Julia Fischer, violinist, and Milana Chernyavska, pianist
Union College Memorial Chapel
Oct. 28, 2005
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| Julia Fischer |
And thanks to our dedicated Homeland Security forces, what should have been a trio was reduced to two when cellist Danjulo Ishizaka, no doubt packing plastique in his Stradivarius, was denied a visa. Fischer and pianist Milana Chernyavska came up with a program just as compelling as what had been planned, with an added bonus: We got to hear Fischer make her way through the pinnacle of the violin repertory, Bach’s Partita No. 2 in D Minor.
What’s to follow will be a shameless paean to Fischer’s performance, so I want to make sure to emphasize that in her partnership with Chernyavska – they played sonatas by Schumann and Franck – the two of them worked together as one. In a trio, the pianist is understood to have an equal footing. As a duo with violin, there’s a too-long tradition of being a back-seat player.
Here there was no such diminishment. Chernyavska was an eager and sensitive player, easily the master of the difficult passages both pieces provide, while remaining entirely in sync with Fischer. It was glorious work.
Although Cesar Franck wrote only one violin sonata, the piece is so often played that you wish he’d offered something else just for relief. Further testament to its popularity is the fact that so many other solo instruments, like flute and cello, have plundered it. By the time we reached that point in the program, however – it was the only announced work on the second half – I knew that we were in for something special.
Like so much of Franck’s music, it speaks for itself. Serve the music well and it works its magic. Fischer has a fast vibrato and a focused tone, which added to the intensity of her transparent interpretation. The piece begins with a repeated query from the piano, answered by the violin with what turns out to be not only the opening theme but also a motif that will sound throughout the piece, Franck having been passionate about tying movements together with repeated motifs. There’s an edginess to the relationship between the two instruments throughout the work that heightens the dramatic tension, and the players understood and made the most of that friction.
Like Brahms, Schumann wrote three violin sonatas. Unlike Brahms’s, they’re rarely played. But that Schumann’s fate: To be relegated to the category of Brahms Lite. His Sonata No. 1 certainly underscores that perception. It’s a pleasant though lightweight piece, achieving much of its effect through its brevity. There’s a free-flowing, almost improvisatory feel to it, yet it requires excellent technique from both players. Unlike the Franck sonata, this is a piece that benefits from a stamp of personality, and Fischer and Chernyavska ably did just that, adding appropriate amounts of fire and mystery to the work.
Schumann wrote a set of piano accompaniments to Bach’s solo violin sonatas, no doubt meant as a gesture of respect. Fortunately, they’re almost never played. And the way Fischer – who played the entire program from memory – wrapped herself in and around Bach’s Partita No. 2 (solo version, of course) was nothing short of miraculous.
I can quibble with some of her choices, such as dropping the repeats of the second sections of the first four movements – but that has become a fairly common practice. In the Chaconne, she rushed the finish of a lengthy arpeggiated section, losing some of its dramatic effect; likewise, I don’t think she took advantage of the dramatic possibilities at the end of the Chaconne’s D Major section.
But such criticism pales in the context of the overall wonder of her playing. Although she plays a big-toned Guadagnini, she is clearly familiar with Baroque styles of playing and applied some of that leanness to her approach. It was an excellent synthesis of styles.
Each of the Partita’s movements is a dance, from the stately Allemande that opens it, a single-voiced, four-quarter time lament laced with triplets, to the mighty Chaconne. In the Sarabande, she tossed off the many difficult double- and triple-stops with unnerving ease, while the high-kicking Gigue was a marvel of a virtuoso bow-arm.
And then the Chaconne. No 22-year-old should have this kind of facility with so demanding a work. It’s not just the requirements of the notes themselves; it’s a quality that lurks behind them, in the way that Bach sequenced the many variations, in the changes of mood, in the overall dramatic arc, in that undefinable quality that informs a work of such genius.
Yet she played this as if she’d been playing it all her life – which I suppose she has – and allowed us to fall into the work’s mysterious depths, accompany her on a fabulous journey and emerge enriched by the experience.
