September 21, 2009: Just-so stories about American music

One might thank that S.F.P.Q. has a peculiarly bipolar relationship in the matter of informing their audience.  The program notes for their Old First Concerts recital at Old First Church yesterday afternoon seemed to assume that those initials needed no explanation, which apparently puzzled some of those around me.  Given the composition of the ensemble (Robin Mayforth, violin;  Elizabeth Prior Runnicles, viola;  Angela Lee, cello;  Avi Downes, piano), "San Francisco Piano Quartet" would be the most viable hypothesis.  More perplexing was the title of the entire program:  Six Degrees:  Dvorák—Coming to America.  In this case, however, the event was structured to enable enlightenment to come through a lecture that Downes had prepared, which would be illustrated by the seven compositions on the program by Antonín Dvorák and six American (one by adoption) composers.

S.F.P.Q. is a skilled ensemble.  Listening to them is a real pleasure, even for those who may not share my almost obsessive interest in the piano quartet repertoire.  It is thus a pity that this opportunity to hear some really good musicians perform some really interesting music was seriously marred by a lecture that fumbled around with its points, ultimately running the gamut from ill-conceived to flat-out-wrong.  Had the objective been to demonstrate the impact that Dvorák had on the evolution of "American music as we know it" (rather than the other-way-around story of how he was influenced by the music he heard in America), then that objective could have been achieved simply by juxtaposing his music with representative examples;  but even the examples selected for the concert program did not serve the task of representation very well at all.

This is not the proper place to pick apart every last detail in the flawed reasoning behind this offering.  More important is that Dvorák's Opus 87 piano quartet in E-flat major received an attentive performance and did not suffer from having its first three movements open the program while saving the final movement to conclude the recital.  Similarly, although the logic behind including Aaron Copland's piano quartet may have been poorly conceived, it was more than worth while to have the opportunity to hear such a fine performance of even one (Adagio Serio) of its three movements.  Even more interesting was the opportunity to hear Runnicles perform the Impetuoso movement from Rebecca Clarke's viola sonata.  The occasion might have been even more fascinating had some material by Lewis Foreman that appeared on the Saint Paul Sunday Web site been included as introduction:

Clarke came to celebrity with her Viola Sonata, which was written while touring in 1918 and 1919, being started in Honolulu and finished in Detroit. She submitted it to the international competition for chamber music run by Mrs. Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge at her 1919 Berkshire Chamber Music Festival, held at her New England home near Pittsfield, Massachusetts. The 73 works submitted were judged anonymously and two scores for viola and piano tied—[Ernest] Bloch's Suite and Clarke's Sonata. The prize went to Bloch on Coolidge's casting vote. It is reported that when Clarke was revealed as a woman of 33 it caused considerable comment. ('You should have seen their faces!' wrote Coolidge.)

Ultimately, however, this was a recital in which the music should have been allowed to speak for itself;  or, as Frank Zappa put it less politely in the self-deprecating title of one of his albums, Shut Up 'n Play Yer Guitar!