New England Conservatory’s new shiny black (watch out stagehands, it’s already showing your fingerprints) American Steinway Model D made its debut last night in the hands of Taiwanese American pianist Evan Wong. His monumental partnership with Queen Elisabeth International Violin Competition laureate William Wei resulted in an important and memorable concert for the Foundation for Chinese Performing Arts on Saturday night at Jordan Hall.
It became apparent by the second half that the selection committee of Bruce Brubaker, Alexander Korsantia, Cameron Stowe, and Alessio Bax had chosen a winner. The instrument has power without harshness, a particularly redolent tenor and the ability (at least under Wong) to play ravishing pianissimos as well as to sound like a plucked harp. We look forward to hearing it evolve. On the March 3rd First Monday concert, Alexander Korsantia and HaeSun Paik will play La Valse on it with the Conservatory’s German Steinway. That will be interesting.
But to bury the lead, the black beast was not the only sound maker on stage. The 1722 Joachim-Elman Stradivarius, on a loan from the Chimei Cultural Foundation in Taiwan, responded to Wei’s old master sensibilities (among modern players, he most resembles Gil Shaham, who, along with Wei, studied with Hyo Kang) with glorious tone across every register and dynamic. The pizzicato reverberated in Jordan Hall to powerful effect. The quietest sounds reached the back of the hall with ease, as if the Strad had retained the immortal qualities of its earlier owners.
***
A commission to write an extended piece to accompany patients throughout the day at the Dun Ren (Mental) Hospital led Taiwanese-born New York City-based Shiuan Chang to compose the 56-minute Songs of Dun Ren. (We heard the excerpt Theater on the BED). Chang writes how his compilation evokes…
“…daily routines—from morning wake-up, breakfast, and exercise to taking medication, having lunch, resting, and eventually drifting to sleep-replacing the hospital’s traditional verbal and bell sound announcements…. My first exploration of minimalism is woven delicately around three notes: B (si), E (mi), and D (re)…its beauty lies in the subtle weight shifts in repeated intervals, creating a sense of weightless grace.”
Theater on the BED began with a whiff of West Side Story before morphing through a forest of pizzes and staccatos expressed as Glassian ostinatos. Some col legno and some scratches on the violin served to vary the subtly evolving patterns. The piano held a sustained chord in the left hand for quite a long time, picking up resonance from the motoring right hand. Patterns playing continued with subtle changes at a rather unvaried p dynamic. The piano telegraphed in Morse code before experimenting in gradations of near silence. In what felt like a second part, a solo riff from the violin led to a jazzified bit with a surprisingly even tempo. An aggressive gesture from the violin intersected with a striding dance on the piano… that stopped suddenly. After a pause, 30 seconds more of the same before it abruptly stopped. It will be interesting to learn how 56 minutes of this comes across to a general audience and as a background to the patients’ hours. What about adding some concrete sounds from the hospital to turn Songs of Dun Ren into a sonic book of the hours?
Shostakovich’s Violin Sonata (1968) originally performed by the dedicatee David Oistrakh and Sviatoslav Richter, impressed me deeply as one of the finest performances of anything I have ever heard. In the Andante, the inspired players handled the richly varied material with tremendous verve and absolute unity of partnership. The Prokofievian opening of quick octaves in the piano sets up an ominous tone row. The violin enters very legato with almost continuous tone, swelling to a bold if bittersweet assertion contrasting with elegant nostalgia in quiet repose. Organ-like double stops lead to scary portions—more Peter and the Wolf snarling than Stalin purges though. A folkish section ensues, proving that dodecaphony can dance. The players could turn every abrupt change of current or atmosphere on its head while never slacking in momentum.
Bold and martial, the Allegretto came across as smashingly emphatic and forceful. Accelerandos swirled with conspiratorial pyromania, flaming to the most simultaneously chaotic and combustible mad scene we have ever witnessed, ending without anything like a predictable coda.
Wong’s distanced tolling bells, introducing the long, strange, and wonderful Largo-Andante-Allegretto closing movement, propelled a pizzicato mini cadenza that resonated spectacularly in the hall. The piano then whispered its support as it announced the passacaglia which unfolds throughout the movement. More and more forceful mini cadenzas transpired from both players. Wei’s profoundly dark chorale of double stops invoked a tempestuous toccata. A love song of the purest affection consoled, then stunning peroration of muted passagework yielded once more to a consolation before being smothered by a return of the initial ponticello episode. PPP tremolos left us pondering the infinite.
Beginning with Clara Schumann’s Three Romances for Violin and Piano, Op. 22, the second half found us luxuriating in singing tone and unabashed romanticism from both players. Thanks to Wong’s sensibilities, the new Steinway sang with sustaining sweetness. Wei matched him with stalwart effulgence. In the Andante molto, glorious limpidity obtained on the piano as the violin pleaded and sang out in burnished gold. How fitting to be hearing the dedicatee Joachim’s own instrument played with such refined tenderness and delicacy. Clara’s Allegretto told of a smiling summer day and boon companionship. Wine and good cheer flowed as fleeting clouds briefly reminded us that such joys must fade. Wei’s and Wong’s engagement indelibly conjured Clara and Robert (with Brahms looking on). The compelling and irresistible Leidenschaftlich schnell instantly transported us to a realm of poetic longing in which Wong’s spectacularly effortless variations supported Wei’s brilliantly restrained powers of passion.
As compared with Clara’s Romances, Robert Schumann’s not-often heard Sonata No. 2 in D Minor for Violin and Piano, Op. 121 possesses almost Biblical intensity, symphonic power, Brahmsian weight, and equality of part writing. Annotator Jannie Burdetti cited Joachim’s opinion after the premiere with Clara Schumann:
“I must not fail to tell you about the new Sonata in D minor….I consider it one of the finest compositions of our times in respect of its marvelous unity of feeling and its thematic significance. It overflows with noble passion, almost harsh and bitter in expression, and the last movement reminds one of the sea with its glorious waves of sound.”
Every impulse lined up perfectly, yet spontaneity also loomed large in this no-holding back traversal. Glints of promising sunshine frequently penetrated the restless, stormy, rolling thunder in the Ziemlich langsam—Lebhaft. The piano sounded the horn call for the Sehr Lebhaft. Comprising irrepressible, non-stop energy, triplet figures, and the characteristic downward summonses to Clara, the movement climaxes with allusions to Luther’s Gelobet deist du, Jesu Christ, which is not unlike his Old 100th. That chorale returns enrobed in somber and stately raiments in the Leise, einfach, sounding in this interpretation as if on two celestial harps. Wei’s truly noble double stops expanded the emotional range almost to bursting as Schumann’s melody of intense conviction won the day. We must needs utter an unambiguous “Wow” for the orchestral forces of the Bewegt finale. Wei and Wong both emerged as enormous personalities. Wei, standing awestruck in the spotlight, brought to mind Joseph’s bathing in moonlight in Thomas Mann’s telling. Wong might have been the Pharaoh Sensostris astonished at Joseph’s visions. The two allowed us to eavesdrop on a conversation for the ages.
The duo then topped off our already overflowing granaries with a pair of charming encores. In Mischa Elman’s chestnut transcription of Gosec’s (Silly Symphony) Gavotte [go to 2:15 HERE] Wei launched torrents of million-dollar tone with sly delicacy and teasing hesitations over Wong’s semi-serious oom pah pahs. Once one accepts that violins or cellos may steal the melody of Traumerei from Schumann’s piano solo set Kinderszenen, one could wallow in Wei’s flawless line. His art-concealing-art simplicity took us to a place beyond understanding.
Lee Eiseman is the publisher of the Intelligencer