Santa Rosa Symphony, Press Room

Festival: A Celebration

by John Boyajy

San Francisco Classical Voice, April 5, 2005

Beethoven wrote his "Ghost" trio during the same creative period that produced his fifth and sixth symphonies. Both of the trios that constitute his Opus 70 were presented in the private home of one of Beethoven's friends and supporters on Christmas of 1808.

This trio and a Mozart concerto were presented in the third concert of the Santa Rosa Symphony's "Vienna's Golden Age Festival" at the Jackson Theater Saturday at 5:30 � a very civilized start time that enables listeners to make dinner plans after a short concert. The printed program listed the personnel as Jeffrey Kahane at the piano, Joseph Edelberg playing violin and Wanda Warkentin on cello. However, the violin part was played by Karen Shinozaki Sor, who had appeared as second violinist in the opening Mozart concerto. No mention was made of this change in personnel, the artists perhaps assuming that, since the audience had already been introduced to the two violinists in the opener, Ms. Sor's identity was a no-brainer.

Given the particular qualities of this performance, I found myself wondering if the personnel change had come about fairly recently. The reading had its individual strong points but ultimately failed to gel solidly. This is not a piece to be taken lightly, and Kahane's excellent introductory comments made that clear. Like Beethoven's Fifth, which features the most famous four-note opening theme in all of classical music, the "Ghost" (so named by Beethoven's pupil Carl Czerny, teacher of both Franz Liszt and Theodor Leschetizky and arguably the greatest piano pedagogue of all time) is a work of stark contrasts and needs a good deal of fire to succeed. Karen Shinozaki Sor is obviously an accomplished violinist, but her fortes seem not to be fortes. Rather, she excels in the more lyrical passages. Likewise, Warkentin plays with accurate intonation (no small accomplishment for a cellist) and a lovely sense of the line, but her playing often lacked real grip � a quality that I found missing in the outer movements of the trio. Even Kahane, a strong pianist by anyone's standard, really didn't get into the keys in the ways this piece demands.

Not quite full measure

In the second movement Sor's lyrical qualities and Warkentin's sense of the line blended beautifully to create a truly haunting mood. Even here, though, there were times when I wished the cello had had more resonance and more focus in the sound.

Kahane's conductorial skills brought about excellent ensemble work throughout. Indeed, from the standpoint of attack, the group found themselves in harmonious agreement. Thus, although the ensemble work was strong, the occasional lack of true sonic drama kept the performance from reaching a higher level of intensity and interest.

The thought occurred that, even though Sor played her part admirably, perhaps these three artists weren't able to rehearse often enough together. This could account for a certain timidity in the performance. Or, perhaps the kind of super-sforzando that Beethoven demands isn't the strength of these particular players. In addition, Kahane had more finger-fluffs in the last movement than in the entire remainder of the concert. So maybe what was necessary was more time together and/or more time, period, so that the notes could have been tossed off with more abandon and verve.

Reduced forces

The event opened with the Mozart E-Flat Concerto, K. 449, here presented with a string quintet replacing the orchestra. The difference between an orchestra-accompanied version and this one is considerable. When the pianist is accompanied by a string quintet, the result sounds like chamber music rather than a piano concerto. A certain level of drama that would arise from the sheer sonority created by a 30- or 40-piece orchestra doesn't happen when the total number of performers, including the pianist, is six.

The ear adjusts, however, and Kahane and his colleagues gave an intelligent and elegant performance of this work. Kahane's beautiful phrasing, for-the-most-part crystal-clear technique, gorgeous embellishments and excellent sense of the line contributed to a very satisfactory reading. He also injected an entirely appropriate dose of humor into the last movement. Here, Mozart's strongly contrapuntal passages were particularly well-served by the small number of players, and the layers of thematic material were delineated with excellent effect.

The festival finale will be presented at 8:00 p.m. on April 30th at the Luther Burbank Center with a performance of Beethoven's Fourth Piano Concerto with Kahane conducting from the piano.

(Formerly a scholarship student of Emil Danenberg at Oberlin, John Boyajy received his bachelor�s and master�s degrees from the Juilliard School . He performs publicly and privately around the greater Bay Area and teaches piano and voice in his Novato studio.)