Bachmann and Klibonoff Offered The Finale

To A Splendid Season Of Concerts

By Wendy Wipprecht

Last Sunday afternoon, Newtown Friends of Music brought its 31st season to a stunning close with a concert featuring the violinist Maria Bachmann and the violinist Jon Klibonoff.

Ms Bachmann introduced herself and Klibonoff to the audience as “two-thirds of the Trio Solisti,” and went on to explain that when she and Klibonoff perform as a duo, they almost always play contemporary music. “Today’s program,” she added, “is more traditional, but sometimes it’s nice to play the standard repertoire.”

The April 5 concert began with a short work by Brahms, the Sonatensatz (Scherzo) in C minor. Brahms and his friends — Robert Schumann and Schumann’s pupil, Albert Dietrich — decided to write a sonata for violin and piano as a gift for another friend, the violinist Joseph Joachim. Each contributed a movement or more to what became known as the F-A-E Sonata, a work filled with personal and musical allusions. Joachim’s task was to play the sonata and then identify the composer of each movement.

Joachim had no trouble with that musical puzzle, and no wonder: the Sonatensatz sounds like Brahms, even though it is an early work (Brahms was only 26 years old).

The Scherzo opens with high drama and passion in both instruments, propelled by the piano’s hard-driving chords. The inner section is more lyrical; the piano recedes a bit, allowing the violin to sing and to close the section with a beautiful, sustained note. Then the stormy first part returns, reinforcing the contrast between sections. Both players met the Scherzo’s demands for strength and sweetness, speed and lyricism. This is a piece designed to test the mettle of its first players, Joachim and Clara Wieck Schumann, who were among the great instrumentalists of their time.

Next on the program was Schubert’s Sonata in A major, D. 574, a work from his early maturity that was probably intended for amateurs to play at home. For the first time, the twenty-year-old composer made the violin and piano equal partners. The first movement, Allegro moderato, opens with a simple piano introduction, which becomes a modest accompaniment to a lovely, songlike violin theme.

The second movement, a Scherzo, opens with a short piano fanfare and then launches into a high-spirited theme that calls for light and fast playing.  The third movement, Andantino, is a lyrical dialogue that seems to carry within it future Lieder. The final Allegro vivace movement returns to the gaiety of the Scherzo, beginning with a leaping piano motif that underlies the many twists and turns of the movement.

Like many works by Mozart, whose influence can be heard in the first movement, this sonata is not technically imposing, designed to test the virtuosity of the performers. It may be easy to play, but playing it well is another matter. To sound effortlessly and naturally beautiful takes all the art one can muster, and that level of artistry, so great that it is transparent, invisible, is what Bachmann and Klibonoff brought to this sonata.

A very different piece followed: Ravel’s Sonata No. 2 in G Major. In the Schubert sonata, piano and violin were equal partners; in the Ravel sonata, the differences between violin and piano are emphasized and exploited in pursuit of instrumental color.

Sometimes violin and piano play against each other, and almost seem independent. For example, in the first movement, Allegretto, a luminous piano passage is offset by a scratchy-sounding violin. Sometimes it seems that violin and piano are engaged in a power struggle; at others one wonders if Ravel took two separate works and smashed them together to form the sonata in question. Nevertheless, the result is beautiful.

The second movement, Blues: moderato, is Ravel’s tribute to two of America’s musical contributions, jazz and blues. Those who grew up listening to popular as well as classical music find this movement very enjoyable, picking up, often without even knowing it, blue notes, jazzy syncopations, and echoes of Gershwin and ragtime. At one point the violin is strummed vigorously, making it sound like a banjo, which alludes to the African American roots of blues and jazz.

The last movement, Perpetuum mobile: Allegro, incorporates interesting time changes and syncopations, and of course is played at breakneck speed. This sonata is physically demanding, especially in the last movement, but it also asks for delicacy, the wizardry that can make a note tremble in the air and then dissipate, and, above all, the ability to produce the full spectrum of each instrument’s color.

After intermission, Bachmann and Klibonoff returned to the stage to play Brahms’s Sonata No. 3 in D minor, a work of great drama, intensity and beauty.

Its first movement, Allegro, opens with a spare, songlike violin theme that is played over the piano’s broken octaves, creating a sinister, nervous-sounding effect and also generating much of the rest of the movement. The second movement, Adagio, is a song without words that is very beautiful and full of pathos. The violin sings in full voice, accompanied by the piano; the movement ends tenderly.

The Scherzo movement that follows belongs to the piano, although the violin interrupts the movement later, with a rhapsodic outburst that ends with a series of forceful chords. The last movement, Presto agitato, calls for even more passion and intensity, and is also the most virtuosic part of the sonata. This fast and furious movement leads to a thundering conclusion.

There was a moment of silence, and then a quiet “Wow!” escaped from a corner of the auditorium.  There was no other way to put it.

Such a performance makes listeners wonder how such amazing sounds can be produced by, say, a wooden instrument over 200 hundred years old, how physically demanding musical performance can be, and even how an arrangement of notes on a page can inspire such great joy in performers and audience alike.

All we listeners could do was applaud furiously, and hope that Maria Bachmann and Jon Klibonoff would return soon, whether as soloists, a duo, or as two-thirds of the Trio Solisti.