Violinist Johan Dalene (photograph by Mats Bäcker, courtesy of SFP)
Violinist Johan Dalene made a significant impression a little over two years ago, when he made his San Francisco debut through the Shenson Spotlight Series curated by the San Francisco Symphony. Last night he returned, giving a San Francisco Performances recital in Herbst Theatre, accompanied, once again, by pianist Sahun Sam Hong. This time the impression was not as memorable.
The program was at its best at its “central core” with a performance of Witold Lutosławski’s 1984 partita. What struck me most about this offering was that violin and piano were on equal footing, the best possible testament to the partnership that Dalene has formed with Hong. The work consists of three primary movements separated by “Ad libitum” interjections. Since this was my first encounter with the music, I have no idea how much of the music was improvised; but the performance came across as if both violinist and pianist were muddling their way through the score.
Polish Lutosławski, who led off the second half of the program, was “paired” with Finnish composer Einojuhani Rautavaara’s “Notturno e Danza” in the first half. There was no end of elaborate detail outlined in the program notes by Eric Bromberger, but none of that really came across in Dalene’s delivery. His capacity for expression registered more convincingly with the more traditional composers, the “Tzigane” by Maurice Ravel and the “bookends” of sonatas by Robert Schumann (Opus 105 in A minor, his first) and Edvard Grieg (Opus 13 in G major, the second). There was also an encore of an unnamed work by Grażyna Bacewicz (who was, herself, a violinist).
Taken as a whole, this was an evening best forgotten.
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