As presented Wednesday in Gates Concert Hall, this program by the respected violin-piano duo of Cho-Liang Lin and Andr -Michel Shub looked better on paper than it sounded. No offense to these terrific musicians, or to the esteemed composers - but this Friends of Chamber Music program never raised the pulse or fired the imagination. Actually, a little taste of the hackneyed might have been welcome.
Yes, even the two Mozart violin sonatas (No. 23 in D and No. 27 in G, if you're keeping scores) merely came and went without incident.
Nice pieces, to be sure, and very well-played. Schub's crystalline pianism added a welcome lightness and transparency to the music, while Lin brought his customary dead-on intonation and sweet tone to these little morsels. Just not very much meat on them bones.
The evening's most successful offering was Sheng's Three Fantasies (premiered by Lin and Schub earlier this year). This is serious, weighty music, exploring a wealth of sonorities and moods in its 13 minutes. Sheng opens with a Dream Song, spare and gentle like an Oriental garden.
Quite a contrast to the Tibetan Air that follows, featuring some stormy keyboard explosions that suggest a restless, agitated state of mind. The concluding Kazakhstan Love Song begins quietly and evolves into extended episodes of double-stops by Lin, played over an anxious, wandering keyboard accompaniment. Interesting stuff by a most interesting composer.
The program-proper ended with a true rarity: Walton's Sonata. This work from 1950 (penned, Lin told us, as a loan repayment to Yehudi Menuhin) is grandly romantic with only the occasional nod to modernism. It ambled along neatly enough, displaying the composer's solid command of technique, without showing much heart and soul.
After the Walton, Schub and Lin offered Ravel's Piece in the Form of a Haba era as an encore.
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