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Eye on Arts

7.3.04

Beethoven Boyled Down, cont. — by Jens Laurson
Contributed by Charles T. Downey at 6:37 PM | Link to this article
Usually introducing every piece with a few words, Emil Chudnovsky made reference to the fact that there was "rather a lot of music" on the program and, hoping that the ensuing Brahms would speak for itself, that the fewer words were said, the better. The way he and Michael Sheppard dove into the Brahms sonata (1888) proved this assumption right from the get-go. Deft and with a perfectly appropriate "take no prisoner" approach! The famous Adagio line was somber rather than wallowing in emotion. No unnecessary lingering on notes was befitting the more energetic reprise of the theme that makes nonsense of an all-too-soft approach the first time around anyway. Un poco presto e con sentimento, the third movement—to its advantage, let be it said—was a good deal sooner presto than it ever got sentimento. The Finale: Presto agitato then was aptly wistful, witty, boasting, and stormy. The bow suffered more, but the sound afforded great effect and entertainment.

Intermission followed enthusiastic applause and gave me time to read up on who that contemporary composer, Benjamin C. S. Boyle, might just be. I already knew that he was in the audience and that he looked audaciously young. The looks weren't deceiving: Mr. Boyle is some very upsettingly 24 years young! Upsetting of course only to me and only because deep within me boils the gall of insane jealousy. But then, I haven't heard his Kreutzer Concert Variations yet: it could still turn out to be pleasingly hackneyed and deliciously atrocious. Unfortunately, I was disappointed. The piece, adapting the Beethoven sonata theme as the first few bars, immediately makes an important point: better well copied than ill created. After the introduction of the famous theme, the piece fits its variations out with a sumptuous, tamely modernist tint. Not terribly novel as a sound but utterly pleasing! Never really too challenging for the crowd, some of whom have already complained about how little of Ludwig van Beethoven was on the program ("Why do they call it the Beethoven Society then?"), it is solidly within the musical vernacular palatable to people who usually "draw the line" at late Beethoven. Yet it is also fresh enough to bring an enjoyable breeze into a program stuffed with warhorses. In some moments it was tempting to ascribe to the Kreutzer Concert Variations an energy not unlike, say, Bela Bartók's 4th String Quartet. (A recent performance of that masterpiece by the Takács Quartet at the Freer Gallery is still fresh in my mind.)

If I hold myself back in enjoying the work unabashedly, it is perhaps because I do not trust it quite yet. I would love to hear more of Mr. Boyle's work to see if substance is a regular part of it. The Washington Times's kind words about Mr. Boyle quoted in the program notes are of little help because the reviewer cannot resist tacking it onto his or her vitriolic antimodernist agenda. Mr. Boyle "seems somehow to have escaped academia's toxic postmodernist flotsam." I can't stand the message, but I love the great use of the word "flotsam"! Boyle's list of teachers, meanwhile, reads like a veritable "who's who" of modern composers. Lukas Foss, David del Tredici, Nicholas Maw, and Christopher Theofanidis, etc., are household names among the hard core of classical music lovers. This short work then, not surprisingly, is rather complementary to the earlier Beethoven. If it finds a few friends besides Emil Israel Chudnovsky, who collaborated with Boyle in the work's creation, I should like to hear it pop up in public performances. Especially for stuffy programs, it is like opening the windows for a few moments. If I am not mistaken, the performance was its premiere. (I should like to make that sound a bit more bombastic: it likely was the World Premiere!)

After this work, it was all downhill for me and pure delight for most of the rest of the audience. Saint-Saëns was a quaint and sweet thereafter with his Introduction and Rondo Capriccioso. Stripped of its orchestral part it dabbles along nicely, with plenty of effects by which Mr. Chudnovsky could show off his impressive skills on the fiddle. After the taxing first half, this was likely a pleasantly relaxing fare. Well, for Mr. Sheppard at any rate. Mr. Chudnosvky might beg to differ after the Sarasate Gypsy Airs and Ravel's Tzigane, even if he played them from memory. About Fritz Kreisler's Viennese Rhapsodic Fantasietta, there isn't much to say other than that it's not particularly Viennese, only moderately rhapsodical, and mostly devoid of fantasy. Ear candy with a sticky aftertaste. Quaint and made to please. The bow lost more hairs. So did I.

Zigeunerweisen—Sarasate's famous violinist's showcase—without the orchestra (who needs it, anyway) was indeed more "Cognac" (Chudnovsky's word) than a mean "Firewater" (my expectation). Splendidly done, for sure, but lacking in that pure testosterone and aggression that I like to hear in this piece. Tonight it was not so much a fierce fireball crashing down but rather a clown having a jolly good time and bumbling about. The crowd, surely, loved it, just as they had loved the Kreisler terribly much. Tzigane finally (still no orchestra but much in need of one) was a little lean and bare. Some 60 bars or so of amiable solo effort on Mr. Chudnovsky's part gave Mr. Sheppard some time to relax before the none-too-challenging piano accompaniment entered the scene. Sheppard got to race around on the keyboard for a bit, and then soon enough this somewhat anticlimactic end piece to a most astounding and fabulous evening was over. The standing ovations and bravos were forthcoming in force. Mine somewhere among them.

Chudnovsky and Sheppard then added an encore to the already full program, appeasing the audience's somewhat relentless applause. I still think that German labor laws likely forbid the amount of work put in by the young artists, but such concerns were not on the mind of anyone else. Any such laws would only have protected my ears from Jenö Hubay's Hejre Kati, op. 32, another gypsy pastiche with familiar tricks and familiar sounds by (judging by this work, at any rate) a justly unfamiliar composer. Alas, it fit the evening and was easy enough on the ears. A cutesy interaction between pianist and violinist (the latter playing an endless trill until the former turned the page for him) sent a collective chuckle through the audience.

So, the concert was great. Everyone with the urge to bother Messrs. Boyle, Chudnovsky, and Sheppard about it had the chance to do so at the reception afterwards. What bothered me, meanwhile, was the miserly reception itself. I know now that the embassy, just host to the event and not the organizer, can't be blamed for a skimpy cheese and coldcut buffet with crackers or the wine, which was somewhere between drinkable (at least a German white) and downright awful (red). "How can anyone possibly be so petty and complain about the less-than-stellar cheese after a great concert," you might ask. True, it seems negligible, but then it somehow is part of the experience. And especially after a great concert, especially at an embassy (no matter what the logistical details), it is not far-fetched to expect something with more thought. It is bad enough that the reception cannot take place in the representative reception hall, because September 11th aftershocks somehow disallow the use of it for the purpose for which it was built. Add cheap cheese and cheaper wine to that small grievance, and you, too, would leave with an unnecessary bad aftertaste. To say that this impression does not or will not stick would be a lie. But hopefully it cannot tarnish the outstanding evening that had been brought to everyone courtesy of the two young artists and the (upsettingly) young composer and the Beethoven Society.

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