Ravel, Schubert et al. @ Chamber Music Society of Fort Worth

—Gregory Sullivan Isaacs

On January 7, the Chamber Music Society of Fort Worth presented an afternoon concert that held some surprises. Two of them contained familiar names, but in a unexpected context.

We know the name Andrew Litton from his directorship of the Dallas Symphony Orchestra from 1994 to 2006. During those years, Litton’s equally distinguished career as a pianist remained in the background (at least in Dallas). His abilities as a soloist were showcased for us on Saturday as he gave a masterful performance at the piano for the entire program. There is big difference between piano soloists and collaborative pianists. However, Litton easily bridged that gap. He was always supportive to the other players, dynamically and interpretively, yet equally present as the featured performer.

The other surprise was the name of Levinson. We know Gary as both a virtuoso violinist and the director of the entire CMSFW series. But here was another of the same name, Eugene Levinson. Bass players are rarely marquee names, but Eugene Levinson is one of the exceptions, with an impressive list of principal bass positions held with orchestras world-wide. He came to American attention when, in 1985,  he was appointed Principal Bass of the.  That same year, thanks to his doctorate degree from the Leningrad Conservatory, he accepted an appointment as a distinguished faculty position on the bass faculty of The Juilliard School.

The program opened with an excellent  performance of Ravel’s quirky Sonata for Violin and Violoncello. Levinson (Gary) was joined by the young cellist Edward Arron, who is widely acclaimed as a soloist, chamber musician, and teacher. He served on the faculty of New York University from 2009 to 2016, when he joined the roster at the University of Massachusetts Amherst.

The Ravel sonata is a puzzling piece. It was written in a period of great uproar and change, not only in Ravel’s musical development, but also in the world of a century ago. The 1920s saw the rise of mass media, as radios connected with households in every corner of the nation. American women got the vote, and Prohibition laws had unintended consequences.

Here Ravel sheds his love of rich and supple harmonic splendor for a leaner, more muscular style of music. First off, the work is for violin and cello without the benefit of a piano. The sonata  features sparse and angular lines, a dithering between major and minor modes, and final movement based on the tritone, the interval just short of the perfect fifth and known as the “Devil’s Interval.”

The first movement was originally written for a collection of works commissioned to mark the death of Claude Debussy. Other composers invited to contribute were Bartók, Dukas, Falla, Roussel, Satie, and Stravinsky. The second movement is a chorale with contrasting insertions, and the final movement ends with some exciting contrapuntal writing.

Just considering the instrumentation, you can guess that this is a very difficult work to pull off. Almost all of Ravel’s music is difficult; some of it amounts to the most difficult work ever written.  Thus, performances of this sonata are rare and many of the come off as dry, dissonant, and hard to follow. In the hands of Levinson (Gary) and Arron, Ravel’s actual music surpassed the maze of notes that can easily cloud his intentions.

Part of the success of this performance comes from careful concideration of balance by the two artists. Decisions must be made for almost every measure as to which instrument should sound out over the other. There are even some passages when the cello is scored above the pitches of the violin. Further, the artists were very aware of times when lines converged for a specific harmonic reason and when they differed, even to the point of each being in a different key (polytonality). Once the audience got acclimated to Ravel’s intentions, they seemed to warm to the performance and gave the artists an appreciative  ovation.

Next came another relatively unknown work for viola and piano by Austrian composer Egon Kornauth, his Sonata in C sharp minor, Op. 3. In this piece, the virtuoso performers were pianist Andrew Litton and his violinist/violist wife Katherine Zang Litton. The pair explained that once Litton completed his tenure with the DSO, but had not yet started his next conducting assignment, they decided to perform chamber music. A friend of theirs recommended the present piece because it uses the viola.

Kornauth’s sonata is indeed quite lovely.  It is a lush late-romantic work that gives the viola its due. Supported by her husband’s sensitive partnering at the piano and the composer’s obvious understanding of the viola’s possibilities, Zang-Litton turned in a stellar performance that made you wonder why this instrument isn’t featured more often. The sonata’s only flaw is that it never quite delivers on its promises: there isn’t a soaring ear-worm melody, nor does it reach an awaited thrilling climax. But it is certainly lovely as it unfolds.

We had a complete change of pace for the next selection. Levinson (Gary) played two excerpts from George Gershwin’s ground-breaking ‘Porgy and Bess” arranged by the great violinist Jascha Heifetz. One selection was the inspiring love duet “Bess, you is my Woman Now’ and the other the sassy and irreverent “It ain’t necessarily So.”

Both were played deftly as translations from voice to violin. The love song fared better, but the duet element was missed. And with “It ain’t necessarily So”—sung in the opera by the cheeky, dope-pushing character “Sportin’ Life”—it’s hard not to miss the clever, taunting lyrics of the original song. Both pieces, however, ably reveal the influence of jazz and blues on Gershwin’s masterpiece.

After intermission, we were treated to a definitive performance of Schubert’s Piano Quintet in A Major, Op.114, nicknamed “ Die Forelle” (The Trout).  It gets its name from the fourth movement, a series of variations based on Schubert’s well-known song of the same name. It was written by the 22-year-old Schubert for the unusual combination of violin, viola, cello, double bass, and piano—and played on Saturday in a jolly manner by the full lineup of performers, plus the addition of Levinson (Eugene) on the bass.

This delightful work is written in the form of a serenade, alternating fast and slow movements. It was not written for the concert hall but for a group of friends, with this odd combination of instruments, to play for their own after-dinner enjoyment.  Schubert must have dashed this off because he repeats whole sections with little change—but his revolutionary use of harmony, his expertly written variations, and his clear shout-out to his inner child, marks this as an exceptional work.

Even though it was a public performance and not after dinner, the five musicians certainly gave the performance the sense of camaraderie inherent to the work. The addition of the Levinson’s (Eugene) gorgeous bass sound to the ensemble gave the work a grounding that, once heard,  makes you wonder why the instrument isn’t used in chamber music much more often.

Even though this was a performance with a light touch, it was musically quite exceptional. Intonation, ensemble, and clean playing were on display by all. Of special note was Litton’s exceptional collaborative piano skills. He brought out what we needed to hear and stepped back when required by the music. In addition, his awareness and respect for different dynamics in the ensemble continued into his own playing, as one hand, dynamically different, accompanied the other.

On the way out,  some members of the audience were humming the tune of the trout song and you can’t ask for more approval than that.

WHERE: Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth

WEB: cmsfw.org for information on upcoming concerts and events