Word: sonata
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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Last evening's program by a fine violist, Paul Doktor, and a muddy pianist, Yaltah Menuhin (fille), offered Brahma, Debussy, and Kabalevsky, all for the price of Hindemith. Hindemith's Sonata No. 1 for viola (1920) is what is known in scholarly circles as a review of the literature. It starts with annotated Schubert and proceeds to Brahms, citing from impressionistic Debussy as needed. An extensive quote of the born motive in Brahms' Fourth Symphony provides the theme for a set of variations, wherein Hindemith invokes the style of Kabalevsky's 24 Easy Pieces for Children; and paraphrases...
...three. But times have changed. Last week, in Manhattan's Carnegie Hall, one of the world's great violinists walked to the center of the stage, took measure of the audience for a long, silent minute, nodded to his accompanist and swept into Beethoven's Sonata in C Minor with all the flamboyance of a stockbroker stepping...
Included on the program were excerpts from Thomson's The Mother of Us All, a two-act opera about Feminist Susan B. Anthony, with text by Gertrude Stein, the Sonata da Chiesa, Etudes for Piano, Lamentations for Accordion. Although Thomson's neatly fashioned, strongly melodic film scores have a misty, impressionist charm and are his best known works, there is a more abrasive and far more somber side to his music. It was clearly demonstrated in the anniversary concert's Sonata da Chiesa, with its opening chorale based on a Kansas City Negro church service. Strangely...
Beethoven's grand "Tempest" sonata (Op. 31, No. 2) dominated the program. Mr. Boyk's interpretation could be challenged here more than anywhere else. For example, he began at a Killing tempo, and it ended up wounding him; the first movement was too fast. While he had never swelled beyond a forte in the first two numbers of the program, here he used his six-foot build to advantage: the Steinway really stomped. Again in the third movement, an "Allegretto," Boyk travelled presto. As a result, he had to stretch rhythms at the crucial transitions. But the music's momentum...
Whether or not Boyk intentionally programmed Chopin's "Raindrop" prelude to follow the "Tempest" sonata, the music unfortunately dropped from a storm to a drizzle. The Chopin prelude in D minor ended the program on a dazzling, but musically insubstantial, note. Chopin, though entertaining, cheapened the program...