Word: chase
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...Chamber Music Society emerged on stage to push subscriptions on the already over-subscribed audience, it was clear that Saturday night's concert at Sanders Theatre was more an "event" than a chamber music concert. This atmosphere was only reinforced by the nature of the programming. The violinist Stephanie Chase was slated to play in each work, first Bartok's First Sonata for Violin and Piano, then the Brahms Horn Trio, and finally the Beethoven Septet. While programming for a single performer might be acceptable even in a chamber music concert, the flagrant insertion of Bartok's Sonata into...
Bartok's First Violin Sonata, while heavily influenced by the atonality of Schoenberg, abounds with injunctions of "espressivo" and "appasionato". A listener not aware of this might have thought from Chase's performance that Bartok, desiring some special effect, had ordered the violinist to play dispassionately, and vibrato only selectively if at all. While the first movement is supposed to be tense in character, the rigidity manifest in Chase did not seem quite appropriate. Her sound was frequently forced, and what at first seemed like a special effect--the fact that her vibrato began only after half of each note...
Even her posture conveyed an objective solidity antithetical to the piece. While some performers admittedly twist and turn too much, Chase's tree-like alternative was no more appealing; one is driven to wonder whether she was ever motile before her Daphne-like transformation...
Though the lyrical opening of the second movement was plagued problems similar to those of the first movement, the pianist, Mihae Lee, heretofore invisible in following Chase, effectively initiated and propelled the exchange between violin and piano as the movement climaxes; this instance of rhythmic alternation, the piano asserting one chord and the violin rebutting with another...
Always focused on what can be done. Giardi is so committed to the Ivy League chase of the Princetons and Pennsylvanias that one wonders if he ever steps back and admires what has been a wonderful two-sport career...