"The Classic and the Romantic" - Eugenia Karni, Gilad Karni and Asaf Zohar perform Mozart and Brahms in the Mormon University's Sunday evening concert series

 Asaf Zohar (Courtesy A.Z.)

Eugenia and Gilad Karni (Courtesy G.K.)

 The title of "The Classic and the Romantic", a concert performed by Eugenia Karni-violin, Gilad Karni-viola and Asaf Zohar-piano at the Brigham Young Jerusalem Center for Near Eastern Studies (Mormon University) on February 19th 2023, could not have been more accurate. 

 

The program opened with Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's Trio in E-flat major for violin, viola and piano K.498 "Kegelstatt", the work's curious sobriquet arising from an unconfirmed legend that Mozart composed this trio while attending an outdoor game of skittles. Originally composed for clarinet, viola and piano, the trio was published in 1788 transcribed – probably with Mozart's consent – for violin, viola and piano. (In the publication, the original clarinet part is referred to as an "alternative part".)  Wishing to assure the K.498's commercial success, the publisher advertised it as “a trio for harpsichord or pianoforte with violin and viola accompaniment”, a description that defies all accuracy! The work was composed for a private musical gathering with specific players in mind; Mozart himself played the viola part, the composer's favourite instrument by his own admission; indeed, the viola role attests to this, being a much stronger part than if the composer had scored it for the 'cello. Although not performing on period instruments, the Karnis and Zohar paid homage to the delicate timbres of Classical instruments, to the joys of house music, to the work's charming gestures and to its lyricism and sense of well-being, with just a splash of dramatic contrast, in playing that was fresh and exquisitely shaped. There are pianists who celebrate the power and fullness of the Mormon University auditorium's Steinway & Sons piano. Here, Asaf  Zohar, however, wielded it with crystalline grace. Listening to the trio, it was as if we had been transported into a Viennese salon to hear Classical chamber music at its best at the hands of Mozart and his confreres.

 

Remaining in E-flat major, the artists, however, took the listener into a very different style, creating the full-blooded sound world of Romantic chamber music for their performance of Johannes Brahms' Trio in E-flat major for violin, viola and piano Op. 40. Composed in 1865 for natural horn with violin and piano, it was revised in 1891 with alternative versions of the horn part for either 'cello or viola. Brahms  loved the sound of the natural horn, composing several of his most inspired melodies for the instrument. His father was a horn player and had taught his son to play the instrument, too. Indeed,  for many concert-goers, the work echoes a strong association with the sombre, melancholic sound qualities of the natural horn. Hearing it performed on the viola (rather than the horn) certainly did not rule out the work's nostalgic element. A highly expressive performance, it was rich in sweeping melodies, excitement and drama, scrupulous timing of gestures (and between gestures) and close communication with discerning balance among all three musicians. The 3rd movement, labelled by Brahms as "Adagio mesto" ("mesto" meaning “truly sad”), emerged as fragile, heartfelt and personal in expression, this to be followed by the Finale-Allegro con brio in playing that was unleashed, dramatic and brimming with earthy vitality. 

 

The Mormon University's Sunday evening concerts usually include some brief explanations of the pieces being performed. Eugenia Karni, Gilad Karni and Asaf Zohar invited the works themselves to do that. Here, words might have been superfluous. 

 

This was the first program in which the Karnis have performed with Asaf Zohar. For their encore, the artists played the 3rd piece of one of Robert Schumann's last works - the Märchenerzählungen, Op.132 (Fairy Tales), interestingly, (coincidentally or not?) originally scored for  unconventional combination of clarinet, viola and piano as was Mozart's Kegelstatt Trio! Marked "Ruhiges Tempo, mit zartem Ausdruck" ("reposeful tempo, with tender expression"), the artists' playing of the movement presented a poignant, intimate dialogue between violin and viola to the gently ever-flowing course of the piano. A fitting nightcap to an excellent evening of music.   

