Pianist and Conductor Stephen Prutsman

A MUSIC OFFERING IN A SONIC MIXTURE

Bach’s iconic D Minor Clavier Concerto was the centerpiece in the fourth day of Mendocino Music Festival events July 16 in the big tent concert hall, with San Francisco-based Stephen Prutsman the featured artist.

Conducting a chamber orchestra of ten from a lidless piano, Mr. Prutsman took fast tempos and a muscular approach throughout, eschewing subtlety in favor of driving rhythms and dramatic contrasts.
His approach to this contrapuntal masterpiece featured some novel trills with speedy conclusions, pedal point and a detache touch in scale passages, all well suited to this music. It was not Bach to everyone’s taste but elicited loud applause from the 400 people in the hall.

The small orchestra, composed of five violins, two violas, two cellos and bass, managed the speedy pace well. The Adagio movement was captivating.

Mention should be made of the amplification that produced far too much volume and generated a piano tone that was brittle and lacking color. Resident technicians say amplification is required as the tent (and audience) smothers reverberation. The downsides are a lack of spatial presence for the instruments and unnatural string color and overtones. Given the physical condition of a large tent concert space there presumably is not an alternative to the electronic enhancement.

The concert began with Festival co-director Susan Waterfall’s erudite descriptions from the podium of the 1647 genesis of Bach’s “Musical Offering,” BWV 1079. This set 16 short movements is based on a flute theme of Prussian monarch Frederick the Great. In four initial canons Ms. Waterfall provided continuo at the piano and was joined by flutist Mindy Rosenfeld, violinist Jeremy Cohen and cellist Burke Schuchmann.

Bach’s stately C Minor Trio Sonata followed, a four-movement work that showcased Ms. Rosenfeld’s elegant and nimble virtuosity and the sonic support of Mr. Schuchmann’s robust cello vibrato. The tempos here were judicious, allowing the interwoven instrumental lines to be heard clearly. This ideceptively complex Baroque music was rendered convincingly for connoisseurs and those new to Bach’s late compositions.