Violinist Stefan Jackiw (jak-EEV) and pianist Kevin Ahfat will change character repeatedly at their concert for Friends of Chamber Music on December 3rd. They won’t use words or paints, but they have other ways to beguile us with sounds rich in character and color.
How do they do it?
A violinist works with a recipe, constantly changing the proportions of key ingredients: the speed of the bow, the pressure of the bow’s horse hair on the strings, and the distance between the bow and the bridge. From mac-and-cheese to souffle, the same ingredients can make a sound dense and robust or light and airy.
The left hand’s main job is to play in tune with agility—which demands constant practice – and either vibrate to warm the sound or hold steady to produce a cool, clear pitch. How a violinist combines all of these ingredients to realize a composer’s intent is a matter of taste and art, the personal style that distinguishes one performer from another.
Violinist Jackiw avoids scientific analysis. “Both my parents were theoretical physicists,” he said, “but I wouldn’t say that any knowledge of physics plays a role in how I think about and produce sound. It’s important to have a clear conception in mind of what type of sound you’re trying to produce. Very often, we violinists go on autopilot without actually evaluating our sound critically. I try to envision what my voice would sound like to capture a feeling like wide-eyed wonder, for example. I try to bring out gentle disbelief, or awe, with changes in bow pressure, vibrato, and timing from one note to another.”
With that last comment, Jackiw evokes one by Claude Debussy, who famously said, “The music is not in the notes, but in the silence between them.”
The five-part program will begin with a showcase of sound. Arvo Part’s “Fratres” offers nearly every sound a violin and piano can make. Drawing arcs with his bow to excite all four strings and keep them flickering, the violinist coaxes forth a line that is part melody and part drum beat.
BOOM, the pianist lands on a bass chord and follows with some of the lowest notes on the keyboard. PIZZ, plucks the violinist. A nostalgic piano melody leads to harmonics on the violin, with Jackiw lightly touching a string at one of its division points – a half, a third, a quarter – to make tones as light as fairy music. BOOM, the bass and the fiery chords return.
Next up, the Baroque familiarity of Handel, the Russian humor of Prokofiev, Conrad Tao’s meditation played both in and out of the piano case, and the romantic melancholy of Brahms.
Pianist Kevin Ahfat has collaborated numerous times with Jackiw, and this will be the fifth time they present the exciting program that awaits us. “Stefan and I flow together very well when we play,” said Ahfat. “We do a lot naturally together, without a lot of rehearsal time.”
They met at Juilliard, but Ahfat grew up in Colorado and studied piano here before moving to Canada. Although he was a regular performer for the Young Musicians’ Foundation and played frequently in Hamilton Hall, this will be his first encounter with Gates Concert Hall. He isn’t worried, because he knows Gates by reputation. Its resonant clarity and intimate comfort attract world-class musicians year after year. Besides, as a concert pianist he is accustomed to speed dating with any piano in any hall.
“You have to develop a third ear to listen to a hall while you’re playing,” he said. “That kind of active listening is what makes chamber music exciting. It’s really an unexplainable sensation. All your senses are turned on.”
But not all halls are created equal. He described one in Toronto that sounds very dry on stage but great in the last row. “Some halls are defeating,” he said, “but you have to adjust. You may need to play forte when the score is marked piano. A hall can sound wet like a cathedral or dry like a musical theater full of curtains. You may feel great onstage, but if a friend tells you the sound doesn’t carry the way you think, you need to trust that. If the notes aren’t articulating, then you resist the urge to use more pedal.”
He was pleased to hear that the piano he will play is a “New York” and not a “Hamburg” Steinway, because it will better suit the program’s rich sonorities. He compares Hamburg Steinways to Stradivari violins. “They are more transparent and bell like, well suited to Bach and Mozart. New York Steinways are more like Guarneri violins, darker and gruff, with more zing to the sound. It will be great for the full-bodied, deep, and warm bass of the Brahms!”
Join them for the concert on Wednesday where they will be, in the words of Jackiw, “conjuring different emotional words through sound.”
By Kim Millett
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