The 2023 Israeli Schubertiade hosts Graham Johnson (UK) at the Mormon University, Jerusalem. Other performers: Roman Rabinovich (piano), mezzo-soprano Hagar Sharvit and 'cellist Hillel Zori

 

Franz Schubert

It was Franz Liszt who spoke of Schubert as "the most poetic musician that ever was". Schumann went as far as to say that "Schubert’s pencil was dipped in moonbeams and in the flame of the sun." and Beethoven, on his deathbed, declared: "Truly, Schubert possesses the divine fire.” Franz Schubert's music draws the listener in on so many levels: within his world of musical colour and melodic splendour, the composer seems to wield a powerful force of mystery, of light and dark and of emotional intuition well beyond the years of a young man who lived only to the age of 31. British classical pianist, teacher and Lieder accompanist Graham Johnson has been heard to claim that "everyone has his/her own Schubert ''. From the first Schubertiades, informal, unadvertised gatherings, held at private homes in Vienna, often including the composer's participation, to those of today taking place in various locations around the world, people congregate year after year to reconnect with "their Schubert''. A concert of the 17th Israeli Schubertiade was introduced by Raz Kohn, who in 2007 initiated and established the Israeli Schubertiade, remaining its artistic director. The festive event took place on February 4th 2023 at the Brigham Young University Jerusalem Center for Near Eastern Studies. Kohn spoke of this program as celebrating two 200-year anniversaries - of Schubert's "Wanderer" Fantasy and also of the arpeggione, the curious hybrid 'cello-guitar instrument that ended up disappearing from the Austrian music scene almost as soon as it had appeared. Guest artist at this year's Schubertiade was eminent Schubert scholar Prof. Graham Johnson himself. Other artists performing in the program were mezzo-soprano Hagar Sharvit, 'cellist Hillel Zori and pianist Roman Rabinovich...

 

The concert opened with Schubert's Sonata for Arpeggione and Piano in A minor D.821, seemingly the only substantial composition for the arpeggione remaining from its short period of existence. (The 21st century has seen a revival of interest in the arpeggione, leading to the composition of a number of new works either for the instrument alone or with ensemble.) Hillel Zori chose to play the first movement of the sonata on an arpeggione (built by Amit Tiefenbrunn) - a six-stringed musical instrument fretted and tuned like a guitar, but with a curved bridge, enabling it to be bowed like a 'cello. No easy task, considering Zori was using a modern bow and the fact that Rabinovich was accompanying on the large Steinway & Sons piano of the Mormon University auditorium. But for those of us early instrument buffs, it was more than interesting to hear the voice of this "outsider" as Zori presented a finely-detailed and expressive reading of the Allegro moderato, giving the stage to its drama and poignancy, albeit in the slender musical voice of the arpeggione. How fitting it would have been to hear it partnered with a fortepiano; Rabinovich's playing, however, was sensitive and attentive to it. So, for a few minutes, we were taken back to a musical salon of Vienna of 1824. Then, to the 'cello for the two next movements. Following the artists' fine-spun introspective reading of the Adagio movement, their playing of the Allegretto put to advantage the opportunities Schubert proffered for contrast, from the Hungarian style to Viennese dance music. Virtuosic though it might be for the string player, the Arpeggione Sonata (written at a dark time in the composer’s life) presents mood shifts encompassing the full spectrum of human experience, from unbounded joy to nostalgia and deep sorrow. Indeed, the rich musical and emotional fabric of the Arpeggione never loses its personal appeal. 

 

