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CHAMBER MUSIC REVIEW
January 30, 2005
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By Robert Commanday
There was a celebratory air late Sunday afternoon at the Sonoma Country Day School's Jackson Theater as the Santa Rosa Symphony inaugurated its three-concert “Vienna's Golden Age Festival.” It was special, and the 774 patrons who filled the fine new theater had to have been gratified. Jeffrey Kahane, their orchestra's music director, and two of his associates gave wholly absorbing performances of two of the great piano trios: Haydn's C major, Hob. XV: 27, and Schubert's prodigious E-flat, D. 929.
Haydn's C major Trio is a dazzler, on the surface for the piano part that in its virtuosity looks towards Beethoven and beyond — but more impressively and beautifully for the artfully Haydnesque musical design and invention. Talking to the audience beforehand, Kahane pointed out — and, with the two string players, illustrated — the harmonic “trick” in the big first movement which leads the music this way or that, unpredictably off course. The performance brought it home deliciously, Joseph Edelberg on the violin, Robin Bonnell on the cello. Following the themes as they evolved one from another, the profusion of ideas, the classic perfection of the phrasing and springy rhythm, convinces that this is the ultimate Haydn trio — until you hear some of the others, especially the next ones. To paraphrase the song from Finian's Rainbow: If I'm not with the Haydn piece I love, I'm in love with the one I'm with.”
The players' treatment of the Andante defined its affecting qualities, the gentle warmth of the Siciliano and then the unprepared Sturm und Drang in the middle. Perhaps best of all, the scampering Rondo is among the most humorous of Haydn's running jokes, with off-the-beat shifts in harmony and surprises at every turn. You laugh, again and again. To bring it off, Kahane had to pull out all his considerable dexterity and lightness of touch, and no matter how fast, each note sparkled. Wherever Schubert entire is “placed” in the Classical/Romantic scheme, and Kahane hedged on this during his remarks, the E-flat Trio moves earnestly into the Romantic. The vivid juxtaposition of moods, particularly the dark emotional cast made so intense within the larger, brighter context, had to have come from deep within the composer, broken in health and fortunes in the final year of his life. Noone today would impose a “program” on the work, but when the great sorrowing cello theme from the Andante con moto recurs twice, out of the blue, in the lively final Allegro moderato, it cuts to the heart. One cannot doubt that he was hearing the owl call his name. This is an early use of the cyclical procedure embraced and used evocatively by Romantic composers from then on. Kahane commented on the symphonic qualities in the piece, and that's evident in the expansive development and the insistent (sequential) repetitions in the first movement. It's evident in the extensions on extensions, constantly dodging what would seem to be the final cadence, shifting from key to key, putting codas on codas in the big last movement also. It is the same expansionism Schubert pursued famously in the piano sonatas. You get the impression that he is reluctant to let go of a great tune and move on. He has to hold on — to life.
The art for the performers is to make it expressive as they can while keeping the growing structure in the air and moving. This they did. The Andante is the heart of the matter. With Kahane setting the threnodic, marching pulse of the repeated chord, his colleagues and then he caught the somber eloquence of the themes, the feeling of embracing fate. When the cello had the primary part, Bonnell gave voice to it most expressively. There may be chamber music works more stirring than this, but with this performance in the ear, it's difficult to think what they might be. One little qualification is in order. The balance among the three wasn't the best. Better perhaps had the lid on Kahane's glorious Fazioli piano been on the short stick, because its splendid sonority overpowered Edelberg's violin tone, which is none too large. However, the festival opened with a deeply involving program. The folks in Santa Rosa have been in a golden age of their own during Kahane's tenure, and they know it.
(Robert P. Commanday, senior editor of San Francisco Classical Voice, was the music critic of The San Francisco Chronicle, 1965-93, and before that a conductor and lecturer at the University of California, Berkeley.)
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Jeffrey Kahane
Joseph Edelberg
Robin Bonnell