SFP Gift Concert’s Journey of Discovery

Pianist James Baillieu (courtesy of SFP)

Last night in Herbst Theatre San Francisco Performances (SFP) presented its annual Subscriber and Member Concert, which serves as a “gift” to its most faithful attendees, made possible through the sponsorship of Camilla and George Smith. The performers were the duo of violinist Tamsin Waley-Cohen and pianist James Baillieu, both of whom were making their respective San Francisco recital debuts. Their program was organized around compositions by Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach, the second son of Johann Sebastian and the “godfather” of the First Viennese School composers.

The younger Bach was as prolific as his father, but he never seems to receive as much attention. Nevertheless, through the recordings available, I have come to know and love his solo keyboard music and his keyboard concertos. However, last night was my first encounter with his chamber music for violin and piano. I have to note at the outset that the piano was a Hamburg Steinway Model D; so this was not a “period instrument” performance. Nevertheless, one could appreciate both technical and rhetorical foundations in the approach that the performers took to the music, making for a thoroughly engaging journey of discovery.

The program was framed by two duo sonatas, Wq 71 in D major and Wq 76 in B minor. Between these was a performance of the more improvisatory Wq 80 fantasia in F-sharp minor. Finally, the encore selection presented the final movement (Allegretto) of the Wq 73 sonata in C major. Two nineteenth-century composers were interleaved into these offerings. Wq 71 was followed by Franz Schubert’s D. 574 duo in A major, and Wq 80 was followed by the original version for violin and piano of Robert Schumann’s Opus 94 collection of three pieces called “Romances.”

This “interleaving of centuries” made for a consistently engaging evening of well-prepared performances. The performers provided a bit of commentary on Bach’s influences, including a few quoted passages of texts by both Joseph Haydn and Ludwig van Beethoven. However, the music spoke for itself, leaving the attentive listener with a generous appreciation of how “the son” forged paths into new territories that “the father” would not have begun to consider. However, there was a bittersweet taste to that appreciation when one realized how few opportunities there have been to listen to music composed by “the son” in concert and recital settings here in San Francisco.