Piano Quintets Conclude SFP Chamber Series

Leif Ove Andsnes at his keyboard (photograph by Helge Hansen, courtesy of SFP)

Last night in Herbst Theatre, San Francisco Performances (SFP) concluded its Shenson Chamber Series with a program structured around two piano quintets. Pianist Leif Ove Andsnes, who has been giving SFP performances since November of 1994, performed with members of the Dover Quartet (first appearing for SFP in October of 2016), violinist Bryan Lee, violist Julianne Lee, and cellist Camden Shaw. First violinist Joel Link was indisposed and was replaced by Adam Barnett-Hart, first violinist of the Escher Quartet. The first of the quintets performed was Ernst von Dohnányi’s Opus 26, his second quintet in E-flat minor. The intermission was then followed by Johannes Brahms’ Opus 34, the more familiar quintet in F minor.

It would be fair to say that the Brahms quintet is a major icon in the chamber music repertoire. By now I have lost count of the number of times I have heard it in performance, but it never fails to get the juices flowing. If I were to speculate, I might even guess that there is something about the score that brings out the best in the musicians, possibly because, over the course of the composition, every one of them has many opportunities to stand out among his/her colleagues. (Yes, that includes the second violin!) Even with the last-minute substitution, the chemistry exuded by the full ensemble could not have been richer; and I found it a joy to let my eyes wander from one player to another, making note of how each of them could express both individuality and group membership. Last night’s performance was, indeed, “one for the books!”

The Dohnányi selection was another matter. According to my records, I have not encountered one of his pieces in recital since March of 2020, when his Opus 10 serenade in C major was performed in a Music in the Mishkan program. I have been a bit more fortunate in finding recordings of his music; but I am almost certain that Opus 26 was a “first contact” for me. His rhetoric tends to be affable, but what really locked in my attention was the fugue around which the final movement was structured. I really need to get to know this music better in the hope that I shall find it again in future piano quintet recitals!

The program began with Joaquín Turina’s string quartet entitled “La oración del torero” (the bullfighter’s prayer). Curiously, the music was first composed for a quartet of lutes for members of the Aguilar Quartet, formed in 1923 by four of Dr. Francisco Aguilar’s six sons: Paco, Ezequiel, Pepe, and Elisa. As might be expected, the string quartet version receives more performances; and, while I had been familiar with the title, this was a “first contact” experience for me. The music is episodic, traversing a rich variety of dispositions reflecting what must be going through a bullfighter’s mind before he enters the ring. Indeed, the breadth of expressiveness in this music was rich enough that I would hope to encounter another performance of this music sooner, rather than later!