Last night at Herbst Theater, Jonathan Biss returned for the second of his three-concert series for San Francisco Performances, each coupling an Impromptu & one of the final three piano sonatas by Schubert with a newly commissioned work for solo piano. The series is turning out to be a very rich experience.
The opening was the Impromptu in A-flat Major, #2, played with Biss's characteristic poetic attention & intensity. Biss writes his own program notes, which do exactly what program notes should do: make us aware of what the artists are doing in & with the music, & give us signposts to listen for. The program notes for the second piece, a newly commissioned work from Alvin Singleton titled Bed-Stuy Sonata, were spoken from the stage by the pianist. In accordance with the composer's reluctance to impose interpretation, Biss invited us to listen for ourselves; even the title, which is apparently unusually specific for Singleton – it is a nickname for the Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood of Brooklyn, where the composer grew up – is not meant to trigger any sort of association, nostalgic, pictorial, or biographical; when asked by Biss about the title, Singleton replied that his titles were mostly meant for himself & not the performer or the audience.
It is a wonderful, striking piece, clearly virtuosic without empty flash. Solemn, pillar-like notes move forward in a stately procession, their sounds reverberating to the border of silence, to be followed by glittering, muscular but somehow tender, cascades of notes. This dense complexity alternates with the slower pillar-like moments (the piece is all in one movement). The sonata ends with a little uptick in the sound which seems like a question, left unanswered & dying away in the air. The whole thing is redolent of an urban setting, with tall buildings & tumult & grace notes of calm & near-silence. It could also, though, describe a purely interior landscape. Last night was only the second public performance of the piece. I know I keep saying of new music I wish they had played it twice, but, you know, somebody really needs to do that. For this piece Biss used a tablet with the music, which he could forward with a pedal, which audibly amazed the old woman with clanging "artistic" bracelets a few rows behind me.
After the intermission we had the Sonata in A Major D 959. Aside from the obvious beauty of the rolling & swirling currents of sound, I appreciate Biss's emphasis on the psychological & moral complexity of this music; framing it as Schubert's way of processing his impending & very early death, he emphasizes the struggle & the strangeness of what's going on; the silences are as telling as the sounds. The moments of near-breakdown emerge with clarity from the formal structures trying to contain & process them. As with the first concert in the series, the encore was another short piece by Schubert.
The audience was mostly well-behaved, though the first piece was disturbed by a person on the left who kept "whispering" loudly "I can't sit here!" Before the performance some people in that section had been complaining about a high-pitched hum or beep; I didn't hear it so I wasn't sure, but one of them kept saying that high-pitched sounds weren't audible to old people but he could hear it, so maybe there was something. I don't know why the other person couldn't just quietly move to an empty seat during the first piece instead of letting us all know he couldn't sit there. & I've mentioned the woman with clanging bracelets. I will self-righteously note that I was wearing several bracelets, only mine didn't clang, clash, or chime. At least this time there wasn't an idiot who brought his goddamn lapdog in, as happened at the Lawrence Brownlee concert.
The next & final concert in the series, which I am very much looking forward to, will be on 2 May. My write-up of the first concert is here.
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