In Your Face Beethoven

Eric Zivian and Tanya Tomkins have been playing together as a period-instrument cello/keyboard duo for some time, but the first that many Bay Area listeners likely heard of their partnership was as two thirds of the solo contingent in Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra’s performances of Beethoven’s Triple Concerto last fall. The only prior recording of the duo that I’ve happened upon was also of Beethoven: the sonatas Opp. 5/2 and 102/2, the “Bei Männern” Variations (WoO46), and the Op. 119 Bagatelles, downloadable from magnatune.com

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Now here’s yet more (mostly) different Beethoven, in what I think is the duo’s debut recording on CD. Anyone who enjoyed the Magnatune release or the PBO “Triple” will need no more encouragement. And listeners unfamiliar with Zivian’s and Tomkins’ playing, even those leery of period instruments in music as late as Beethoven, will find a lot to enjoy in these vivid, spunky, and warmly characterized performances.

The Op. 102 sonatas are odd little things, with much of the cryptic, searching character we generally associate with “late Beethoven,” but none of the breadth. On the contrary, the music sometimes feels as though there’s too much going on in too small a space to take it in comfortably. The finale of the D-Major Op. 102/2 is an extreme example — a double fugue, all sharp angles and accents, that sounds rather as though pianist and cellist can’t keep their elbows out of one another’s faces. Both sonatas are full of sudden stops, abrupt reverses, seemingly unprovoked changes of tone or direction. This is tricky stuff, in other words: equivocal and fascinating, but not instantly lovable.

Op. 69, by contrast, is the golden retriever among the Beethoven cello sonatas — open, affectionate, lavish with its tunes, and endlessly lyrical in just the choicest parts of the cello’s range. Unsurprisingly, it’s much the most-often-programmed of the set.

It’s to the credit of Zivian and Tomkins that they handle these two sorts of music equally well. The disc-ending performance of Op. 69 is not without moments of strain; there are a few lines in the highest cello register that sound a bit pinched next to the best modern-instrument performances. But Tomkins has a mellow, open-hearted sound and a singer’s way with line. There’s no stiltedness or choppiness here, just the extra “chiff” of gut strings and that ever-present sense, common to good “period” players, of the bow’s gesture physically drawing the sound out of the instrument. Zivian partners her admirably, coaxing an unusually warm and attractive sound out of his 1815 Viennese instrument.

In the quirkier Op. 102 sonatas, the duo is lively, responsive, rhythmically alert, and occasionally cheeky. Meanwhile, the slow passages (like the opening of Op. 102/1, or the somber slow movement of Op. 102/2), have a sort of fragility about them that’s curiously poignant. I’ve rarely enjoyed this enigmatic music so thoroughly.

This very long CD contains a bonus, in the form of Beethoven’s last set of solo-piano Bagatelles, Op. 126. Zivian’s program note makes a convincing case that they’re meant to be played as a set, and his performance, with minimal gaps between pieces, bears it out. It’s articulate and intelligent playing, occasionally skittish, often tender, only rarely straining the instrument. (In the furious ending of the last Bagatelle, he lets the sound turn ugly.)