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Chamber Music

Green Music Festival, Sonoma State University, July 13
By Janos Gereben

ROHNERT PARK - Why would PBS advertise passion?  No idea what's behind that
current run of incongruous ads on public television for public television,
but the one in which members of a string quartet smash their instrument at
the finale came into focus at a Green Music Festival concert here on Sunday.

Jeffrey Kahane and the Borromeo String Quartet were on fire themselves,
playing con fuoco, rushing rather troppo towards the climax of the Franck
Piano Quintet in F minor, marked clearly as Allegro non troppo.  They put
enough muscle into the music to burn down a whole forest.  This was unambiguous,
unashamed Romanticism, with a capital R.  In the great rush (which soon
brought the audience to its feet for three loud and sincere rounds of ovation),
that PBS image popped up.  Will these fine musicians go by way of barbarian
destruction?

They didn't have to.  Passion was writ large in the performance of this
passionate-as-hell music, but (except for the all-too-audible breathing of
the violist) nothing interfered with the quality of the music.  The balance
was glorious, Kahane's piano singing over the smoothly billowing surface of
the strings exactly right, the violins of Nicholas Kitchen and William
Fedkenheuer speaking as one, Mai Motobuchi's viola dark and intense, Yeesun
Kim's cello solid and restrained as ever.  Sonoma State University's superb
concert hall, the Evert B.  Person Theater, was only half full on this hot
afternoon, but the concert and its reception were as electrifying as anything
in the Green Festival's distinguished history.

But here's something strange: the Franck - with its gorgeous first movement,
gentle Lento, and that fire-eating Allegro - may in the long run end up as
not the most memorable part of the program.

Debussy speaks, Golijov overwhelms

The contest for the title is a toss-up between an utterly simple and
"different" Debussy and a large, exciting, contemporary work by Osvaldo
Golijov.  The latter, "Dreams and Prayers of Isaac the Blind," is perhaps
the favorite by virtue of its novelty.  But the program-opening Debussy
Sonata in G minor for Violin and Piano certainly made its mark.

Kahane (who is festival director and takes part in most performances)
and violinist Eric Wyrick opened the 1917 sonata as if conducting a quiet,
intimate conversation.  This simple but powerful work, written shortly before
his death, presents a "different Debussy," one of substance and contemplation,
rather than the composer of lush, large-scale, coloristic music.  Wyrick,
a musician who makes his instrument disappear in the performance, played
thoughtful, weighty phrases, answering the piano's rumination.  Seldom have
I heard a non-verbal conversation as clear and yet intriguing as this.

In the second movement, Wyrick's violin briefly gave in to a kind of Gypsy
passion, interrupting the piano's calm, broad phrases, the roles being
reversed in the Finale, Kahane's brilliant notes infused with excitement,
the violin now representing the calm center.  The two joined in the race
towards the conclusion, described by Debussy as "a simple play on a thought
that twists itself like a snake biting its own tail." The G Minor Sonata
demands to be heard again, perhaps even more than the composer's more famous
works.

Fixing the world with the screws in grandfather's pocket

Brilliance was sustained in the concert's centerpiece, Golijov's 1994 work
for string quartet and clarinet...  FIVE different kinds of clarinet, all
played suprbly by Todd Palmer.  The composer, born in Argentina, in 1960,
to Eastern European Jewish refugee parents, wrote the piece inspired by a
blind rabbi who lived 800 years ago.  But, apparently, there are more personal
and contemporary connections at play as well.

In introducing the work, Kahane quoted Golijov about his childhood, living
with his grandfather, and remembering the old man's pocketful of screws with
which he would fix broken things about him.  Having lost three of his sons
and his life's work in the Holocaust, why would the man keep praying and
trying to fix what's broken, Golijov wondered.  The grandfather's resolution
and, ultimately, the composition itself have something to do with the possible
existence of hope, faintly evident if at all.

The 35-minute work opens with hushed strings, the clarinet slowly
joining them, entering as a member of the ensemble, not a soloist.  Slowly,
thoughtfully, the music shakes off its original melancholy, and the clarinet
leads the the strings in a klezmer-tinged Jewish dance.  A lively argument
ensues, the strings quarreling with each other, the clarinet gradually gaining
upper hand over them.  So far, "Isaac" has the making of a fabulous film
score, to accompany different stories for each listener.  But at this point,
a major change takes place.

Beyond the soundtrack

The Borromeo strings break out in harsh, ugly dissonance, no longer a
discussion or dispute, but something sinister, threatening.  The clarinet
protests, passionately, with all its strength (Palmer's performance was
stunning at this point), and the world returns to its normal, tonal self,
although with faint cries of anguish in the background.  The end of the
first movement is suspenseful, with intimations of darkness and danger.

The second movement also opens with muted strings, Kitchen is featured in a
virtuoso passage, a strange, private landscape unfolds before Klezmer dance
takes over.  A brief transition (perhaps the entire work's only weak spot,
not contributing much) leads to a quiet, resigned song, which grows into a
manic dance, interrupted by clarinet's "wrong notes," ending in strange,
strangulated sounds.

Loss, coping with loss, hanging on, the desire to keep fixing broken things
against all odds: all that comes through in the work's superb third movement.
It opens with a simple folksong, reminiscent of Bartok's music, contemplation
turning into desperation, then the strings comforting and strengthening the
lonely clarinet, Beethovenesque hammer strokes thunder (try to do that with
strings, but the Borromeo does it with ease), as the bass clarinet searches
for something in the night descending over the scene.  "Isaac" is an
extraordinary work; it was performed at the Green Music Festival by Palmer
and the Borromeo with conviction, commitment, and mastery.

Janos Gereben/SF
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