A Gauzy Haze, a Holy Relic

Arguably the greatest aspect of Beethoven’s genius was his certitude from an early age that he was to have an earthshaking effect on the history of music. Strolling with his good friend on a narrow path one day, he was horrified when his chum stepped off the stones to let a nobleman pass. “You are Goethe; I Beethoven!” he exclaimed. “Let him walk in the mud.”The composer was also remarkably aware of time, inspired by the turn of the 19th century to revolutionize his art just as the calendar clicked over. The first work written in the new century was the forward-looking Piano Concerto No. 3; the last in the old era, the Sonata No. 11 in B Flat Major, was chosen by John Bowler to be the centerpiece of his recital at the Juilliard School’s Paul Recital Hall on Saturday.Mr. Bowler delivered a solid performance, notable for its clarity and high level of accuracy. He has excellent technical skills, hitting his notes in their exact centers and never abusing his pedals. In this delightful puzzle of a piece, Mr. Bowler quickly established a jaunty tempo for the Allegro con brio and delineated the ups and downs of the thematic journey in striking bas-relief.Exhibiting palpable sensitivity, he spun a lovely web for the Adagio con molta espressione, allowing the lyrical line to breathe and establish a cantabile emblem, a singer’s approach to this expansive music. He did not lapse into the mawkish nor slow the tempo down to milk the material. This was tasteful, sentimental playing.Although there was some fat fingering in the Minuet, overall Mr. Bowler presented the movement straightforwardly, while his dexterous rendition of the final Allegretto, with its Beethovenian device of creating extreme tension by inexorably increasing the number of notes per beat as the movement progresses, was thrilling.He began the recital with a Bach Prelude and Fugue, the No. 17 in A Flat Major, BWV 862. The prelude possessed considerable gravitas and was expertly measured, while the fugue, much longer than its source material, was handled in lapidary style, each note cut from precious metal.Maurice Ravel was an ambulance driver in World War I. He saw a lot of men die. Perhaps his most poignant work is the piano suite titled “Le Tombeau de Couperin,” inspired by a visit to the grave of the master of the French dance. Each movement is a portrait of a different friend of the composer who died during the years of conflagration. Ravel himself orchestrated some sections of the original piano music for full ensemble, and Mason Jones, long the principal horn of the Philadelphia Orchestra, arranged some of those sections for wind quintet, adding the fugue from the original piano score.Since most listeners are more familiar with the orchestral revision, the seeming addition of the fugue in the piano version is a special treat. Again, Mr. Bowler intoned with pinpoint precision, never once going off the rails in this tricky work. However, he did not exhibit a conversance with the idiom. His touch, so spot-on for the Germanic, did not adjust to the more diaphanous requirements of this music that is not just impressionistic, not just Gallic, but also deals with the gauzy haze of memory. This rendition was clearly a work in progress: He has found the notes; now it is time to pursue the music. But this type of fluency of nuance will develop with time.Oh, did I mention that John Bowler is 15?* * *When Otto Preminger filmed George Gershwin’s “Porgy and Bess” in 1959, the only character who was allowed to do his own singing was the Sportin’ Life of Sammy Davis Jr. All of the other roles were dubbed by opera singers. Viewing the movie today, it is clear that the best performance by far was that of Davis, who understood the jazz idiom of his part and did not commit the sin of his fellow highfalutin vocalists, who, to borrow a metaphor from Amadeus, treated the music like “a holy relic.”Opening the new season at the Elebash Recital Hall of CUNY, the Eroica Trio tackled the Gershwin problem head-on with mixed results. This is a superlative ensemble, producing one of the biggest and most brilliant piano trio sounds in memory. The threesome (Susie Park, violin; Sara Sant’Ambrogio, cello, and Erika Nickrenz, piano) are remarkably evenly matched, expertly blended, and especially pleasing to the ear. No one player stands out as being a cut above — or below — the others, and thus they avoid a commonplace weakness of this particular instrumental combination, wherein the piano tends to dominate and one of the strings often seems to be the idiot bastard child intoning from the closet. Balance is important, but even more impressive is the individual play of each of the three, exceedingly accurate and expressive.They began with an arrangement of tunes and scenes from “Porgy” and they began well. The infectious opening train motif was suitably exciting. However, when the big recognizable numbers came, that stylistic Gershwin bugbear raised its ugly head. Usually I complain about a paucity of vibrato in modern performance practice, but this particular arrangement led the strings to overstate. Some portamento was fine in the cello solo of Bess, “You Is My Woman Now,” but the slipping and sliding that characterized both violin and cello during “Summertime” was simply beyond the pale. Further, this arrangement was rather crabbed, not allowing the musicians to swing even a little.Mark O’Connor is both a country music fiddler and a classical violinist. His Piano Trio No. 1, subtitled “Poets and Prophets,” is an interesting piece and the Eroica gang played it compellingly. There is certainly some Charles Ives in the mix, and that is always a good thing. Even when the fiddling became solidly bluegrass, there was always the sense that there was serious intent to the music-making. The second movement ended with the depiction of another train, executed in such a febrile manner that, even though the piece was only half over, the crowd applauded heartily.Had the last work on the program been Steve Reich’s “Different Trains,” then there would have been a bit of cohesion to the proceedings. Unfortunately, what followed instead was a treacly arrangement of tunes from “West Side Story,” Bernstein’s greatest hits as heard by Willie Wonka. Love it or hate it, “West Side Story” put Bernstein at the top of the Broadway composer list, even as he toiled in vain to crack the first circle of classical composers. To hear such fine musicians waste their time with such banal renditions of legitimate tunes was rather maddening. The settings of “Somewhere” and “I Feel Pretty” were, well, prettified to the level of greeting cards. Perhaps the Eroica Trio is just being savvy. They certainly made this listener want to come back and hear them again, but next time let’s hope for a program with a little more heft.

A Gauzy Haze, a Holy Relic

A Gauzy Haze, a Holy Relic

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