Then to a selection of Schubert's songs. Mentioning the huge range of emotions and poets found in the more-than-600 Lieder, Graham Johnson said he and Hagar Sharvit would be performing just six of their favourite songs. From the busy joy of Franz Schlechta's poem   "Fischerweise" (Fisherman's Ditty) ending with an unexpected reference to a cunning shepherdess fishing there to provide a small twist, to the complexity of "Der Zwerg" (The Dwarf). This setting of a text of Matthäus von Collin must be one of the composer's most disturbing and darkest songs, with the playing out of its three characters - the dwarf, his mistress the queen (whom the dwarf strangles) and the narrator. There was no soft pedalling as the artists set the drama before us - Sharvit enlisting different timbres of her voice to evoke the characters, with Johnson creating the night scene on the water with the drama's fateful message and references to its neo-Gothic grotesque element - a song referred to by Johnson himself as a "distillation of genius". Then to the mellow "Der Jüngling und der Tod" (The Youth and Death), Joseph von Spaun's soft-spoken dialogue between a young man and death, quite a strong association in atmosphere and construction with the "Death and the Maiden" Lied, only that here the young man invites death to take him. Sharvit and Johnson's performance of Schubert's unique setting of Friedrich Rückert's "Dass sie hier gewesen" (That she has been here) brings out the erratic workings of mind and memory as prompted by the senses, in this case, a woman's fragrance. It is as if the listener has intruded on the recounter in his musings, is taking a clandestine glimpse into just a few moments of his most intimate feelings, as Schubert colours these sensations with either daring- or more conventional harmonies, as befitting the degree of fantasy or reality. As to the artists' rendition of Schubert's setting of Goethe's "Gretchen am Spinnrade" (Gretchen at the Spinning Wheel), which they thankfully took at a more moderate tempo than is often heard in performances, their strategic timing of the song’s gestures provided a gripping and impactful listening experience. In its range of emotions - from Gretchen's melancholy to heartache, to the moment of frenzy - Johnson and Sharvit gave a memorable performance of one of the 17-year-old Schubert's most dramatic and disturbing studies of love and obsession. The artists concluded this part of the concert with "Der Wanderer" (The Wanderer) set to a poem by Georg Philipp Schmidt (von Lübeck), its curious line-up of unlike musical sections indicative of the wanderer's loss of direction and base. Although she has had previous contact with Johnson via master classes and competitions, this was the first time Sharvit has actually performed with him; decisions regarding the concert repertoire were made together. I had the pleasure of talking to the singer in Berlin, where she makes her home today. Sharvit, who is attracted to the darker, more psychological Lieder, gave an informed, profound and involved reading of the songs. Graham Johnson's remarkable insight into the genre shines through the layers of meaning in his awe-inspiring playing. A sense of close communication between the two artists pervaded the performance.

 

Referring to the technical demands of his Fantasie in C major, Op. 15 (D.760), (Wanderer Fantasy), Schubert himself wrote that "the devil may play it". Composed in 1822, the Fantasy finds its inspiration and primary musical materials in "Der Wanderer", the final song heard at the concert. The work emerges as a somewhat giant theme and variations across all four movements, further enhanced as the movements flow together without pause, each leading directly into the next. Roman Rabinovich's performance of it abounded in positive energy, clarity of touch and virtuosic pizzazz, no less appealing in its lyricism. As was the audience, he was clearly enjoying the response to the work’s every gesture on the auditorium's superior piano. An exhilarating end to an excellent concert.  

Prof. Graham Johnson (Miri Shamir)

A family affair! With the Raanana Symphonette, the Karnis - violist Gilad Karni, violinist Eugenia Karni and conductor Gerald Karni - will perform on the same stage.

 

Gerald Karni, Eugenia Karni, Gilad Karni (Courtesy Gilad Karni)

History of the arts testifies to the fact that music has flowed in the veins of many renowned musician families for more generations than we can count – familiar to us are the Couperin family, the Mozart family, the Haydns, Fanny and Felix Mendelssohn, the Strauss family and, of course, the some-50 musicians of the Bach family…to name a few. Some families with musical genes have enjoyed less prestige. Take the Brahms family, for example. Johannes Brahms' father Johann Jakob, who played violin, viola, 'cello, flute, and the flugelhorn, made a career playing the double bass in a sextet as well as in the orchestras of the Stadttheater and the Philharmonic Society in Hamburg. Of Johannes' brother Fritz Brahms, known around town as “the wrong Brahms", Clara Schumann claimed that he possessed quite a good piano technique, "only I find his playing so very dull". Fritz eventually established himself as a respected music teacher in Hamburg. 

 

Today's concert platforms attest to the fact that many musician families prevail on the contemporary music scene; one such kinship is the Karni family. Born in Israel in 1968, violist Gilad Karni comes from a musical family. His aunt was the renowned soprano Gila Yaron. Karni was a student at the Manhattan School of Music under the guidance of Paul Neubauer, Chaim Taub and Gad Lewertoff and was a scholarship recipient of the America-Israel Cultural Foundation. As comfortable performing solo- as chamber music, he appears worldwide performing both and as a teacher. For eight years, he was professor of viola and chamber music at the Conservatoire de Lausanne and at the Kalaidos University for Applied Sciences in Lausanne. A founding member of the Huberman quartet (1996-2001), he performed as guest artist with the Jerusalem Quartet on tour with Menachem Pressler at the Concertgebouw and Paul Meyer clarinet in Paris. Gilad Karni is currently principal violist of the Tonhalle Orchestra (Zurich), a post to which he was appointed in 2004 by David Zinman. Prior to his tenure there, he served as principal viola at the Deutsche Oper Berlin. Karni's vast orchestral experience ranges from being the youngest member of the New York Philharmonic, which he joined in 1992, to principal viola roles in the Bamberg Symphony Orchestra (1996-2002). Gilad Karni plays a viola made by Hiroshi Iizuka in 1982, an instrument previously owned by American violist and pedagogue Emmanuel Vardi.

