Last night cellist Jennifer Kloetzel, known by many as a founding member of the Cypress String Quartet, returned to San Francisco to perform in last night’s Old First Concerts program at Old First Presbyterian Church. Now Professor of Cello at the University of California in Santa Barbara (UCSB), she had prepared a duo recital program to perform with pianist Allegra Chapman structured around three duo sonatas, each completed during a different century. The program began with the last of Ludwig van Beethoven’s cello sonatas, the second Opus 102 sonata in D major, composed in 1815. The final selection was Sergei Rachmaninoff’s Opus 19 sonata, completed in November of 1901. Between these was the world premiere of Richard Aldag’s cello sonata, which was completed in 2017 but was only scheduled for performance after we had begun to emerge from the COVID pandemic. Interleaved between these three compositions were two shorter selections. The Beethoven selection was followed by a set of four pieces by Frank Bridge, and Rachmaninoff was preceded by Libby Larsen’s “Juba.”
This made for an impressive journey through an engaging variety of different rhetorical stances. However, Kloetzel consistently established just the right dispositions appropriate for each of these works; and her chemistry with Chapman could not have been better. Some readers may recall that Kloetzel had released a “Complete Works for Cello & Piano” Beethoven album from Avie Records at the beginning of 2002, so I was not surprised that she took that recording as her point of departure. Nevertheless, it was clear that her partnership with Chapman took her down newer paths of interpretation than she had pursued on her recordings with her UCSB colleague Robert Koenig. Thus, however familiar this sonata may have been to much of the audience, last night’s performance had its own refreshing identity.
The same could be said of her approach to Rachmaninoff, whose sonata seems to have been gradually drawing more interest over the course of my current writing gig. He composed this sonata almost immediately after completing his Opus 18, the (second) piano concerto in C minor that has become one of his best known achievements. Opus 19, on the other hand, was his last venture into chamber music; and, as might be guessed, the pianist was an “equal partner” with the cellist, being the first to introduce each of the key themes in the sonata. It goes without saying that Kloetzel and Chapman approached this music as equals.
The Aldag sonata was another matter. He clearly knew how to establish rhetorical stances that would complement his approach to atonality. Nevertheless, even the most attentive ear has to adjust to how any atonal composer identifies his/her/their own “ground rules” for progression. On the basis of a single listening, I am willing to grant that Aldag was working from his own “rule book;” but even the most sympathetic listener would probably have to listen to this music a few times before orienting his listening around those “rules.” Hopefully, there will be future opportunities for becoming more familiar with this music.
While Kloetzel provided a few introductory remarks for the Bridge pieces, she neglected to mention that he was Benjamin Britten’s teacher. Indeed, any “road map” of English music in the twentieth century would probably include a path from Edward Elgar to Britten with Bridge as a midpoint. Nevertheless, like Aldag’s sonata, the Bridge pieces deserve more than one listening experience to establish themselves. Perhaps Kloetzel should bear that in mind in planning her next recording.
Larsen’s “Juba” dates back from 1986. The title suggests a joyous rhetoric. Sadly, too much of the overall journey felt as if it was dead serious. That mood was broken most effectively when Chapman took her hands off of her keyboard for a bit of rhythmic clapping. However, in the overall journey that Kloetzel had planned, “Juba” was the one “station” that came across as at least a little bit out of place.
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