O1C Presents Debut Recital of Duo Penseur

Chantel Charis and Alex Fang performing last night at Old First Presbyterian Church (screen shot from the YouTube video of the performance)

Last night in Old First Presbyterian Church, Old First Concerts presented the debut of a violin and piano duo called Duo Penseur. Both of the members, violinist Chantel Charis and pianist Alex Fang, studied in close collaboration under the guidance of the Chamber Music faculty at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music. They are currently doctoral candidates at widely separated universities: Charis is at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, while Fang is at the University of Washington.

The program they prepared spanned three centuries of music history. They began with the most recent selection, Jessie Montgomery’s “Peace,” which she completed in 2020. This established a meditative calm before the intensity of the remaining selections.

“Peace” was coupled with the second of Ludwig van Beethoven’s Opus 30 sonatas, composed in the key of C minor. Beethoven was not particularly fond of the violin, which is why the title page carries the description, “Sonata for Piano and Violin.” Nevertheless, this is a first-rate example of what Charles Rosen called “the classical style;” and Charis and Fang knew how to bring just the right level of expressiveness to the intense elaborations in Beethoven’s score.

The intermission was followed by two compositions separated by about a century. The first selection was Clara Schumann’s Opus 22, given the title Three Romances for Violin and Piano, which she composed in 1853. However, it was not published until 1855, not long after Robert Schumann had been committed to a sanatorium after his attempted suicide. (Clara may very well have concealed her manuscript from Robert.) It was clear from last night’s performance that Clara definitely had her own voice, and Duo Penseur made the case that it was a voice well worthy of attention.

William Grant Still’s suite for violin and piano was composed ninety years later in 1943. While the Harlem Renaissance is associated primarily with the history of jazz, Still was one of several composers to bring chamber music into the picture. I use the noun “picture” because each of the movements bears the title of a Harlem Renaissance painting: Richmond Barthé’s “African Dancer,” Sargent Johnson’s “Mother and Child,” and Augusta Savage’s “Gamin.” Fang showed images of these paintings from his tablet, but they could not be seen very well from a distance. Nevertheless, there was no shortage of “spirit of the period” in the performance of this suite.

That spirit was sustained into the encore selection. Jascha Heifetz prepared arrangements of songs from George Gershwin’s opera Porgy and Bess. Duo Penseur selected “It Ain’t Necessarily So” as “the last word” from the thoroughly engaging program they had prepared and executed.