Following the recent trend of applying the adjective “X-treme” to various athletic activities, it seems as if the compositions selected by students to perform at this morning’s Master Class at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, conducted by pianist Awadajin Pratt, all seemed to incline towards “X-treme piano.” This may have been a reflection of Pratt’s own interests, since much of his attention seemed to be directed towards establishing a high energy level and then sustaining it. One could appreciate the dramatic impact of this effect in the first movement of Franz Schubert’s D. 760 C major fantasia (“Wanderer”), the first movement of Sergei Prokofiev’s Opus 83 sonata in B-flat major (the second of his “war” sonatas), or even the first movement of Ludwig van Beethoven’s final sonata, Opus 111 in C minor. The result, however, was a somewhat awkward context for the student who had selected the first movement of Joseph Haydn’s C major sonata, Hoboken XVI/50.
This is certainly one of Haydn’s more volatile works, going through a series of turn-on-a-dime mood shifts all based on the most innocuous of themes. Thus, there are certainly bursts of energy as that theme evolves; but the energy is always rendered through a light touch. Compared to the other three works on the program, the attitude of this movement is almost passive; and the wit flows out with a deadpan elegance that I have previously associated with Buster Keaton. (One can almost see Keaton running for cover after the opening gesture of the Beethoven movement or the psychotic march rhythms to which Prokofiev assigned the tempo “Allegro inquieto.”) This was a setting in which quiet wit won the day, simply on grounds of differentiation; and it would have been nice if, for this one student, Pratt had shifted his attention from the expenditure of energy to the effective delivery of musical wit.
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