The program as a whole was so well chosen that it I couldn’t imagine what might be offered as encore, but they chose the wonderfully appropriate “Variations on a Theme of Corelli” by Fritz Kreisler, one of his pastiche works, this one in the style of Tartini.
– Metroland Magazine, 3 November2005
Julia Fischer, violinist, and Milana Chernyavska, pianist
Union College Memorial Chapel
April 5, 2007
ALTHOUGH SHE'S BEEN cranking out a series of warhorse concerto recordings – with a waxing of the Brahms opus her latest – violinist Julia Fischer returned to Union College last week with a recital program of far less familiar works. Two Octobers ago she and pianist Chernyavska were to make their area debut as part of a trio, but the cellist’s visa fell victim to the punch-drunk zeal of our so-called Homeland Security and we were given instead a program that set a template for this latest one, with (fairly) Romantic duos framing a Bach solo sonata.
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| Milana Chernyavska |
It’s a varied and brilliant journey to the finale, itself a witty succession of false endings that didn’t quite fool the enthusiastic audience. The compelling nature of the piece also tends to hide the virtuosic requirements for both pianist and violinist – there’s no showing off for its own sake, and Fischer and Chernyavska don’t indulge in the flashy arm flailing that too many performers display to say, “I’m working here!”
Fischer, who is barely 25, took first prize at the International Yehudi Menuhin Violin Competition when she was 12, and she’s also adept as a pianist (she’ll be performing both the Glazunov violin concerto and the Grieg piano concerto in an upcoming concert). She has a fresh, thoroughly affecting sound that’s a welcome antidote to the glut of sound-alike fiddlers that swarmed the concert stage in the past couple of decades.
Her recording of Bach’s solo Sonatas and Partitas is unexpectedly convincing. You don’t expect a kid to plumb the emotional depths of these works, which Heifetz termed “the Bible.” Yet her playing invites you to forget that there’s a musician between you and the music.
This was re-proven by her performance of Bach’s Sonata No. 2 in A minor, a four-movement work with a big fugue in the middle. To present four simultaneous voices on the violin – which, with its curved bridge, can play only two strings at a time – calls both for creative writing (which Bach never lacked) and active listening. And it’s not just the fugue that asks us to imagine a broader harmonic picture than the notes provide.
From the first notes of the stately Grave that opens the work, Fischer both sang us the haunting melody and, following the intricacies of the music, drew us into the fuller-voiced fabric with sketchy inflections. In the third movement, one of the most beautiful of all six sonatas, a pulsing harmony accompanies the tune: difficult to play well, beautifully rendered.
The closing Allegro is a fireworks show, which Fischer pushed at a too-fast tempo that clouded the line of the movement. Still, her fingerwork was superb.
The program was bracketed by sonatas by Schubert and Mendelssohn. Or, in Schubert’s case, a “Sonatina,” so named by a publisher nervous of scaring off amateurs. It’s one of a set of three such pieces, all of them full-blown, four-movement sonatas. Number 2, in A minor, was helped by Fischer’s unsentimental approach. It’s as peppy a work (minor key notwithstanding) as you’d expect from this composer, and you can practically hear the lyrics of an ardent song bursting through in the affecting melodic lines.
Mendelssohn’s Sonata in F major is actually his second such, but this is a mature work sparkling with Mendelssohnian froth, especially in the crowd-pleasing Presto that finishes the work. The opening Allegro substitutes passion for profundity, and the performers approached it differently from the Schubert, adding needed touches of emotion.
Which only reinforced the impression that Fischer and Chernyavska are a Protean pair, with not only the virtuoso chops to play anything, but keen enough insights into what they play to bring out the spirit of each individual work.
Speaking of Heifetz: As Fischer dug into the opening of the encore, Tchaikovsky’s well-work “Melodie,” she sounded uncannily like that violinist on his mid-’40s Decca recording. I’m convinced she play anything and make it sound as if it always was meant to sound that way. All the more reason to celebrate this amazing performer.
– Metroland Magazine, 12 April 2007
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