Johannes Brahms (1833-1897).
By Greg Stepanich
Anyone who’s been to an arts camp or summer festival has heard that sound before – enthusiastic, friendly voices loudly acclaiming a performance by members of the team.
Tuesday night at Palm Beach Atlantic University’s Persson Hall, the applause from a home-court crowd was heard for two aggressive performances by faculty members at the summer Stringendo School for Strings, who played music by Brahms: his Piano Quartet No. 1 (in G minor, Op. 25), and the Piano Quintet (in F minor, Op. 34). And indeed these performances, featuring well-known local players as well as members of the Cleveland and Atlanta orchestras, were completely committed, engaged ones, in which the musicians could be seen attacking this seminal music with real passion.
But while there was much fine playing in both pieces, the evening was marred for me by an out-of-tune piano, with a noticeably flat C above middle C and what sounded like some shaky notes around it as well. The bad tuning threw off the intonation of the whole concert as the string players referenced a faulty model, the proof being in the soli sections without the keyboard, in which the strings could be heard in revised, balanced adjustment with themselves.
The G minor Piano Quartet, featuring the fine pianist Tao Lin along with violinist Jun-Ching Lin (of the Atlanta Symphony), violist Stanley Konopka (of the Cleveland Orchestra), and cellist Jonah Kim, began in sober style but very much out of tune, a problem underlined by the many unison octaves in Brahms’ writing. Amid the off-key proceedings could be heard some attractive playing, and by Kim in particular, who made the most of his solo passages such as the intensely emotional introduction of the second subject.
From the outset, the four players demonstrated a strong sense of ensemble, and they had a clear unity of interpretive vision. The Intermezzo second movement was more deliberate than light on its feet, and the trio had a markedly gentle quality as it opened. The Andante con moto third movement had the same kind of tense, big-boned reading as the other movements, and it proceeded inexorably and powerfully to the waltz-time march in the middle; it was here that his performance really began to cook.
The Gypsy finale (marked Presto) of this quartet is a proven crowd-pleaser, and this foursome took it at a swift but not blistering pace. All four did good work with the almost constant sixteenth notes that run through this movement, and pianist Lin did an expert job setting up the coda with murmurs that slowly built to the foot-stomping conclusion. The almost-full house at Persson Hall gave the players three long curtain calls.
The Quintet, which featured the two Lins and Konopka, with cellist Claudio Jaffe and Stringendo director Patrick Clifford on second violin, was similar to the Quartet in that it was large-minded and boldly colored. It’s a more cohesive piece than the Quartet (as fine a work as that is), but no less fiery, and the five players dove into it with intensity. So this was a first movement, leaving the tuning aside, that had sweep and majesty, especially in its main theme, aided by the group’s excellent ensemble.
The second movement’s mid-section had good duet work from Clifford and Konopka, and there was a kind of restless serenity about the playing as a whole, and a careful focus on the primary six-note motif that extends throughout. As with the Quartet, things really got moving in the third movement, easily the best-known of the four, with violinist Lin and Konopka setting up the military tattoo with memorable precision, and all five tearing into the big climactic tune with near-abandon.
The beginning of the finale is tough to bring off after that level of excitement, and it was a little unfocused here, but cellist Jaffe played the Haydnesque main theme with lovely tone and rhythmic sinew, moving the performance back onto the rails. Overall, intensity was the guiding principle, and again, the five musicians built powerfully to the ending, handling all of their very difficult, perpetual-motion parts with admirable skill.
It’s a testament to the seriousness and the strength with which this music was played that the out-of-whack piano was not as noticeable through both works as it could have been. But it still hurt the music, through no fault of the players. Before the final concert Tuesday, which includes the Schubert Arpeggione (which in A minor) and the Borodin Piano Quintet (which is in C minor), someone needs to tune that piano.
The Stringendo School for Strings faculty concert series ends Tuesday with violinist David Mastrangelo in the Sonata No. 2 for solo violin of Eugene Ysaye, and Mastrangelo and cellist Jonah Kim in the Passacaglia on a Theme by Handel of Johan Halvorsen. Joined by pianist Yueh-Yin Liao, Kim will play the Schubert Arpeggione Sonata, and Kim, Liao and Mastrangelo will be joined by violinist Belen Clifford and violist David Pedraza in the Piano Quintet of Alexander Borodin. The concert begins at 7 p.m. Tuesday in Persson Recital Hall. Tickets are $15. Call 803-2970 or e-mail ticketcentral@pba.edu.