November 6, 2009: Three perspectives on chamber music

One of the (many?) outstanding features of the Beaux Arts Trio, of which Menahem Pressler was founding member and pianist, was the extensive breadth of repertoire.  Now that the trio has disbanded, Pressler has entered a new phase of his career in which he continues to enjoy the diversity of repertoire by other means.  Those means include an annual one-week residency at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, where he gives a public Master Class and works with both faculty and students to prepare a program in the Chamber Music Masters series.  This is the week in the Conservatory academic year for Pressler's visit, and his recital took place last night in the Caroline H. Hume Concert Hall.

The diversity covered relatively familiar works from the eighteenth, nineteenth, and twentieth century.  The one weakness occurred at the beginning of the evening with the eighteenth-century offering, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's second piano quartet in E-flat major, K. 493.  Having had the opportunity to observe Pressler in both a wide variety of recitals and several years' worth of Conservatory events, including several of the Master Classes, I have come to the conclusion that the eighteenth century is his least comfortable element.  Last February I was even bold enough to suggest that he may have missed the point of a Joseph Haydn piano trio he was coaching at the Conservatory.  The problem then surfaced again last night and basically involved giving too much priority to the piano.

The result was the sort of discontinuity that is more evident in chamber music than in an orchestral setting.  We had a string trio of students, among whom there were rich channels of communication and a keen sense of balance (even if the violin was somewhat on the weak side);  and then there was Pressler at the piano.  For all of visual signs of attentiveness, it felt as if he was playing in a world apart from the students.  As a result, the quartet fractured into a trio and a piano solo;  and the spirit of the intimate conversations of chamber music was lost.

Once the program moved on from the eighteenth century, Pressler seemed to be on more secure ground;  and it may also be that he was more comfortable performing with faculty members.  The Mozart quartet was followed by Claude Debussy's 1915 cello sonata with cellist Jean-Michel Fonteneau.  This past September the prodigious fifteen-year-old Tessa Seymour performed this sonata in a Noontime Concerts™ recital at Old St. Mary's Cathedral;  and she happens to be one of Fonteneau's students.  Last night thus offered an opportunity to compare her voice with that of her teacher.  This particular sonata provides an excellent point of comparison, since it is both highly cerebral and intensely emotional.  It was the one portion of Seymour's recital in which I saw a spontaneous physical gesture interrupt her highly focused concentration.  Fonteneau's gestures were much more under control, resulting in a somewhat higher level of precision that facilitates listening to a composition in which even the slightest of the auxiliary notes contribute to the expressiveness of the whole.  In this respect Pressler was an idea partner, bringing that same sense of both the entirety and the richness of every detail to complement Fonteneau's conception of the solo voice.  As a student, Seymour is clearly in good hands with Fonteneau.  As the master, Fonteneau has much to offer to not only his students but those of us who can only appreciate him from the audience side of the hall.

Following the intermission, the program reverted to the nineteenth century and a composer for which Pressler has always had great affinity, Antonín Dvorák.  The work offered was his Opus 87 piano quartet in E-flat major, which Pressler performed with violinist Axel Strauss, violist Paul Hersh, and cellist Michelle Kwon.  Kwon was the only student member of the ensemble;  but she is already building up an impressive resume of professional appearances (one of which will be tonight with the Picasso Quartet).  Thus, while she may have been the "junior member" of the team, she was definitely holding her own in a conversation among equals.  This was particularly important since the nineteenth-century tradition of highlighting the slow movement with a rich cello passage was clearly operative in this particular composition;  and Kwon has cultivated an impressive track record of performances of such passages.  Most important, however, was that the entire ensemble was united in an integrated approach to the journey through the four movements of this quartet, from the opening Allegro con fuoco gesture (with particular emphasis on the "fuoco")  to the three massive forzando chords that close off the Finale.  This highlighted both the energetic and introspective sides of Dvorák's character with stimulating effect, leaving any weaknesses in the eighteenth century as a distant memory at the end of the evening.