The famed crossover bassist Edgar Meyer appeared at Cal Performances on Sunday afternoon, Oct. 20, in collaboration with two excellent younger string players. The results were mixed. Here was a combination of tremendous talent and commitment but a program that featured a surfeit of Meyer’s own music — music that interests for a while but not for three-quarters of a recital.
At UC Berkeley’s Hertz Hall, Meyer was joined by violinist Tessa Lark and cellist Joshua Roman — both remarkable artists with a deep interest in collaborative and cross-genre projects. It was just one stop on an extensive national tour, which continues with performances at The Soraya in Northridge on Oct. 23 and at Soka Performing Arts Center in Orange County on Oct. 26. A recording from the trio is also in the works.
The ensemble opened with an arrangement of J.S. Bach’s well-known Sonata in G Major for Viola da Gamba and Harpsichord, BWV 1027, which was followed by three substantial trios by Meyer. Astonishingly, the three players had memorized the entire two-hour program, which gave each piece a clarity of ensemble and a feeling of freedom and connection.
Meyer has built a distinguished career in classical, bluegrass, and jazz and is particularly known for his collaborative projects. In the late 1990s, he recorded two popular CDs with cellist Yo-Yo Ma and violinist Mark O’Connor, the second of which, Appalachian Journey, won a Grammy Award for Best Classical Crossover Album. Meyer’s collaborations with banjo player Béla Fleck and mandolinist Chris Thile have also brought in Grammys.
The bassist’s younger trio mates are no less distinguished. Lark received a 2020 Grammy nomination for her recording of Michael Torke’s Sky, a bluegrass-inflected violin concerto, and Roman has appeared in a number of TED Talks and related media, including a hit video of him playing the six Bach Cello Suites that went live shortly after the 2016 U.S. presidential election.
The Bach sonata that opened Sunday’s program was an impassioned performance. Roman took the solo gamba line while Lark and Meyer shared the keyboard part (right hand to the violin, left hand to the bass). The opening slow movement was gorgeous — serene and utterly fluid. The two Allegro movements, however, were played too fast to communicate Bach’s intricate and powerful harmonic motion. (The score explicitly cautions players with the tempo markings “ma non tanto” — not too fast — and “moderato.”)
The rest of the program was dedicated to Meyer’s string trios. Two of them date from 40 years ago, and the third is brand-new, commissioned by Cal Performances, among other presenting organizations. The bassist commented from the stage that the piece is only two weeks old and that the short second movement still needs to be fleshed out.
Meyer’s compositional style is episodic. Movements open with interesting licks, which are traded around until the music shifts to another effect that plays out in its turn. The composer’s favored texture consists of pulsations of rapid 16th notes, punctuated by wild and finger-bending riffs. His writing is tonal, with intermittent dissonances in a modernist vein. Each of the trios morphs explicitly into jazz at times (usually in the third movement, which would traditionally be a scherzo, the playful section of a multimovement classical work). This gave Meyer a few moments to show off his stand-up bass technique.
One of these trios would have been interesting and enjoyable, but presenting three in a row was too much. And yet in a way, it was also not enough. Meyer was obviously the star attraction for this booking, but those who came to hear his mastery and his musicality may have been disappointed not to hear something more songful from his instrument. A Bach cello suite or a tuneful jazz number would have been a welcome break.
The group encored with another Bach arrangement — the famous tune from the Cantata BWV 140, Sleepers Awake. No one could quibble with the gorgeous playing that Lark and Roman brought to the violin solo and the tenor chorale, but even in this encore, I wanted to hear more of Meyer, who contributed a delicate but almost inaudible plucked bass line.
