I went to the last of the this season's Sunday afternoon chamber music recitals at Morse Hall this past weekend. The room was for some reason much more crowded than it had been for the last several weeks, and I was happy for the musicians' sake that they had gotten such a good turnout. The program lasted about 75 minutes with one ten minute intermission and featured the work of Gabriel Fauré, Reinhold Glière and Mozart.
The recital began with Fauré's Violin Sonata No. 1 in A major, Op. 13 (1875-1876) performed by Cindy Lin, violin, and Jae Young Kim, piano, and coached by violinist Lara Lev. I have to admit at the outset that I've never been a great fan of Fauré's music. Like much of the nineteenth century French repertoire, it's always seemed to me to represent a triumph of style over substance. The sonata was dedicated to Paul Viardot, son of the great singer Pauline Viardot and brother of Marianne Viardot who broke off her engagement to Fauré, for reasons never given, after only three months. The work was performed, however, by another violinist, Marie Tayau, at its 1877 premiere with Fauré at the piano. The sonata was championed enthusiastically by Saint-Saëns and has become a staple of the repertoire. Following its first appearance, seemingly every major French composer attempted to work in this format with varying degrees of success.
The next work was a selection of five movements from Glière's Duos pour Violin et Bass, Op. 39 (1909). These included the Prelude, Gavotte, Berceuse, Intermezzo and Scherzo. No reason was given why the other three movements were not included in the performance. Though Glière is not very well known in the West, he was a stalwart of the Soviet musical establishment, one of the few who survived from the pre-Revolutionary period to become highly honored during Stalin's regime. I thought the present piece interesting for its unusual combination of instruments but even more so for its traditionalism. It's hard to believe that Glière and Shostakovich were both active during the same period. It must have seemed highly unfair to the latter that Glière was so highly honored (four first-degree Stalin prizes) while he himself had to live in fear of his life for having created music that did not adhere to the strict party line. The musicians here were Rachel Minjae Kim, violin, and Yu-Chen Yang, bass; their coach was Eugene Levinson.
After intermission, the program concluded with Mozart's Duo for Violin and Viola in G major, K. 423 (1783) performed by Zhenyang Yu, violin, and Jiali Li. The coach was once again Lara Lev. The famous story behind this work, at least according to Mozart's wife Constanza, is that during a visit to Salzburg the composer pitched in when his friend Michael Haydn became too ill to complete a commission for six duos from Mozart's old nemesis Archbishop Colloredo. Mozart supposedly wrote two duos anonymously and then presented them as Haydn's work. It was only recently that Mozart had relocated to Vienna after having been fired by the Archbishop, and it's tempting to imagine him having fun with such a deception at the latter's expense. The truth, though, is that Mozart's style of composition for these instruments differed significantly from that of his friend. Mozart was an expert violist and in fact sometimes played that instrument when performing quartets with Michael's brother Joseph. He was therefore much better able to balance the two instruments than was Michael whose work placed the violin in a dominant position while the viola was assigned only a supporting role. In any event, the duo is a sparkling work that expertly plays off the two sets of strings one against the other in truly enjoyable fashion.
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