Word: sonata
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...amounts of the new and not so easily palatable. Pianist Leonard Shure opened the series with a completely traditional program of Chopin, Schubert and Beethoven; a week later Jamie and Ruth Laredo deferred to general taste with Bach and Beethoven, but managed to sneak in the somewhat post-Romanticist Sonata Concertante of contemporary Leon Kirchner; last night violinist Felix Galimir and his chamber ensemble (one almost expected the program to read "Felix Galimir and guests") went even further: avoiding the 19th century entirely, the group plunged right in with two works of extremely modern idiom, both composed within the last...
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...
Having bowed to tradition in the Bach, the Laredos proceeded to perform the contemporary Sonata Concertante of Kirchner. This is a long work, full of virtuosic writing for the two instruments. Long, cadenza-like solo passages occur throughout, mostly for the violin. One of these--a broad, violin-spanning "theme" in double stops--opens the work and recurs periodically throughout the sonata's two movements, lending the work a somewhat cyclical character. There is nothing small about this piece, and the Laredos performed it with passion, intensity and brillance...
Strangely enough, they gave a more coherent performance of the Kirchner than of the much more familiar "Kreutzer" Sonata. Once again, balance was a problem. Ruth Laredo may be a woman but there is nothing mincing about her approach to the piano in general or to the "Kreutzer" in particular...
...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...