Manzo Amazes on Double-Bass
Anthony Manzo
WHILE WE DO NOT get a whole lot of music at the Bank of America Chamber Music Series that host Geoff Nuttall describes as “wild and crazy,” those were in fact his first words at Chamber X Friday afternoon for the second performance that day of a program beginning with Louise Farrenc’s Piano Quintet No. 1 in A minor, Op. 30.
He also “bet nobody here has ever heard this piece live.” Naturally, one hand went up in the back of the Dock Street Theatre. “Are you related [to the composer?” Nuttall queried. “No,” the single female voice replied, “I was here for the 11 A.M. concert.”
When the roar of laughter subsided, Nuttall introduced the woman as his mom; more hearty laughter. The first violinist for the resident St. Lawrence String Quartet went on to explain that Farrenc was a composer and virtuoso pianist in France during the 1830s and ’40s. As she wrote only instrumental music and no operas, practically required for recognition in France at that time, plus being female, she remains virtually anonymous.
So that we would have some knowledge of what we were about to hear, Nuttall said her quintet comprises four movements, a first movement evocative of contemporary masters, and a second movement reminiscent of a Mendelssohnian trio. Anthony Manza would be providing the foundation on bass, with Chris Costanza on cello, Hsin-Yun Huang on viola, and himself on violin. (In truth, Nuttall never introduces himself as a performer in any configuration of the 20 musicians participating in Chamber 2011; he just sits down and begins to play, undergoing a sea change to serious musician.)
But first our jovial host introduced Inon Barnatan as the artist who would play the piano part, which requires as towering a piano virtuoso as Ferrenc herself was. Bows up, and almost immediately, the work established itself as the promised wild ride. A lovely largo for piano and cello opened the second movement, the melodic theme passed among the other strings which gives way to the lively third, and soon enough they are dancing through the final movement, itself the best example of scoring that broke with tradition.
While wholly enjoyable, this performance did not seem to me to live up to the highly exacting standards we have come to expect from this world-class group of music makers. The reasons for this remains as enigmatic as the quintet’s concluding with a couple of plucked strings, but one cannot help but speculate that this work is hardly among the standard repertoire these performers have been rehearsing and playing for years.
Another rarely-heard gem tested the mettle of double bassist Anthony Manzo, who talked and played his way through Tom Johnson’s 1975 “Failing: A Very Difficult Piece for Solo String Bass,” the music notated above the prescribed script. Difficult? It should be impossible for anyone to be able to read text aloud and play an instrument simultaneously. I have no clue how he did this at all, imperfectly or no, as the same part of the brain is engaged in both activities. How Manza accomplished this is cause for extended speculation, especially following with any accuracy a score that is as complex as the very witty stream-of-consciousness treatise on the nature of the relationship between failing and succeeding—all while taking care to remain cognizant of Johnson’s repeated admonitions: to balance the spoken word with the bass sound, to speak loud enough to be understood, and to maintain a normal pace. On the other hand, however would we know whether Manza failed or succeeded?
It came almost as a relief to hear a familiar work, Beethoven’s Violin Sonata No. 9 in A Major , Op. 47 (“Kreutzer”). Nuttall reminded us that Beethoven originally dedicated this glowing work to the leading violinist of the day, George Hightower. Showing up for this first performance so late he had to sight-read the score, Hightower proceeded to get so drunk at a nearby bar where he repaired with Beethoven after the concert, he insulted a woman who was a darling of the roving Beethoven’s eye. In high dudgeon, Ludwig removed the dedication to Hightower and re-dedicated the sonata to the French violinist Rodolphe Kreutzer, who, it is believed, never played it, calling it “outrageously unintelligible.”
Liva Sohn
Seminal in its impact on the culture, this piece featured Nuttall’s wife Livia Sohn, violin, and Pedja Muzijevic, piano. When Pedja originally proposed including the work in this year’s Spoleto chamber series, Nuttall reported, rubbing his hands together in glee, he enthusiastically agreed, already casting himself in the violin part, until Pedja piped up, “Oh, no, not you. Livia would be much better.”
Muzijevic did Sohn no favor. In this grand and florid composition, demanding sequential trills at the very top of the violin’s range among a host of challenges throughout but especially in the stormy second movement and the final Tarantella, Sohn extracted a full measure of power from her small frame. I am loath to report that her efforts rated only an A, versus her usual A-plus expertise. Again to speculate on the cause(s), every Mom/musician knows that when you are expecting a child, your capacity for taking, holding and using your breath, that all-important element in playing any instrument, is significantly curtailed.
The audience filling only about 85 percent of the theatre gave the performance a standing O nonetheless—of course.
