Schubert, Mendelssohn, and Beethoven :  Seattle Chamber Music Society, Redmond, Washington, 07.08.2006 (BJ)

 

Following its festival at Lakeside School, which I wrote about last month, the Seattle Chamber Music Society presented the second phase of its summer programs at another evidently well-set-up area institution, the Overlake School in Redmond, across Lake Washington from Seattle. Of this shorter series, comprising five principal concerts, each preceded by a roughly half-hour recital, I attended the third evening (or rather, some of it, as I shall confess in a moment).

 

As at Lakeside, the pattern here offers a wealth of talent, with a mostly different cast of characters performing in each work on the program. The pre-concert segment on this occasion was in the hands of Orion Weiss, a 23-year-old American pianist of impressive musicality. The beginning of the single work that he played, Schubert’s late C-minor Sonata, did not promise particularly well, for it emerged in somewhat hard and unyielding tone. But Weiss warmed to his task, and by the time he reached the slow movement, he was producing some wonderful shades of color, especially in the tenor register. From this point on I found his playing extremely satisfying, highlighted as it was in the minuet by seductive rhythm and judicious timing of Schubert’s unusually notated unmeasured pauses, and in the finale by some mostly unerring marksmanship as he tackled the many crossed-hands passages that make this headlong movement even more than ordinarily challenging to the performer.

 

The concert proper started with the third, in B minor, of the three piano quartets with which Mendelssohn, before he reached the age of 15, announced his genius to the world. The performers were pianist Anna Polonsky, violinist Erin Keefe, violist Che-Yen Chen, and cellist Priscilla Lee, and they gave a rousing and finely detailed account of this astonishingly mature and attractive work.

 

But it was what followed that made the evening really special. This was Beethoven’s “Kreutzer” Sonata, in which pianist Shai Wosner partnered violinist James Ehnes. I have been an admirer of the young Israeli pianist since I first encountered him, participating with an Arab colleague in a performance of Mozart’s Concerto for Two Pianos with Daniel Barenboim’s West-Eastern Divan orchestra. Now, it was clear from his volcanic projection of Beethoven’s uncompromising piano writing, he has developed into a very major artist indeed. Ehnes I had not heard before, but all the good reports I had heard about him were borne out by his masterful handling of the no-less-taxing violin part. The white-hot Promethean incandescence the two ignited in the outer movements was beautifully offset by the insinuating grace of their Andante, where Ehnes, seconded by Wosner’s magically delicate right hand, offered touches of expressive intonation that illuminated all the humanity lurking, in Beethoven’s music, under his gruff personal exterior.

 

After such an experience, I’m afraid, the prospect of Max Bruch’s Piano Quintet after intermission was one I simply couldn’t face, and I apologize to its performers for fleeing, in great exaltation of soul, before the second half started. I could cite a performance of the “Kreutzer” by Jeremy Denk and Soovin Kim that I heard in Philadelphia a few years ago as rivaling the quality of what we heard at Overlake, but at so elevated a level of music-making, comparisons are merely paltry. That one was great, and this one was great–basta!

Bernard Jacobson