Deseret Morning News, Saturday, July 15, 2006
Cellist dynamic in Barber work
By Edward Reichel
Deseret Morning News
PARK CITY AND SALT LAKE CITY MUSIC FESTIVAL, St. Mary's Catholic Church, Park City; through July 23 (943-0169).
PARK CITY — Whenever American music of the mid-20th century is discussed, Samuel Barber is invariably relegated to a secondary position behind Aaron Copland. That shouldn't be surprising. It's also a fact that's easily explained.
After experimenting with dissonance and atonality in his early works, Copland found his lasting success in music based on archetypical American themes written in a popular and easily digestible idiom.
Barber, on the other hand, was solidly grounded in the European classical tradition. While no less appealing than Copland's music, Barber's works are structurally more formulated, motivic-driven and tonally more adventurous. Further, he was never as drawn toward quaint American subject matter as Copland.
Yet Barber is as quintessentially American as Copland. What separates the two is in their technique and style.
Barber wrote two major works for cello. Of the pair, the sonata has found a permanent place in the repertoire, while the much more challenging concerto is still only occasionally dusted off and performed.
At Thursday's Park City and Salt Lake City Music Festival concert, cellist Scott Ballantyne and pianist Doris Stevenson gave a remarkably dynamic and revealing reading of the sonata that underscored the boldness of the musical gestures and the sweeping emotional panorama that Barber paints.
Ballantyne is a technically astute and musically perceptive performer. With his fluid playing, he captured the drama, the intensity of expression and the melodicism of the sonata with subtlety and sincerity. His reading was imbued with an earnestness that emphasized the scope and depth of the work.
He and Stevenson, who was an ideal musical collaborator, captured the rich textures and the finely woven lyricism of the sonata compellingly.
After intermission, Ballantyne teamed with violinist and Brigham Young University faculty member Monte Belknap (making his festival debut), clarinetist Russell Harlow and pianist John Jensen for a vividly drawn reading of Hindemith's Quartet for Clarinet, Violin, Cello and Piano.
While Hindemith's music has a tendency to be somewhat academic and uninspired, the four gave a wonderfully lucid and articulate performance, in which even the passages in the outer movements that come across as being forced and artificial sounded dynamic. It takes musicians of supreme talent to play Hindemith's music well (particularly his chamber works), and these four certainly proved themselves to be of that caliber.
Especially noteworthy was the evocative slow movement, which the four played seamlessly, with an eloquence that was almost poetic.
The concert opened with one of Mozart's delightful sonatas for piano four hands. Stevenson and Jensen played the work with crystalline purity and crisply defined phrasings.
E-mail: ereichel@desnews.com
© 2006 Deseret News Publishing Company