SFIPF Begins “Season of Reflection”

Last night the San Francisco International Piano Festival (SFIPF) began its fourth annual season, entitled “A Season of Reflection.” All of the performances will be live-streamed for YouTube viewing, and it appears that all video content will be saved for post-performance viewing. The title of last night’s program was A Call to Reflection, conceived as a Schubertiade recalling that SFIPF opened its inaugural season in 2017 with a Schubertiade. The program was presented in collaboration with LIEDER ALIVE!, featuring LIEDER ALIVE! Artist-in-Residence mezzo Kindra Scharich. The pianist for the evening was SFIPF Artistic Director Jeffrey LaDeur (who performs regularly at LIEDER ALIVE! recitals). The recorded video of the concert may now be viewed on a YouTube Web page.

The program consisted of four of Schubert’s songs interleaved with the movements of the D. 894 piano sonata in G major. D. 894 was Schubert’s first significant venture into composing a four-movement sonata of extended length, and his experimental spirit is most evident in the scale accorded to the first two movements. The first movement was followed by Scharich singing the D. 741 setting of Friedrich Rückert’s “Sei mir gegrüsst!” and the D. 686 setting of Ludwig Uhland’s “Frühlingsglaube.” The second and third movement were separated by “Der Lindenbaum,” one of the poems by Wilhelm Müller in the D. 911 Winterreise cycle, and the D. 827 setting of Matthäus von Collin’s “Nacht und Träume.”

While purists might take issue with this approach to programming, the fact is that the first two movements of D. 894 are as demanding on the attention of the serious listener as they are on the pianist worrying about proper execution. “Cognitive processing” deserves a break, particularly at the end of the first movement; and I have encountered pianists sensitive enough to take a prolonged pause following the movement’s conclusion. (Think about the pause taken following the first movement of Gustav Mahler’s third symphony.)

That said, last night’s technology was not particularly equipped to take on the vocal selections. Scharich’s performances were attentive and sensitive, and there was no faulting her chemistry with LaDeur. Nevertheless, song recitals almost always benefit from text sheets; and while a program book for the entire Festival is available as a PDF download, no provision seems to have been made for song texts. Presumably, the selections were familiar for many listeners; but the full impact of the music comes from appreciating its interplay with the words being set. Furthermore, absolutely no information was provided about the Schubert song that Scharich took as her encore.

On the other hand there was more than enough to engage the attentive listener in LaDeur’s account of the D. 894 sonata. His approach to tempo was particularly effective in leading that listener through Schubert’s many devices of prolongation. He also knew how to command the full breadth of dynamic range. If there was any problem, it was that some of the louder passages came across as a bit too thundering. This is one of those compositions that I tend to prefer on a “historical” instrument, on which the loud passages tend not to blur the contributing roles of the individual notes. There is enough dramatic intensity in this music that the pianist should not have to worry about cranking the volume level up to eleven!

Nevertheless, LaDeur’s reading was definitely a compelling one, compelling enough to transcend the lack of physical immediacy in a cyberspace setting.