Word: sonata
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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Fortunately, the Monday night concert fare at Sanders more than compensates for its geographic and acoustical disadvantages. Last night, Cambridge concertgoers were treated to a violin-piano sonata recital by professionals Jaime and Ruth Laredo. The young husband-and-wife team presented a program that was deftly complementary to the piano recital of Leonard Shure a week earlier. Once again a work of Beethoven provided us the cornerstone, this time one from his more extroverted second period--the Sonata in A major Op. 47 ("Kreutzer"). But if Shure concentrated on the nineteenth century, the Laredos almost seemed...
Shure is a pianist who likes his music meaty. At this Dudley House recital he cose to assault two of the most awesome pinnacles of the piano literature, the Schubert Sonata in Bb, Op. posthumous, and the Variations on a Theme of Diabelli by Beethoven. Reaction was mixed and tended to the extremes, but there was general admiration for the sheer endurance feat of getting through all those notes...
...trying to outdo himself, Monday night Shure tackled not two but three major works of the piano repertoire. Once again, Beethoven and Schubert figured prominently on the program, the former represented by the venerated Sonata in E, Op. 109, and the latter by another fruit of his frantic but fecund last eleven months, the Sonata in c minor, Op. posthumous...
...Schubert Sonata in c also evidenced an intensive study of the score. Unfortunately, Schubert does not bear the same kind of analysis as Beethoven. As in Opus 109, Shure was careful to clarify every counter-voice, phrase-grouping, and point of articulation. This had the regrettable effect of making Schubert's structural joinings even more obvious than they are. Shure took the piece too seriously, not leaving room for enough of that Vienese Gemutlich and Empfindsamkeit that are Schubert, special charms. Shure's performance had plenty of pianissimo but not enough sparkle...
...work in which Shure's intellectual approach worked the least was Chopin's Sonata in b flat minor, Op. 35, the one that contains the famous Marche funebre. One of the composer' masterpieces, it dates from that period of his life when he was still in the first heat of his love affair with George Sand. As well-made as it is, the work pouring of melody that is sapped of life by an attempt to bring out every element of compositional logic. After all, this music is French. As in the Schubert, Shure was at times heavy-handed, especially...