Included in the two-hour program were compositions by Dusan Bogdanovic, Ravi Shankar, György Kurtág, Reza Vali, Bright Sheng, and Sergei Prokofiev. Performed in various configurations by Stacey Pelinka (flute), Michel Taddei (double bass), Michael Goldberg (guitar), and Eric Zivian (piano) — who comprise one-fifth of Left Coast’s 20 members — the concert will be reprised Sept. 24 at the Throckmorton Theatre in Mill Valley.
The concert’s first half started with a captivating performance of Bogdanovic’s Songs and Dances From the New Village for flute and guitar, which weds Western conventions to folk traditions of the composer’s native Yugoslavia (and surrounding regions).
In five miniature movements, Bogdanovic charms the ear with a gentle shepherd’s song, tips his hat to J.S. Bach in a pair of contrapuntal dialogues, and exalts in a couple of whirling folk-dance episodes. Pelinka and Goldberg gave each a fleet, zesty performance.
Like Bogdanovic, Kurtág tests the tensile strength of his links to Bach; the Hungarian composer’s whimsically titled six Bagatelles, Op. 14d, for piano, bass, and flute, open with an aptly named “Furious chorale” and quickly move on to the deftly interwoven lines of “Hommage á J.S.B.” The slow, waving lines of “Like the flowers of the field” suggest both poise and motion; “Wild and tame” and “Flowers we are, mere flowers” integrate silence with fierce outbursts from the individual players. In “La Fille aux cheveux de lin – enragée” (The “crazy” girl with the flaxen hair), Zivian, Taddei, and Pelinka dispatched Kurtág’s tight unison lines with exquisite focus and precision.
In between came Shankar’s L’Aube enchantee for flute and guitar, one of the few compositions for Western instruments by the Indian sitar master. Cast in the traditional four-part raga structure, the work both adheres to, and compresses, the Indian form. After a contemplative introduction, the flute ascends over the guitar’s sitarlike drone; the two instruments eventually meet and entwine before dissolving in a blissful dance. Alert and agile, Pelinka and Goldberg neatly captured the music’s mesmeric qualities.
Mixing It Up
In the second half, Reza Vali’s Persian Suite (Folk Songs, Set 12e) incorporated Armenian and Iranian folk traditions in three movements for flute and piano; the middle section, marked Allegro scherzando, boasts an especially vivacious melody. If the composer lets the grand sweep of the two outer movements occasionally carry away his expressive content, Pelinka and Zivian still played with fierce commitment.Bright Sheng’s Sweet May Again revels in the pure sound of piano and bass. In the piece, which was composed for Emmanuel Ax and Edgar Meyer, the opening pages’ manically racing lines suggest American jazz, but open onto serene vistas redolent of the composer’s native China. With Zivian anchoring the performance, Taddei drew an astonishing array of bowed and plucked sounds from his instrument.
Coming at the end of the program, Prokofiev’s Sonata in D Major for flute and piano, Op. 94, seemed destined to gild the international lily. Yet all reservations evaporated on hearing the fluid, graceful performance by Pelinka and Zivian. Composed in exile in Kazakhstan during Germany’s invasion of Russia, the score’s simple melodies could only be heard as a lyrical evocation of Prokofiev’s homeland. In that sense, it proved an ideal companion to the evening’s other works.