Noa Wildschut’s Spotlight Debut at Davies

Violinist Noa Wildschut (photograph by Simon van Boxtel, courtesy of SFS)

Last night in Davies Symphony Hall the San Francisco Symphony presented the third in its series of four Spotlight concerts, all of which involved debut appearances under SFS auspices. The offering was a recital by Dutch violinist Noa Wildschut accompanied by German pianist Elizabeth Brauss, both appearing in Davies for the first time. The major work on the program was Maurice Ravel’s second violin sonata in G major.

This sonata was composed in 1927, meaning that it predates both of Ravel’s piano concertos. On the other hand, it postdates George Gershwin’s two major concertante compositions for piano and orchestra, “Rhapsody in Blue” and the three-movement “Concerto in F.” Gershwin had approached Ravel for lessons earlier in the Twenties. Ravel declined the request on the grounds that he “would probably cause him to write bad Ravel and lose his great gift of melody and spontaneity.” (Hollywood distorted history by writing that line as “If you study with me you'll only write second-rate Ravel instead of first-rate Gershwin.”)

Ravel labeled the second movement of his sonata “Blues;” and, to some extent, that movements serves as his sincere reflection on “first-rate Gershwin.” It begins with a strumming, which may have been inspired by the banjo required in the original “Rhapsody in Blue” score. However, it also reflects on Ravel’s earlier venture into jazziness of the duo between the teapot and the broken china cup (which is sung in English in pidgin Chinese) in Ravel’s one-act opera “L’enfant et lest sortilèges.” Indeed, those familiar with this opera can probably hear the teapot singing “I punch your nose” while listening to this sonata movement.

Neither Wildschut nor Brauss was shy in their account of this movement. Indeed, their dedication to evoking Ravel’s spirit spilled over in the wild “Perpetuum mobile “ of the final movement. This made the opening movement almost a calm before a storm to follow, although there are few jazzy riffs in seconds coming from the piano that foreshadow the adventures to follow.

Ravel’s sonata followed Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s K. 304 sonata in E minor. This consists of only two movements, an Allegro followed by a Tempo di menuetto. There is a tendency to associate Mozart’s minor key music with his darker side. However, Wildschut’s deliberately heavy-handed bowing on the G string (the lowest of the four violin strings) suggested that she was approaching the music with a more prankish rhetoric. This would have been perfectly consistent with the brash side of Mozart’s personality in his early twenties. Indeed, he composed the sonata while visiting Paris and may have deliberately thumbed his nose at French music-making practices. One seldom encounters such raw rhetoric in a Mozart sonata; but there was much to admire (and raise eyebrows) in Wildschut’s rhetorical approach to the score.

The second half of the program involved more recent music. “Sarasvati” was composed for the duo in 2018 by Joey Roukens. The title refers to a river in the north of India, but it is also the name of a goddess mentioned about 50 times in the hymns of the Rig Veda. Roukens limits his “orientalism” to a few pentatonic gestures evocative of Balinese gamelan music. However, as the score develops, the thematic material becomes more “Westernized;” and any sense of that river as a major force of nature emerges through Roukens’ own lexicon, rather than appropriation of Eastern resources.

The jazzy rhetoric of Ravel’s sonata movement returned with much gaudier attire in the final selection, Paul Schoenfield’s Four Souvenirs. This was composed in 1990, about five years after his more familiar “Café Music” piano trio. Both pieces probably reflect on an earlier stage in Schoenfield’s career, when he was house pianist at Murphy’s steakhouse in Minneapolis. Each of the Souvenirs movements explores a different dance form, but the rhetoric is more nostalgic than the raucous spirits of “Café Music.” Both Wildschut and Brauss knew how to capture that underlying sense of nostalgia without allowing the rhetoric devolve into mush.

The encore selection was presented with a dedication to the people of the Ukraine. Ludwig van Beethoven’s Opus 107 was entitled Ten National Airs with Variations for Flute and Piano. The seventh set of variations involved the Ukrainian tune “Ikhav Kozak za Dunaj.” The music may not have been familiar, but the spirit could not have been more genuine.