Oregon Music News

Ani Kavafian

Chamber Music Northwest’s program entitled ‘From France to Moravia’ provided a delicious, well-rounded feast for the senses on Friday night, July 2nd at the Gerding Theater at the Armory. Featuring works from the late 19th and early 20th centuries by three well-loved masters, the evening worked forward from a mysterious and ethereal Debussy sonata to proto-Americana by Dvorák

The opening, Debussy’s well-loved Sonata for Flute, Viola and Harp (1915), was an extremely difficult exercise in touch and interpretation that came off marvelously. Tara Helen O’Connor played the flute, Nancy Allen was on the harp and the violist was Cynthia Phelps, who brought her experience as first chair viola with the New York Philharmonic to the table. Many difficult techniques were called for; one that the composer used several times had one instrument strike a note and another come in and take over the same pitch so that it sounded like there had been no break in sound. This was handled expertly, so that the attack of the harp handed off for a sustain and decay on the flute gave the impression that one was hearing some strange new instrument.

The bewildering forest of Debussy’s harmonics was handled deftly, and the array of textures and timbres called for was amazing–whether it was a mischievous spiccato on the viola, an angelic glissando on the harp or an aspirant, plaintive song from the flute, the group delivered whatever was required. In the third movement, Phelps played a series of phrases on the same two notes where everything that was fascinating was contained in the diminution of touch from a broad sawing to a spritely saltando to a dry, plinking pizzicato.  The end result was a performance containing everything that is best about Debussy, at times wistful, sighing, and ecstatically climactic, at others anxious, confused and Byzantine. There was nothing wanting from this performance.

Richard Strauss’ Sonata in E-Flat Major for Violin and Piano, Op. 19, rounded out the first half.  Violinist Ani Kavafian and pianist Anne-Marie McDermott joined forces for this exposition of virtuosic, over-the-top, high Romantic grandeur. Having the pleasure to hear Kavafian perform so many different styles of music has been one of the joys of this CMNW festival, and in the Strauss she was in fine form once again.

The synchronicity between the two players was quite something to behold; since this was not a sonata for violin with the piano serving principally in the context of providing harmonic depth, each had to know when to step aside and let the other assume primacy, and when to go forth in bold unison.  At times the work imparted something of the broad, heady feeling of the great Bruch G-Minor violin concerto, an impressive feat for a group of two. There was a section in the third movement when McDermott lay down a base of chords and Kavafian kept darting forward from the background in avian fashion, declaiming her short phrase and then pulling back time and again, just one of many difficult techniques that was representative of the wholeness of Kavafian’s musicianship.

The second half of the concert was occupied solely by the mighty Quintet in E-flat Major for Strings, B. 180, Op 97, by the itinerant Czech composer Antonin Dvorák.  The players were Ida and Ani Kavafian on first and second violins respectively, Steven Tenenbom and Cynthia Phelps on violas, and Ronald Thomas as cellist. This work was composed during Dvorák’s legendary sojourn to the United States, when the composer spent the summer of 1893 in America’s heartland, ensconced with the immigrant Czech community in Spillville, Iowa.

This work was redolent with the feeling of folk-melodies of Central Europe and early hints at broad, homey tunes reminiscent of what would later come to be identified as an ‘American’ sound with the works of Copland.  The group grasped the folksy heart of this music and their interpretation was unpretentious, consisting of unforced ensemble playing that orated the musical ideas like a cool, refreshing drink of water, delivering a copious wall of sound showing exactly what they were–a small string orchestra.

There were times throughout that allowed individual players to shine however.  In the second movement, the Allegro vivo, Tenenbom sang gently over a pizzicato string choir, and in the third, the Larghetto, Thomas held center stage with a series  of heart-wrenching, mournful, Slavic idioms on top of a tense tremolando from the rest of the group.

In the finale, the Allegro giusto, one of the central ideas sounded almost like a Native American tune, and the group played it with fortitude and boldness, with the broad, full strokes it required. Although this quintet is not as well known as its sister composition, the ‘American’ Quartet, after listening to this group play it one was struck by the fact that perhaps it should be.