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Pianist Sawallisch, Flutist Khaner ShineBy Daniel Webster for THE INQUIRER The series is called "Distinctive Repertoire," and flutist Jeffrey Khaner and pianist Wolfgang Sawallisch took the title seriously Wednesday when they played works by three 20th century composers who suffered dislocations and worse during the Nazi period in Europe. In their program at the Convention Center, Khaner, Principal Flutist for the Philadelphia Orchestra, and Sawallisch, its Music Director, played sonatas by Erwin Schulhoff, Paul Hindemith and Bohuslav Martinu before moving into period pieces from the late Romantic era. All three composers made the flute a part of complex and colorful music rather than using it as a preening siren in music where the piano simply hums along. Khaner is a technician capable of etching each note in the most sweeping run, and of finding the shading for an expressive nod within the flow of these works. While the second half of the program exploited the flute's elegance and warmth, in the first half Khaner showed that the instrument also has fiber and strength. He was both guided and joined in that demonstration by Sawallisch, whose pianism is bold and colorful, rhythmically vital and exact. The best of their playing in this glowing program came in the Martinu Sonata. Rich in colors, the piece invited the players to develop the cumulative power of the music through intricate rhythmic devices and bravura sections. The last movement, beginning with a big piano flurry, showed the players in seamless ensemble. Schulhoff's Sonata ended movements with a whisper and a question rather than a declaration. Sawallisch's playing savored the big piano chords and heroic moments, while Khaner's sharpened the rhythmic devices that give the music its spring. Hindemith's Sonata gave both players strong material to work with. Khaner made the slow movement a combination of directness and lyricism, and Sawallisch grasped the sinewy chords and intricate harmonic paths with an eagerness that was infectious. After the intermission, they played Dvorak's transcription of his Violin Sonata (Op. 100) and Taffanel's Fantasy on Themes From "Der Freischutz". In the Taffanel music, Sawallisch used his piano to build orchestral sounds, and both pieces showed off Khaner's strong, nuanced playing, albeit in music that seemed lightweight. |
A Flutist Has His Day At Last
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Normally Jeffrey Khaner is to be found sitting in the Principal Flutist's chair with his colleagues in the Philadelphia Orchestra, but on Monday night at Cooper Union he was performing just with Charles Abramovic, at the piano, in a recital of mid-20th century sonatas.
The flute is not an easy instrument to listen to for an hour and a half or so, but Mr. Khaner kept up his audience's spirits with musicianly playing. It was not just the metal at his lips — flashing reflections like a swerving blade — that suggested the ice skater, for Mr. Khaner is a cool performer and a nimble virtuoso. He knows how to make the chill to his finely polished tone exciting, and his phrasing is active. With excellent breath control, he can take a phrase to its finishing point and go right on into the next.
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He could have helped himself, though, by putting more variety into his program. Since he was appearing under the auspices of the Public Library, the presence of items from that institution's manuscript collection was a given: the two pieces concerned were Norman Dello Joio's "Developing Flutist" and Otto Luening's Short Sonata No. 2, both by composers whose working papers are comprehensively stocked in the Library, and by composers who also shared a debt to the Central European Neo-Classical movement of the 1920s, 30s and 40s. To add further works from that movement — sonatas by Hindemith, Martinu and Erwin Schulhoff — was to risk monotony for the sake of context.
Mr. Khaner saved the occasion by his consistently agile and thoughtful playing, and in particular by his sense of character. A notable example came in the Luening finale, a movement in the surprising manner of a Scots folk song, which he presented vividly. The Martinu sonata also benefited from sensitive playing, both from Mr. Khaner and Mr. Abramovic.
After that came an opportunity, in Paul Taffanel's fantasy on themes from Weber's "Freischütz", for Mr. Khaner to expose the exuberance he had been keeping under the surface.