This afternoon in Davies Symphony Orchestra, the musicians of the San Francisco Symphony (SFS) presented the final concert in their annual Chamber Music Series. Their program, in turn, concluded with Franz Schubert’s D. 898 piano trio in B-flat major. There is no certainty about when this piece was completed; but in all probability he finished it on the threshold of the final year of his life, if not beyond that threshold.
Those familiar with Schubert’s life know that he was prodigiously productive (perhaps productive unto an extreme) during the last twelve months of his life. That productivity can be detected in not only the number of works he composed but also the prodigious length of many of the individual movements of those compositions. This is particularly evident in the final Rondo of D. 898, whose structure based on a repeated theme can accommodate just about any overall duration. In Schubert’s case, around the time that the listener thinks that Schubert is finally approaching the coda, (s)he discovers that he was not yet ready to put down his pen; and yet another cycle of the rondo unfolds.
This afternoon D. 898 was performed by violinist David Chernyavsky (from the SFS Second Violin section) and Assistant Principal Cello Amos Yang. They were joined by German pianist (now living in the Bay Area) Marcus Pawlik. Schubert’s creative juices were already flowing in full force as the opening Allegro moderato got under way, and these three musicians had no trouble is allowing the full scope of the music to unfold in not only the accessibility of this themes but also that uncanny sense of diversity with which those themes unfolded.
The overall chemistry could not have been better. Pawlik knew exactly how to adjust his dynamics to those of the string players and the blend of violin and cello could not have been better. This was the sort of performance that left the attentive listener wishing that these three players had enough time to prepare an encore (which, alas, they did not).
By way of contrast, the first half of the program was devoted to relatively unfamiliar compositions from the first half of the twentieth century. As was the case a little over two years ago, Associate Principal Flute Robin McKee arranged a performance of a trio by Philippe Gaubert. Once again, her son Britton Day was the pianist; and the third performer was violinist Mariko Smiley, who holds the Paul & John Gambs Second Century Chair in the First Violin section.
Due, perhaps, to the influences of impressionist painting, Gaubert seems to have preferred descriptive titles to identifying just an abstract formal structure or tempo. The 2017 selection was “Aquarelles;” and this year the composition was entitled “Médailles antiques” (antique medallions). It consisted of only two movements, separated by only a brief pause and with the second movement reflecting back on the principal theme from the first.
The program note by James M. Keller associated Gaubert with Maurice Ravel, but I have now heard enough of his music to feel that Gabriel Fauré would make a much better match. Of particular interest was the intricate polyphony between flute and violin involving the alternation of primary and secondary beats. This was vividly evident in the first movement, “Nymphes à la fontaine” (nymphs at the fountain). The alternations of beat patterns elicited an uncanny evocation of the falling water of a fountain, and McKee and Smiley had just the right amount of engagement to encourage that association.
The program began with one of the few chamber music compositions by Max Bruch. This was an octet scored for four violins (Yun Chu, Amy Hiraga, Chen Zhao, and Raushan Akhmedyarova), two violas (Nanci Severance and Gina Cooper), cello (Associate Principal Peter Wyrick), and bass (Principal Scott Pingel). One sign that Bruch was not quite in his element was that he seems to have organized his resources around a string trio (Chu, Severance, and Wyrick) with an accompanying quintet. Nevertheless, the music itself had an unmistakably engaging flow in which one could appreciate the intricate patterns of “accompaniment” as well as the thematic vocabulary allotted to the trio.
On the whole this has been a good season for the Davies Chamber Music Series; and I, for one, am already looking for the announcement of selections to be performed next season!
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