“Intensity” was the word on everyone’s lips. “Whether it is a 10-year-old or an 80-year-old, everyone was so intensely focused on the music,” said the festival’s codirector, Wu Han. “Every time, the last concert is the best concert I’ve ever heard.”
The octogenarian she was referring to was, of course, the great Menahem Pressler, who gave a recital the other night, and on Saturday he performed the Schubert Violin Sonata in A Major, D. 574, with Eugene Drucker, followed by the pair of Mendelssohn piano trios with Drucker and David Finckel.
The last time I heard Pressler, I was almost ready to dismiss him as someone who loves the game a little too much to know when to retire. Yet the living legend proved that he is alive and well. Shuffling onto the stage with his pants up to his chest, bow tie crooked, a sweet old man’s smile, and watery eyes, he displayed the character of a musician in his own peculiar world. Yet, of course, it is not the image but the music-making that makes him the stuff of legends.
The diminutive Pressler plays with the nimble energy of a child prodigy and the deep wisdom that one would expect from a man of 85 who is still in great demand. (Immediately after the concert, he was whisked away to Vermont for a week of concerts, to be followed shortly by an engagement in Leipzig; where does he get that energy?) Mendelssohn’s demanding gusts of speedy arpeggios that swirl around the sweet melodies were clear and full of shapely direction under Pressler’s fingers.
Big String Tones
Compared to the piano part, the string parts in Mendelssohn are not quite as demanding, in terms of the speedy torrent and sheer number of notes. Yet
The first time I reviewed the Emerson a few years ago, I used Ralph Waldo Emerson’s verse to comment on its sound: “The hero is not fed on sweets,/Daily his own heart he eats ...”
This snippet captures the ardent force with which Drucker and especially Finckel play. In the first half of the concert, I had the pleasure (or the misfortune, depending on your mood and taste) of sitting in the front row. I’ve heard plenty of violin teachers encourage a bow technique that grips the string tightly to produce a strong sound, and advise their students not to worry about scratching. Still, I wasn’t convinced of this until I heard, from a few feet away, David Finckel saws (“chainsaw,” perhaps?) his bow across the strings. Hours later, that deep buzzing, gritty sound still resonated in my head. Once this kind of sound fills the air, you cannot help but listen in rapt attention, sitting in the figurative palm of the musician, under his control.
The intensity was wonderful, though overwhelming; luckily, I was offered an option to sit in the back of the balcony (where there was also a bit more air) for the second half. The difference was dramatically palpable, as the scratching couldn’t be heard in the back, though the fullness still grabbed the ear.
All this isn’t to say that the trio bashed and muscled their way through the music — in fact, their vigorous strength set the stage for a wonderful contrast in the tender moments. Nowhere was this contrast more heartwarming than in the transition between the first and second movements in the C-minor Piano Trio. The first movement — an aggressive campaign of rabid posturing and fierce runs — yields to the tenderest of lullabies in the second movement. Here, the ensemble found yet another form of intensity. A soft, intimate, loving kind.
While the Music@Menlo festival may be over for this summer season, Finckel and Wu Han plan to return as early as Oct. 11, with guest clarinetist Anthony McGill, for the dedication of Menlo–Atherton High School’s brand-new Center for the Performing Arts.
One comment about the 86-page program book (or tome): Perhaps next year the organization could save money, trees, and in-concert paper rustling with a lighter, more easily navigable booklet.