 

Violinist Eugenia Karni moved to Belgium at the age of 7 together with her musician parents. Her first teacher was her father, Dmitry Ryabinin, a pupil of Yuri Bashmet, today principal violist of the Brussels National Orchestra. Her career took off at age 10 with her debut with the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra, in which she performed Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto in E minor. Her teachers include Valery Oistrakh (Brussels Conservatory), Zakhar Bron (Cologne University of Music), Augustin Dumay (Queen Elisabeth Music Chapel) and Prof. Barnabás Kelemen and she has been the recipient of multiple awards and prizes. With her strong predilection for symphonic repertoire, Ms. Karni was first concertmaster of the Nordwestdeutsche Philharmonie from 2014 to 2019, after which she proceeded to preside as guest concertmaster with many other major orchestras. She has performed as a soloist and chamber musician all over Europe, Canada, Mexico and Asia. Renowned as an interpreter of Belgian and French post-Romantic composers and a dedicated chamber musician, she frequently collaborates with her mother, pianist Nina Ardachirova. Eugenia Karni plays a Vincenzo Panormo violin (Paris, 1775). Together with pianist Dmitri Demiaschkin, Eugenia and Gilad Karni founded the Edge Ensemble in Zurich during the corona pandemic, maintaining that "all musicians live now on the Edge", the ensemble's name also incorporating the three artists' names - Eugenia, Dmitri and Gilad. 

 

Born in Israel in 1996, Gerald Karni started with the violin and was initially mentored by his father Gilad Karni. A violist and conductor, Gerald completed his bachelor’s degree at the Zurich University of the Arts, studying with Lawrence Power, and is currently taking a master’s degree in orchestral conducting at the Conservatorio della Svizzera Italiana in Lugano under Prof. Marc Kissozcy. He is the recipient of several awards and prizes, was chosen as a conducting fellow at the Verbier Festival, assisting Gianandrea Noseda, Gábor Takács-Nagy and Sir Simon Rattle and he has also played in- and toured with Daniel Barenboim's West-Eastern Divan Orchestra. As a conductor, Gerald Karni has appeared with orchestras in the United States, Switzerland, Hungary, Finland, and Bulgaria. Today, he makes his home in Berlin, where he is garnering experience and reputation as a conductor, interested in directing both orchestral music and opera, but also working as a violist. 

Gerald was initially mentored by his father Gilad 

 

On February 5th 2023, I spoke to Gilad Karni at his home in Zurich, Switzerland. Maestro Karni emphasized how meaningful the upcoming Israeli tour is for him and his family.

 

PH: Gilad Karni, what does this concert tour mean for you?

 

GK: This will be the first time Eugenia, Gerald and I will be performing on the same concert platform and it is most exciting that it will be taking place in Israel. In two concerts with the Raanana Symphonette (February 16th, 17th) we will be premiering "Vows", a work written by Maya Brenner in celebration of the recent marriage of Eugenia and myself. This concert will also include Mozart's Sinfonia Concertante for Violin & Viola in E Flat major K 364 and Beethoven's Symphony No. 7 in A Major Op. 92.  So, we will get to solo together and play under Gerald, one of today's up-and-coming conductors. The tour will also include two chamber concerts Eugenia and I will be performing with pianist Assaf Zohar - one at Studio Annette (Tel Aviv) on February 18^th, the other at the Brigham Young University Jerusalem Center for Near Eastern Studies (Mormon University) on February 19th. Here, we will be playing works of Mozart and Brahms. 

 

PH: Professor Karni, many thanks for your time. I am sure many of us here are looking forward to hearing the upcoming festive family concerts in Israel in the near future.

Born into a musical family in Israel, Gerald was initially mentored by his father Gilad

Gerald was initially mentored by his father Gilad K

musical family in Israel, Gerald was initially mentored by his father Gila