THE ART OF PROGRAMMING (1/28/2011)

I have wanted to experience a live performance by pianist Gilbert Kalish for years and was thrilled to discover that he would be performing with cellist Timothy Eddy at Mannes.  I suspected that it would be an interesting program and was not disappointed. First of all, it was clear that the performance would be a true duo and not cello with accompaniment.  The grand piano lid was fully open and Kalish, although ever sensitive to his partner, never held back or underplayed.

There was almost no standard fare here.  First on the program was Kultaselle: 10 Short Variations on a Finnish Folksong by Busoni.  This dark, intense work, only occasionally interrupted by a few glints of sunlight, set a very serious tone for the program.  This was followed by a performance of the rarely performed Sonata for cello and piano, composed by an 18-year old Henry Cowell under the tutelage of his first important musical mentor Charles Seeger. A large-scale four-movement sonata, the work nonetheless has the feel of a pastiche despite the obvious attempts at organic and cyclic structure Cowell imposes.  Irish tunes abound, but there is is also the hint of tango in one spot, a quote from Bizet's Carmen, exotic scales, and tone clusters (for which Cowell would become famous, or infamous).  There was an amusing moment in the performance before Eddy and Kalish began the second movement.  Kalish leaned over and said something to Eddy.  Eddy got up and left the stage.  He did announce to the audience that his shoes were squeaking and that it was distracting to Kalish.  So Eddy did what he needed to do to relieve his shoes of their squeak and returned.  I did notice that his demeanor was much more lighthearted from that point on.

The final work on the first half of the program, the Shostakovich Sonata for cello and piano, op.40 was, for me, the high point of the program.  It revealed the maximum artistry of both performers. In this sonata both neoclassical and Russian elements can be found in abundance. The satirical and the serious, the graceful and the grotesque, the refined and the crude bump up against each other.

The second half of the program began with Klid (Silent Woods) by Dvorak, his own transcription of an original work for solo piano.  The interplay between the cello and piano in this poignant work was a joy to experience.  The final work of the evening, Beethoven's Sonata for cello and piano, op. 102 no. 2 contained all the elements of Beethoven's late style.  Elements of surprise, unusual harmonic elements, and mercurial changes in character were all vividly conveyed.  As often occurs in Beethoven, the middle movement, concluding on a dominant, is connected to the final movement, a complex, intricate but also energetic and powerful double fugue.

The rapport exhibited between the performers only comes from extended collaboration over an extended period of time as well as a mutual appreciation of each other's temperament and artistic vision.