MTA RECITAL IS FAR FROM PARIS

Sonoma County has a long and cordial history of music in private homes, the most prominent examples being the many events in Corrick and Norma Brown’s living room, and the monthly jazz concerts in Ernie Shelton’s Sebastopol home. Now the local chapter of the Music Teacher’s Association of California has inaugurated a fund-raising house concert series, which launched on Jan. 18 in a recital by pianist Peggy Nance in a Santa Rosa home.

Nance, a specialist in French music, programmed three composers far from Paris – Bartok, Dohnanyi and Janacek. The arrondissement salon gave way to Slavic spice, and the result for an audience of 25 was provocative music making. Coming first were five pieces from the ten-segment “The Overgrown Path” of Janacek, which Nance played “sui generis,” with a misty ambiance and just the right overlay of 19th-century character pieces. Bartok’s often raucous “Fifteen Hungarian Peasant Songs” followed. The work is a connected cycle of short folk tunes, simply harmonized, with several as short as 20 bars. Nance caught all the piquant rhythm and energy of the works, making the quick tempo changes and quirky articulations convincing.

The concert closed with more melodic fare, albeit still Slavic, Dohnanyi’s “Variations on a Hungarian Folk Song,” Op. 29. The simple theme, surrounded by resounding sforzandos and complicated counterpoint, confirmed that Dohnanyi was a significant virtuoso in an era of great pianists. Nance gave each variation far more pedal than the two previous works, demonstrating how well Dohnanyi took parts of Brahms and crafted his individual and romantic voice.