in F Minor. Slated for the sponsoring Carmel Music Society's 2004/05 season are the David Finkel/Wu Han cello-piano duo, I Solisti di Venezia, pianist Frederic Chiu, Vienna Choir Boys and, in its 50th-anniversary tour, the Beaux-Arts Trio. (Scott MacClelland, since 1978, has written music criticism and journalism for all the major newspapers on the Monterey Peninsula, and for the Metro papers in Santa Cruz and San Jose. During the same period, he has taught music history for Monterey Peninsula College.)
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David Shifrin
Andre-Michel Schub