San Francisco Classical Voice

Some music needs a rhetorical jolt from an ensemble before it can come to life. It was the misfortune of the Weilerstein Trio that their Friday night program at the San Francisco Conservatory demanded, in all three works, a theatrical "goose" that they did not supply.

The Weilerstein Trio--pianist Vivian, violinist Donald, and cellist Alisa--first appeared in public when Alisa, daughter of the other two players, was 6 years old. What might have been a parental lark back then is now an established ensemble. Alisa, now 17, is developing a substantial reputation in her own right (a debut recital is forthcoming from EMI Records). And the trio's own debut recording, of the Ives Trio (not kid stuff, this!) is due out later this year from Azica Records.

In Schumann's D-minor Trio, op. 63, the Weilersteins made a polished and confident ensemble sound. Rhythmic discipline, especially between the strings, was admirably tight. The Scherzo's unison dotted rhythms, for example, were sharply articulated, unanimous, and perfectly in tune. Internal balances were fine, and Alisa more than held her own in the fray. Everything was strong, sensitive, eminently musical.

All the same, the performance came off as too sensible for its own good. Schumann's chamber music is famously finicky stuff, inert under one touch, positively smoldering under another. This performance was always too much in control. Had it risked vulgarity now and again, it might have been more moving, or at least more fun.

Alisa Weilerstein, who appeared only in the Schumann, is an extremely gifted cellist, with a liquid tone, a supple bow arm, and chops to burn. She has, however, one physical habit that eventually made her difficult to watch. Over and over again, she threw her head back, shook it, and gazed at the ceiling. Though the gesture might have been meant to convey unfathomable musical ecstasy, it actually looked like a contrivance, and not a very artful one either.

I have a high tolerance for extravagant physical gesture in musicians, when it is related to the moment-to-moment trajectory of the music--and that is the point. Ms. Weilerstein seemed to be superimposing physical gestures on the music, not moving in obedience to a musical impulse.

These things are often expected, indeed demanded, of concerto soloists. But chamber music is a collaborative undertaking, and a chamber player who appears to be in solitary communion with her Muse just looks silly--or worse.

Earlier, Donald and Vivian Weilerstein performed Bartok's Second Violin Sonata. Mr. Weilerstein, in sharp contrast to his daughter, is a scrupulously efficient player, sparing no extra strength for gesture, but directing all his energy to the pure production of sound.

Even so, the sound he produced tended to coarseness. The piece itself is rugged and occasionally ugly. But Weilerstein's inelegance seemed inadvertent rather than pointed. Nor was it yoked to the rhetorical power that might have redeemed it. The performance was curiously deadpan, matter-of-fact.

Donald and Vivian Weilerstein returned after the interval with three Conservatory students to perform Franck's F-minor Piano Quintet. The piece is not played much today, perhaps because preparing it entails clambering laboriously through the dense, chromatic undergrowth of the texture and deciding what needs to be brought out (or rather what needs, judiciously, to be pruned).

The music is so overstuffed with material as to be exhausting both to play and to listen to. But it can be thrilling, too, if equipped with a thundering, barnstorming pianist. On Friday night it wasn't. Vivian Weilerstein struggled throughout, never suggesting the imperious persona the part demands, and leaving handfuls of missed notes in her wake.

It was left to the strings to make the performance, and they came surprisingly close to doing so. Donald Weilerstein, as leader, played more intensely than he had all evening. The second violinist, Joseph Meyer, had made a strong impression in November as the only student in a faculty-and-guest-artist performance of Dvorak's Piano Quintet op. 81. Here he was again a standout player, both technically brilliant and musically inventive.

Randolph Fromme, the cellist, was also outstanding. His understated solidity and intelligence helped anchor a performance constantly in danger of derailment. Setareh Beheshti was the lean-toned and rather cautious violist in this mixed performance that rather typified the evening.

(Michelle Dulak is a violinist and violist who has written about music for "Strings," "Stagebill," "Early Music America" and The New York Times.)

©2000 Michelle Dulak, all rights reserved