Two Kahanes for the SFP 46th Season Gala

Father-and-son photographs of Jeffrey and Gabriel Kahane by E.G. Marton Productions and Jason Quigley, respectively (courtesy of SFP)

Last night San Francisco Performances (SFP) celebrated its 46th season with the usual Gala Performance. Those of us attending only the performance itself came to Herbst Theatre to attend a father-and-son piano recital. As in the past, Gabriel Kahane supplemented his piano contribution with vocal work, while his father, Jeffrey, limited himself to the second piano on the stage.

I have to say that the evening was at its most satisfying when Jeffrey was giving solo performances. His “sweet spot” is the nineteenth century; and, listening to his account of the final movement (“Abschied”) of Robert Schumann’s Opus 82 Waldszenen (forest scenes) made, for me at least, the high point of the evening. He was equally at home with two selections from Felix Mendelssohn’s Song Without Words (Lieder ohne Worte), as well as “Le tic-toc-choc” from Ordre 18ème in the Troisième Livre (third book) in François Couperin’s collection of keyboard compositions. These were all thoroughly engaging, oases of relief in the barren landscape of the music composed and performed by Gabriel, particularly the endurance test of the eighteen minute “Final Privacy Song,” which concluded the program and was followed with a Joni Mitchell encore.

Taken as a whole, the program made a clear case that Gabriel had forged a path significantly distant from that of this father. That originality deserves to be acknowledged. Nevertheless, nothing along Gabriel’s path could rise to the heights of Jeffrey’s, including the son’s ambitious eighteen-minute account of “Final Privacy Song,” which deserved more privacy and less audience exposure!