A Violist’s Cold New World

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The New York Sun

On Sunday, French violist Antoine Tamestit presented a program at the Walter Reade Theater consisting entirely of music not written for his instrument. According to the biographical notes included in the program booklet, Mr. Tamestit had originally studied the violin but switched when he “fell in love with the deeper voice of the viola.” This seems odd since this concert was painstakingly engineered to negate that voice and its warmer sonic attributes.

Beginning with Bach, our soloist and pianist Markus Hadulla offered the Sonata No. 3 in G minor for viola da gamba and keyboard. At first, it seemed the young Mr. Tamestit was a scholar of performance style, for he made a great effort to play his part without any vibrato or linkage of one note to another. For Bach and his mathematical sense of purity, this is a sensible approach and one that can be defended in musico-historical terms. Although accuracy did not seem to be his forte, this violist was steady in his enunciations and allowed the music and its logical permutations to be displayed without any overlay of his own personality. So far, so good.

But when he switched to Schubert, the recital turned perverse. The arpeggione was a strange hybrid of an instrument — part cello and part guitar. It would certainly be but a footnote in music history except for the sonata written for it by the great Viennese melodist. Forever known as the Arpeggione Sonata, the work is one of Schubert’s most infectiously tuneful, full of comforting lyricism and broad stroke exhilaration.

Except in the hands of Antoine Tamestit. What he instead presented was a sterile distillation, a hollow shell sucked dry of all lifeblood. This is now all the rage in Europe, supposedly a “rethinking” of the classics for a dehumanized age. What started out as a movement toward authenticity has turned into an apologia for Western civilization itself. Although I often disagreed with Susan Sontag — who was, for many years, a frequent visitor to Carnegie Hall — her thesis in “Against Interpretation” — that intellectuals can destroy a work of art through overanalysis — rings very true here.

Mr. Tamestit even looks like a new European straight out of central casting, including haircut and outfit to match. As I listened to this cockamamie version devoid of all beauty and emotion, I could only conclude that he is himself a victim of rabid polemicism. Gone were Schubert’s marvelous transitions, replaced with synaptic pauses meant only to destroy the singing line.

And the extroverted, boffo ending of the Allegretto? Sorry, just a polite whimper. Even dynamic contrast is banished from this kingdom.

At the very end of his career, Brahms, who had considered retiring from composition, met a musician whose great skill inspired him to create an entire valedictory body of work that looked back autumnally at a life well spent and well enjoyed. The musician was Richard Muehlfeld, a clarinetist, and Brahms composed for him four pieces of incomparable beauty. The two Sonatas for Clarinet (or Viola) and Piano; the Trio for Clarinet, Cello and Piano (later arranged for viola), and the Quintet for Clarinet and String Quartet (also later arranged for viola, but not by its original composer) stand as a set unique in musical — and possibly cultural — history. They express no melancholy or regret, no religious questioning or longing — only deep appreciation and satisfaction for a brilliantly lived life.

Of course, even to begin to interpret these pieces requires a colorist of subtle palette. This is decidedly not Mr. Tamestit, who apparently only espouses chalklike shades of gray. Perhaps this would have seemed a more interesting recital if the choice of repertoire were not so dependent on empathetic communication. However, Brahms it was, specifically the Sonata in E-flat major, Op. 120, No. 2.

Moving into the big Romantic repertoire was dangerous for Mr. Hadulla, and he showed his deficiencies whenever a big gesture was necessary. The piano music of Brahms is devilishly difficult partly because the composer himself was such a great pianist. He had little feel for the strength and dexterity of mere mortals. For Mr. Tamestit, however, the plunge into a big work was not a problem, since he continued to ply his trade as a smallvoiced, vibratoless cipher. Give me my William Primrose and Rudolph Firkusny records any day. Had Brahms been on hand to hear this current performance, he might have seriously questioned his decision to come out of retirement.

But there is hope. Mr. Tamestit is young and perhaps is simply too easily influenced by trendiness. Hopefully, one fine morning, he will wake up and remember why he chose the viola in the first place.


The New York Sun

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