Juilliard School Daniel Saidenberg Faculty Recital Series presents Manasse/Nakamatsu Duo in Review
Jon Manasse, clarinet; Jon Nakamatsu, piano
Paul Recital Hall, Juilliard School, New York, NY
March 18, 2019
The Juilliard School’s faculty recital series presented the “two Jons” on Monday night in Paul Hall at the school: world-renowned clarinetist Jon Manasse, and equally celebrated pianist Jon Nakamatsu, who, as Mr. Manasse drolly put it in his affable and humorous verbal program notes, “merely” won the gold medal at the 10th Van Cliburn piano competition in 1997. In fact, Mr. Manasse was the only Juilliard faculty member in this recital (he also did all his music study there)—Mr. Nakamatsu majored in German at Stanford prior to winning the Cliburn (!). The duo is in its fifteenth year, and the two are co-artistic directors of the Cape Cod Chamber Music Festival.
Well, let me not further bury the lead: This was the finest chamber music collaboration I have heard in many years. Saying that these two are at the peak of their profession would be demeaning—they hover somewhere in the stratosphere, and the little peaks are far below. They created a true sense of chamber intimacy, used understatement effectively, had supernatural ensemble unity and great elasticity when called for, and were very natural and spontaneous. (And we all know how much hard work goes into sounding effortless!)
The program opened with the first of Brahms’ two autumnal clarinet sonatas, the F minor, Op. 120, No. 1, inspired by clarinetist Richard Mühlfeld. Curiously, the notoriously gruff Brahms referred to the clarinetist as “Fräulein Mühlfeld” (Miss M.). They are Brahms’ final instrumental chamber music, full of longing, poignancy, reminiscence, even regret, with only the occasional jovial outburst. Shadows intrude even in the middle section of the Ländler/Waltz-fusion third movement. The Manasse/Nakamatsu duo was superb in this work (they have recorded both sonatas). Jon Manasse, a master of whisper-quiet but always steady tone, blended so successfully with his partner that one often could not tell (without effort) just which instrument was playing. Here he was aided by the absolute discretion, which does not mean subservience, of his partner. It was incredible to hear the sometimes thick textures played with such clarity, melodic/motivic direction, and softness, and Mr. Nakamatsu always pays attention to the left hand, so important in a dark-hued work like this, bringing out every polyphonic goodie. Their tempo (marked Vivace by Brahms) in the fourth movement’s joyful, optimistic explosion was one of the quickest I have ever heard, utterly clear in every detail.
This was followed by Mr. Nakamatsu’s moment to shine as a solo player, in a breathtaking rendition of Chopin’s Grande Polonaise Brillante précédée d’un Andante spianato, as the original title page states. Spianato means “flowing, smooth” in Italian, and this performance could not have been more elegant. The supportive left-hand was “there” yet appropriately indistinct, while the right hand spun out the long threads of Bellinian bel canto so crucial to Chopin’s expression. Mr. Nakamatsu handled the groups of “little notes,” delicate fioriture that adorn the melodies, with stunning feather lightness. He embodies (they both embody) what I recognize as “true” virtuosity: the ability always to have something in reserve, never to be at the outer edge of one’s capabilities, but to seem to be saying to the listener: “Oh, yes, of course I can do this; I could do so much more too, but I’m choosing not to right now.” His phrasing in the wistful little mazurka that interrupts the andante was perfect, the grander, more heroic bluster of the polonaise never lost an opportunity for elegant, refined, poetic tone, and there was plenty of flash where appropriate.
After intermission, the pair returned, virtually duplicating the program of another of their recordings, beginning with Leonard Bernstein’s Sonata for Clarinet and Piano, composed when he was in his early twenties and dedicated to David Oppenheim, a clarinetist he met at Tanglewood while studying conducting with Serge Koussevitsky and composition with Paul Hindemith. Oppenheim later became a producer for Columbia classical records, and television, both of which would be crucial to Bernstein’s image going forward. Much has been made of the sometimes derivative sound of portions of the work: a bit of Hindemith here, a little more of Copland there. But Mr. Manasse pointed out the consistency of the Bernstein gesture and how one might hear “pre”-echoes of, yes, West Side Story, still far in the future. The duo was fabulously together in the asymmetrical (lots of 5s) rhythms and other challenges the work is loaded with, and the whole needs to sound just easy-going, which it did. The work is in two movements, but the second has both a “slow” and a “fast” movement in alternation—a formal innovation that is subtle in a youthful composer.
Then it was Mr. Manasse’s turn to play unaccompanied clarinet, in the third (of four) movements from Paquito D’Rivera’s The Cape Cod Files, commissioned by the duo, an homage called Lecuonerías. Ernesto Lecuona was a Cuban composer and pianist of great fame, and his work is recently receiving some of the serious consideration it deserves. (Who remembers “The Breeze and I,” English lyrics added in 1940 to Lecuona’s Andalucia?) This fiendishly difficult brief morsel contains an encyclopedia of Latin musical gestures, from flamenco cante jondo recitative at the beginning, to various enthusiastic dances. All were played with the consummate ease and wit we associate with the name Jon Manasse.
The duo then finished with Four Rags for Two Jons, by John Novacek, the duo’s first commission (2006). Chopin turned the mazurka, waltz, and polonaise into stylized “art” dances. So, why shouldn’t Novacek create his own wild take on the Joplin-era staple? These four pieces have all the usual syncopation one expects in the style, but so much more as well: stylish and wickedly difficult riffs abound in both instruments. I think I heard (and saw) a hilarious forearm cluster played by the unflappable Mr. Nakamatsu. Glissandi, blues, wails- it’s all there, and the way the duo tossed it all off spoke to their camaraderie.
After a tumultuous ovation, the pair favored the audience with a spicy, jazzy (and difficult) take on Gershwin’s “I Got Rhythm,” arranged by James Cohen (91-years-young, and present at the concert). It contained the inevitable reference to the famous clarinet opening of the same composer’s Rhapsody in Blue and the piano’s final peroration from the same piece (now used in the United Airlines commercials), dispatched with great hammy humor by Mr. Manasse and Mr. Nakamatsu.
