SCHUMANN FANTASIE AT SCHWARTZ'S MEMDOCINO FESTIVAL

San Francisco-based pianist Robert Schwartz has been a frequent Mendocino Music Festival performer, and July 23 he played challenging recital in the Festival’s small Preston Hall before 100 listeners.

People expecting piano competition perfection would not find it here, but what they heard was a seasoned artist interpretating important pieces and educating his audience with perceptive pre-piece commentary that was often overly lengthy.

Bach’s E Minor Toccata opened in a conventional reading, the contrapuntal lines clean and the tempos never rushed. Sound from the house piano was mostly warm with steady volume and minimal rubato. Trills and tremolos were distinct, and the pianist gave little phrase-ending emphasis to spotlight the contrasting moods. Delightful.

The artist’s approach to Schumann’s C Major Fantasie (Op. 17) over 36 minutes was patrician in the first movement, perhaps old fashioned but with several unexpected long retards and dynamic extremes. He did not read the poem at the head of the score. The famous March movement found Mr. Schwartz again taking his time with a long fermata in the middle and nailing the contrary motion skips near the end. He eschewed ancient romantic gestures such a left-hand doubling in the last bar and an enharmonic modulation leading to the finale.

Tempo in the wonderful finale was on the slow side but with broken chords he perfectly built up the two climaxes, the audience quiet (even breathless) for some time at the conclusion before mounting what I found was tepid applause, considering the convincing playing of a masterpiece. The volume at the end was so subdued that ocean waves could be heard through the hall’s breezy open windows.

Diverting from the printed program was Stravinsky’s short Sonata from 1924 started the second half. Textures throughout were thin with a détaché touch, and the performance persuasive. The sostenuto pedal was used to highlight individual notes. Many trills and short motives led toccata speed and pedal point as the 13-minute piece ended. It was an afternoon highlight.

Rachmaninoff’s A Minor Etude Tableaux, Op. 39, No. 2 was played depicting a wash of lyric sound, ocean swells and wind giving a tenuous quality to the sound. The pianist held left-hand notes to give the sound an arc and anchor. The same composer’s Liebeslied transcription was played well and with a judicious tempo but lacked rhythmic vitality.

The recital closed with transcribed Bach, Rachmaninoff’s delicious Prelude to the E Major third Partita, BWV 1006. Mr. Schwartz had several ideas at the beginning of the sprightly work, and quickly found just the right balance of tempo, articulation and tone.It was an odd choice to complete the performance, but the playing brought together many of the recital’s interpretative threads. There was no encore.