CHAMBER MUSIC WEEKEND
YMCA Auditorium
Jerusalem Post, Israel
Sep 11, 2007
A world premiere commissioned for the festival was Avner Dorman’s
"Jerusalem Mix" for piano and winds quintet. The work featured some
obvious ingredients characteristic of Jerusalem, such as would-be
klezmer music to represent Judaism, Armenian motifs to represent
Christianity and the oboe to portray the Islamic muezzin call to
prayer. The hitting of open piano strings was meant emulate the kanoun
or santour.
This concoction of diverse, Jerusalem-related elements was manipulated
in fairly good taste, relying on the association of ideas and avoiding
blunt imitations.
The piece’s most redeeming feature was that the young hopeful composer
seemed not to take the work, or himself, too seriously.
Another world premiere was "Sepulchral City" for clarinet, cello
and piano (Karl-Heinz Steffens, Johannes Moser, Elena Bashkirova) by
Christian Jost, a German composer. The work skillfully manipulated
the instruments’ contrasting sonorities. It is an effect-studded
piece, though not always very innovative: plucked strings of the open
piano, clusters banged on the keys, note repetitions, and clarinet
glissandos. What remained unclear, for the uninitiated, was the
connection between the title and the music.
Schubert’s "Octet," presumably intended to be the Thursday concert’s
crowning glory, was a pretentious undertaking. Eight serious musicians
– too serious, occasionally – are not enough for this inspired work
if none are capable of assuming leadership and injecting esprit
de corps. Knowing how to count to four is not sufficient if one is
blissfully unaware of what is going on between the four beats. It
was pedestrian playing – a model of how not to perform Schubert.
Of Brahms’ two clarinet sonatas, Nr. 2 was performed for
viola. Although the composer’s original version was for clarinet,
the viola version sounded surprisingly more refined and subtle, at
least in Fellix Schwartz’s delicate rendition. Yael Kareth’s piano
part sounded impassioned and highly impressive.
She deserves to be assigned a role in her own right, not just
designated a substitute for the cancellation of an indisposed
celebrity.
The main interest in Saturday’s concert was Debussy’s three last
sonatas for cello and piano (Frans Helmerson and David Kadouch), flute,
viola and harp (Guy Eshed, Nobuko Imai, Sivan Magen), and violin and
piano (Latica Honda-Rosenberg and Yael Kareth). It takes the excuse
of a festival to perform these three diverse works all at once.
A lively, inspired rendition of Tchaikovsky’s "String Sextet
Souvenir de Florence" brought the chamber-musical weekend to its
listener-friendly close.