Physically as well as intellectually exhausting, the compositions of Franz Schubert’s last years are drenched in sadness, helplessness, rage, and regret.
Recognized then as now as one of the great composers of the late Classical and early Romantic periods, the young and handsome composer was dead before 32 of syphilis, a pariah malady in an age of poor hygiene and unspoken but accepted male sexual needs.
Composed during the horrifying last year of the composer’s losing struggle with mortality (1828), his last three piano sonatas — C Minor (D958), A Major (D959), and B flat Major (D960) – brood and uplift at the same time, describing the vicissitudes of the human condition in subtle and heartbreaking musical cipher.
Pianist Paul Berkowitz, area head of the Keyboard Program at UCSB, has served on the Department of Music’s faculty since 1993, including a stint as chair.
Having recently completed a years-long odyssey recording all of Schubert’s piano music for Meridian Records (9 CD’s), last Sunday’s performance for a large and savvy audience in Hahn Hall at the Music Academy of the West of the composer’s last three sonatas was both celebration and memorial.
Admonished by Schubert himself to be performed together as one epic 3-part unit, Berkowitz did just that, taking his audience on a musical journey of enormous arch and complexity.
Mood swings, which pop up like sudden summer cloudbursts throughout the cycle, were performed with piano-busting fervor by the artist, while the reflective passages, of which there were many, found Berkowitz serving as Schubert’s ghost whisperer, channeling the music so that it might speak for itself quietly and without fuss or hyperbole.
Composed between spring and autumn 1828 and neglected, as were all the piano sonatas for 10 years after Schubert’s death, the last three are particularly powerful emotional weathervanes, turning as the wind, from bright promise to the stillness of life’s endpoint.
Opening the program with Sonata No. 19 in C Minor, Berkowitz championed the great melodist with a vibrant performance of the first movement Allegro; an interpretive approach to the music’s brooding undertones made the more illuminating by the pianist’s equality of left/right hand balance.
The achingly beautiful Adagio is also rooted in the psyche, and with consummate intuitive skill, Berkowitz altered color and temperament as required by the music, often by means of a single passing note — marvelous.
The Menuetto: Allegro – Trio, though playful on the surface, also hints at a less cheerful back story, while the last Allegro is marbled in melancholy. Berkowitz’s articulate phrasing, nuanced by episodic pauses and sprinkled with a confection of period style, made for an altogether satisfying performance.
The trilogy contnued with Sonata No. 20 in A Major, composed in September 1828. Playing the opening movement Allegro with tender clarity, Berkowitz made good use of its beautiful central melody, a tune that could easily have come from Schubert’s youth.
Before long, particularly in the haunting Andantino, the rains arrive. A funereal tune is the tragic soul of this movement, which is nothing less than a solemn homage to fate.
The angst grows more fervid as the movement progresses — a torrent of notes in protest — but resignation becomes the frustrated whisper of the last few bars, as Berkowitz made clear in his interpretation.
The third movement, Scherzo: Allegro Vivace — Trio: Un poco piu lento found Berkowitz’ delicately articulated and carefree performance a welcome antidote. The last movement, Rondo: Allegretto with its several disarming melodies and manic Presto, gave Berkowitz opportunity to demonstrate his mastery of dynamics, modulation, and color.
Arguably the most profound of the three, the last Sonata in B Flat Major also composed less than two months before the composer’s death is a benediction of sorts; a sprawling four-movement testament to the immortality of art over mortal flesh.
Berkowitz performed the sonata with tender care and specific attention to motivic detail. The first movement Molto moderato, it’s mesmerizingly simple and infinitely fragile melody shadowed continuously by an ominous low register rumbling, found Berkowitz in Homeric storytelling mode, making the most of his encyclopedic understanding of Schubert’s complex nature.
The hall went breathtakingly silent during the artist’s performance of the second movement Andante sostenuto, which is the soul of the entire trilogy, while the third movement Scherzo: Allegro vivace con delicatezza — Trio kept memory alive with cheerful melodies from happier times.
The jaunty last Allegro ma non troppo confounds death itself with it’s vibrancy and optimism – a triumph of human spirit over adversity.
Berkowitz gave his all and was rewarded with a much deserved and lengthy standing ovation.
Daniel Kepl has been writing music, theatre, and dance reviews since he was a teenager. His professional expertise is as an orchestra conductor. He will conduct Emeriti Philharmonic on a two week tour of Portugal in early September 2018. To watch Daniel Kepl’s video interviews with California’s diverse arts community visit BravoCalifornia!