Cello-piano duo is close, but no cigar

Author: Andrew Throdahl

Cellist Pieter Wispelwey, 45, performed last Friday evening in the Mahaney '85 Center for the Arts Concert hall stage upon a wooden pedestal. This bold yet awkward set up seemed to define the concert, which boasted a breed of musical enthusiasm usually found at student recitals. One gets the sense that Wispelwey has changed little since his college days - he played with an aggressive, fearless Romanticism, and apparently he is still enjoying music he has probably played throughout his twenty-some-odd year career.

Friday's program was slightly too heavy, with two enormous, oft heard sonatas (by Chopin and Rachmaninov) virtually back to back. Even in qualified hands, performers should consider not spreading themselves too thin. While Wispelwey seemed to have the stamina and interpretive grasp to get through the concert, his partner Alexander Melnikov sounded less sure of himself.

Barber and Rachmaninov's sonatas, which opened the program, immediately exposed the pros and cons of the partnership. While Barber's sonata features a sparse piano accompaniment, Rachmaninov exploits the piano for the same flamboyant effects found in his piano concertos. Melnikov played both sonatas as an accompanist rather than an equal, virtuosic contributor.

In the first movement of the Rachmaninov something was missing. Melnikov often neglected to bring out the bass line, or accentuate the phrasing. He consistently backed out of passages marked forte or fortissimo, which might have been part of a strategy to save energy for climaxes. Climaxes, however, often sounded hectic - sometimes one worried he would not get out of them alive.

The interior movements of the Rachmaninov, by contrast, were more successful than the outer ones. They chose a coherent pace for the scherzo. The duo cranked up the schmaltz for the third movement while still controlling the loud developments. Melnikov played the melancholy thirds that close the movement with genuine heart. The fourth movement, however, exhibited the same deficiencies heard in the first.

After intermission they performed the charming "Variations on a Slovakian folk tune" by Martinu. Both players took some expressive liberties to fully breathe a gypsy attitude. Wispelwey and Martinov seem to be tailored for accessible and colorful works like this.

At the beginning of the recital Wispelwey announced that they would switch the Rachmaninov and Chopin sonatas, meaning they would end the program with Chopin. In hindsight this was a very good idea, since the duo sounded considerably more at ease in Chopin's ornate texture than they were with Rachmaninov's slavic ostentation. Melnikov took a few more risks in the Chopin, and had clearly reflected on the uncharacteristically multilayered score. While not the most elegant performance of the Chopin, they were effective in communicating the varying personalities of each movement.

As an encore, they chose Carl Davidov's effervescent "On the Fountain," which gave Wispelwey an opportunity to show off his technique a little more. I wonder if this piece would still be performed without its evocative title - if it was simply "Etude on Repeated Notes" it might have failed to delight the audience as it did.

A critic should really be seated in the audience, and I was given the questionable privelege of sitting on stage with the performers. Rather than being able to focus all my attention on their playing, however, I was occupied turning the pages for Melnikov. I might have enjoyed this concert more had I been able to relax, and I might not have been so critical of Melnikov had I not been following along with the score.