After a rough start, Hobson and Cárdenes get to the heart of Schumann
Pianist Ian Hobson is nearing the end of his multi-year concert series playing the piano and chamber music of Robert Schumann. So for the penultimate concert of the project Friday night at the Tenri Cultural Institute, it made a kind of sense that he went backwards, late to early.
Hobson was joined by violinist Andrés Cárdenes for Schumann’s Violin Sonatas Nos. 1-3, played in reverse order. That meant opening with Schumann’s final composition, Sonata No. 3 in A minor, Wo0 2.
The final work, coming near the end of Hobson’s cycle, was also an odd parallel in a concert performance that itself went from worst to best. That wasn’t about the quality of the sonatas, which are marvelous all around, but the playing.
This was a performance that began badly and improved dramatically through each work, culminating with Sonata No. 1 in A minor, Op. 105 after intermission.
Schumann’s Sonata No. 3 was clearly underrehearsed. The two musicians were playing from the same score but it took a few minutes of the opening movement before it sounded like they were playing the same music. Some of this was technical, as Hobson was uncharacteristically sloppy, fumbling fast passages throughout the work. But mostly it seemed like unfamiliarity with the piece. There was barely any variety in the dynamics, and most of the playing seemed perfunctory at best with little conviction about rhythms or phrasing. From near the coda to the double bar in the final movement, Hobson and Cárdenes again sounded like they were each going their own way.
The ensuing performance of the grand Sonata No. 2 in D minor, Op. 121, was completely different from the opening bars. There were no technical problems and the two were playing together, making music that breathed with thought and expressive purpose.
As the overall concert improved as it went along, so did this specific performance. The opening movement was secure, but it also felt like the pair were shrugging off the cloak of confusion and indifference from the first work. This was solid but, for Schumann, slightly polite.
The forceful rhythms in the second movement seemed to trigger a sense of sharpness and expressive vehemence to the way the duo went at the phrases—one felt real life growing inside the music and the performance. Hobson sometimes tends to play with a heavy hand, and can make the Tenri space feel small, but his touch Friday was fine, with plenty of mass while always balanced with Cárdenes.
This was crucial in the delicate parts of “Leise, einfach,” which had poise, pace, and a gentle pathos. There was a sunny folkish quality in Cárdenes’ playing that sounded like Schumann at his most personal and honest. The rondo of the last movement was fluid and energetic.
The performance of Violin Sonata No. 1—one of Schumann’s finest works and one of the great violin sonatas in the repertoire—was superb. Starting immediately with the simple and urgent melody, Hobson and Cárdenes let the drive in the music carry them forward.
As in the Second Sonata, the Allegretto was bright, an ideal contrast to the gripping, turgid emotions of the first movement. They played the final movement with a loping feeling, just enough agitation, it felt like a combination of running and dancing.
This was a balanced performance in the best sense, with a forceful hold on the music yet no over-exaggeration or undue emphasis. Schumann provides all the complex ideas and emotions one needs. A notated composition is really like a recipe, just prepare, measure, mix, and let the ingredients cook. Hobson and Cárdenes were the master chefs in this work.
Ian Hobson concludes his Schumann cycle with Piano Sonata No. 1 and the Davidsbündlertänze, 7 p.m. November 7. eventbrite.com
