September 29, 2009: Fantasizing

The challenge in presenting a program of works called "fantasy," in one way or another, is that a "fantasy" is not really a perceptual category.  Alfred Mann demonstrated in The Study of Fugue that the proper way to approach fugue is as a process (as in "to fugue"), rather than a formal category;  and the same case can be made for fantasies.  There are any number of ways in which one can fantasize, and those options run the gamut from free improvisation to extended reflection within a strict formal framework.  The trick for the performer is to decide whether the composer has committed to some syntax, which establishes which are the most important instances and which the supplementary ones, or whether it is up to the performer to make that commitment (or, as is the case in the music of John Cage and his fellow New York School composers, that commitment should be left entirely to the listener).

Unfortunately, in today's Noontime Concerts™ recital at Old St. Mary's Cathedral, it was unclear where pianist Machiko Kobialka wanted to establish that commitment in the three fantasies (by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Béla Bartók, and Frédéric Chopin, in the ordering of her program) she performed.  All three of these compositions have both improvisatory and formal features;  but Kobialka never really established her position (even if it was not a fixed one) between the two ends of this spectrum.  The consequence of that indecision was most evident in the premature applause in the middle of the Chopin offering.  While it is easy to write off such behavior as audience ignorance, this can be attributed, at least in part, to Kobialka's inability to convey a sense of beginning, middle, and end in her interpretation of the work.  Between the Bartók and Chopin fantasies, Kobialka played three selections from the Songs Without Words collections of Felix Mendelssohn.  These are also relatively free-form compositions;  but, if they are not structured according to strict forms, they embody a certain "rhetoric of song" that leads the ear through the "journey" of each work.  By the same count, however, they accommodate the ear very comfortably, with little sense of tension and resolution and consequently seemed somewhat out of place in the context of the rest of the program.  The entire program was thus a not particularly satisfying experience, particularly where the cultivation of better listening practices is concerned.