SFCM Cello Students in Recital

Last night the San Francisco Conservatory of Music (SFCM) presented a live-stream of a recital shared by four students in the cello department. The program, which was provided on the Vimeo Web page hosting the stream (and now hosting the recorded version of the performance), made no mention of the graduating year of each of the students; and, even more disappointingly, the names of the accompanying pianists were omitted. Apparently, “virtual” programs have not yet caught up to the past standards of program sheets, at least where students are concerned.

Over the past years I have taken different approaches to writing about student recitals. I feel that, since SFCM is an educational institution, it makes sense to keep track of what the students are doing, rather than focus entirely on faculty. At the same time, I have always tended to approach student recitals as works-in-progress, even when considerable progress may be appreciated. As a result I tend to pay more attention to repertoire choices, rather than diving into details of technique and expressiveness.

From that point of view, the high point of last night was the decision by Federico Strand Ramirez to play the first movement of William Walton’s cello concerto. Walton wrote this piece on a commission by Gregor Piatigorsky, who gave the world premiere performance with the Boston Symphony Orchestra conducted by Charles Munch on January 25, 1957. RCA then arranged recording sessions in Boston’s Symphony Hall; and that recording is included in the Gregor Piatigorsky: The Art of the Cello anthology.

Listening to Ramirez’ interpretation of the first movement, I found myself wondering why there have been so few occasions to encounter either performances or recordings of this concerto. The thematic material is boldly expressive, while affording many opportunities for technical display. My only real regret was that the execution was limited to accompaniment by piano. Walton had a keen ear for instrumental coloration, and his technical skill is immediately evident in the opening measures that precede the cello’s entrance. I was thus left hoping that Ramirez would not only extend his mastery to the entire concerto but also have the opportunity to play it with the Conservatory Orchestra.

The other concerto on last night’s program was given a “tag team” approach. Abigail Monroe played the opening movement of Robert Schumann’s Opus 129 concerto in A minor, and Daniel Yoo played the remaining two movements. One could appreciate the technical skills of both students, but there was a sense that both of them were still coming to terms with how to approach the often erratic qualities of the composer’s expressiveness. More straightforward was Julian Bennett’s account of the first movement of César Franck’s FWV 8 sonata in A major, originally composed for violin.

Where disappointments are concerned, I prefer not to call out students by name. Suffice it to say that the Courante movement from Johann Sebastian Bach’s BWV 1010 solo cello suite in E-flat major was the least satisfying account of the evening. Regular readers of this site should know by now my conviction that, whenever Bach wrote a dance movement, he had a clear sense of the steps of that dance in the back of his head. While we may never know just what those steps were, the approach to rhythm in the execution of this movement was not even a vague hypothesis of what those steps could be. All that mattered was putting out a convincing execution of each of the notes. On that account, however, there was disappointment in the lack of any awareness of the underlying bass line, even if most of the notes of that line were implicit.