The most impressive work that violinist Kevin Lawrence and pianist Eric Larsen did in their recital last night in the Chamber Music Society of Baltimore series at the Baltimore Museum of Art was heard in their performance of Robert Hall Lewis' "Nuances."
The three-movement "Nuances" -- which Lewis, the music director of the Chamber Music Society, wrote in 1974 -- is almost exactly what its title suggests. It is a series of subtle sonic contrasts and dynamic gradations that are linked by a powerful sense of logic and an even more powerful sense of rhythm. All the characteristics of this Baltimore composer at his best are present here: an abundance of intriguing textures and timbres, unusual rhythms and a mastery of harmony and counterpoint. There is also another feature that is too often overlooked in Lewis' music, and that is his music's playfulness and wit. The first two movements are marked "Interludium I" and "Interludium II," and the sense of the music comes closer to the Latin meaning of "play" than to the English "interlude." The various ways in which the composer, for example, uses the violin percussively to mirror the delicate hammer-and-tongs effects of the keyboard is charming. And the quiet end of the piece is not only witty in its brevity and simplicity but also quite moving. Lawrence and Larsen performed the work with persuasive devotion and attention to detail.
The pianist and violinist, who teach at the North Carolina School of the Arts, were less impressive in the other works on the program. (I missed the opening work, Schubert's Sonata in A.)
Bartok's Sonata No. 1 is among the Hungarian composer's most ferociously original works, but the per- formance that this violinist and pianist gave made it seem almost sleepy. The sonata does cast an occasional backward look at the dreamy impressionism of Debussy and Szymanowski, but this reading lacked the intensity that sets the work apart as one of the great works of Bartok. Its considerable demands for virtuosity, moreover, were shortchanged -- more by the violinist than by the pianist -- and the performance proceeded in fits and starts.
Stravinsky's "Divertimento" -- the composer's own 1933 arrangement of his orchestral "The Fairy's Kiss" -- suffered from some of the same defects as the Bartok, but was more successful because its considerable charms are more accessible and its technical and musical demands are less fearsome.