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Phillip T Young Recital Hall
June 25, 2011
On July 1st, 1876, six days before his sixteenth birthday, Gustav Mahler was awarded first prize at the Vienna Conservatory's composition competition. According to the Conservatory's own archives, the winning work was the first movement of a "Quintet", although no further details are given.
There is confusion over the exact nature of the "quintet": numerous authors, perhaps in light of the fact that the piano was Mahler's main subject - just eight days before the composition competition he had been unanimously awarded first prize in the piano competition for his performance of a Schubert sonata - have insisted, on no evidence whatsoever, that the work was a piano quintet.
The confusion is further confounded by the first public concert to include any music by Mahler, given by him and friends in his home town of Iglau (now Jihlava) on September 12, 1876, of the first movement of a piano quartet in A minor.
Donald Mitchell is convinced that the obvious answer - that the Conservatory's records are mistaken and that the prize was given the piano quartet - is the correct one. He further suggests that, although technically a remarkably accomplished work, especially for a mainly self-taught musician who had been a student at the Conservatory for less than a year, the quartet was perhaps awarded the prize as much for its conservatism as for anything else; and certainly the Vienna Conservatory in the 1870s was no hotbed of revolution.
As matters stand, the piano quartet movement is the only complete example we have of any music prior to the 1880 Das klagende Lied, which, we have it on the composer's own authority, was "the work in which I became Mahler".
Any performance of the quartet, then, is of great interested, particularly as, since its first modern performance on station WBAI New York, in 1962, it is music which seems more often recorded than performed in public.
Although attending Saturday's concert required no little sacrifice on my part (see today's other review), that sacrifice was well worth it; I have waited several decades to hear this music "in the flesh" and I was not disappointed.
Jordan Ofiesh, Rachel Kratofil, Emily Burton and Michael Drislane opened their recital with a splendidly impassioned account of Mahler's earliest surviving music.
Clearly an attempt to make this sound like mature Mahler would be foolish, as well as doomed to failure, but the four players, young thought they might be, were too canny for that.
In fact, if the music resembles anyone else's, it is that of Brahms (which no doubt went down particularly well at the largely Wagner-phobic Conservatory) and, if pushed to sum up the performance in a few words, I should say that it had the passion of the teenage Mahler combined with a Brahmsian sense of melody and harmony.
For those who are bound and determined to find evidence of the later master, the ominous left-hand piano line in the opening and the final, possibly despairing, pizzicatos will have to be sufficient.
For my money, the best aspect of this performance was that, while making no apologies for the music's shortcomings, it still made a most persuasive case for hearing the music in its own right. I enjoyed it greatly and would wish to thank all concerned for fulfilling a long felt want.
Mozart's Piano Quartet in G minor, K.478 is, by way of contrast, from one of its composer's greatest periods - it comes between the C major (K.467) and E flat (K.482) piano concertos. Moreover, G minor was something of a special key for Mozart (consider the Symphony, K.550 and the String Quintet, K.516).
The first half of Saturday's concert closed with a fine performance of the quartet. There was an elegance to the opening movement, and a terrific spring to the rhythms, yet no lack of intensity, especially in the development section. The andante, which followed, was quite lovely, with delicious piano tones from Drislane in the introduction and gorgeous, rich strings from his colleagues as they joined.
The rondeau finale features what must be one of Mozart's happiest melodies (I was still humming it to myself as I drove home) and the movement's smiling good nature, conveyed with some extremely stylish playing, was a joy.
For anyone who still buys into the canard that Mendelssohn was an effete classicist, with little emotional depth, a "genius who became a talent" (in Liszt's rather condescending phrase, most unusual for that otherwise selflessly generous man) might I respectfully suggest immersing yourself in his Piano Trio No.2 in C minor, Op.66?
Ofiesh, Burton and Drislane gave a thoroughly convincing account of the trio in the second half, a performance of conviction, which gripped the attention from beginning to end.
The opening movement was intense and fiery; if, on occasion, the cello did not come through quite as clearly as one would have wished - well the fault may just have been Mendelssohn's.
The second movement was delectable, one long cantabile; the scherzo - and anyone whose pulse does not beat just a little faster at the mere thought of a Mendelssohn scherzo should probably seek help - was almost dizzyingly quick and wonderfully precise, if perhaps more elfin than fairy-like. The finale, taken at a particularly well-judged tempo, brought the evening to an exciting close.
I sincerely hope that this grouping was not simply a one-off event, as these four musicians not only have talent to spare but considerable empathy and rapport.
It most gratifying to see the next generation of musicians in Victoria picking up the torch.
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