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One on the (several?) outstanding characteristics on the Beaux Arts Trio, of which Menahem Pressler was founding member and pianist, was the comprehensive breadth of repertoire. Now that the trio has disbanded, Pressler has entered a brand new phase of his career in which he continues to enjoy the diversity of repertoire by other signifies. Those signifies include an annual one-week residency at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, where he provides a public Master Class and operates with both faculty and students to prepare a plan inside the Chamber Music Masters series. This really is the week within the Conservatory academic year for Pressler's pay a visit to, and his recital took spot final evening within the Caroline H. Hume Concert Hall.
The diversity covered reasonably familiar operates in the eighteenth, nineteenth, and twentieth century. The 1 weakness occurred at the beginning of the evening with all the eighteenth-century supplying, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's second piano quartet in E-flat key, K. 493. Getting had the opportunity to observe Pressler in each a wide variety of recitals and numerous years' worth of Conservatory events, which includes many of the Master Classes, I have come towards the conclusion that the eighteenth century is his least comfy element. Last February I was even bold adequate to suggest that he may have missed the point of a Joseph Haydn piano trio he was coaching in the Conservatory. The dilemma then surfaced once again last evening and essentially involved giving an excessive amount of priority to the piano.
The result was the kind of discontinuity that is much more evident in chamber music than in an orchestral setting. We had a string trio of students, amongst whom there have been rich channels of communication as well as a keen sense of balance (even if the violin was somewhat on the weak side); and then there was Pressler in the piano. For all of visual signs of attentiveness, it felt as if he was playing within a world aside from the students. As a result, the quartet fractured into a trio as well as a piano solo; and the spirit from the intimate conversations of chamber music was lost.
Once the plan moved on in the eighteenth century, Pressler seemed to become on a lot more secure ground; and it may also be that he was much more comfortable performing with faculty members. The Mozart quartet was followed by Claude Debussy's 1915 cello sonata with cellist Jean-Michel Fonteneau. This previous September the prodigious fifteen-year-old Tessa Seymour performed this sonata within a Noontime Concerts™ recital at Old St. Mary's Cathedral; and she happens to become one particular of Fonteneau's students. Last evening thus offered an opportunity to compare her voice with that of her teacher. This particular sonata provides an excellent point of comparison, since it is each highly cerebral and intensely emotional. It was the one particular portion of Seymour's recital in which I saw a spontaneous physical gesture interrupt her highly focused concentration. Fonteneau's gestures were considerably far more under control, resulting inside a somewhat higher level of precision that facilitates listening to a composition in which even the slightest in the auxiliary notes contribute towards the expressiveness of the whole. In this respect Pressler was an idea partner, bringing that same sense of both the entirety and also the richness of every detail to complement Fonteneau's conception on the solo voice. As a student, Seymour is clearly in good hands with Fonteneau. As the master, Fonteneau has considerably to offer to not only his students but these of us who can only appreciate him from the audience side in the hall.
Following the intermission, the system reverted for the nineteenth century plus a composer for which Pressler has always had great affinity, Antonín Dvorák. The work offered was his Opus 87 piano quartet in E-flat key, which Pressler performed with violinist Axel Strauss, violist Paul Hersh, and cellist Michelle Kwon. Kwon was the only student member from the ensemble; but she is already building up an impressive resume of professional appearances (one particular of which will be tonight with the Picasso Quartet). Thus, while she might have been the "junior member" in the team, she was definitely holding her own inside a conversation amongst equals. This was particularly important since the nineteenth-century tradition of highlighting the slow movement with a rich cello passage was clearly operative in this particular composition; and Kwon has cultivated an impressive track record of performances of such passages. Most important, however, was that the entire ensemble was united in an integrated approach for the journey through the four movements of this quartet, in the opening Allegro con fuoco gesture (with particular emphasis on the "fuoco") for the three massive forzando chords that close off the Finale. This highlighted both the energetic and introspective sides of Dvorák's character with stimulating effect, leaving any weaknesses within the eighteenth century as a distant memory in the end in the evening.
