CORONADO, California — This past weekend, a new music festival was initiated at the Coronado Library, and concert pianist, Gerald Robbins, brother of longtime Coronado resident, Bonnie Fox, helped launch the concerts by participating in two of them.
At 1 p.m. Saturday, September 21, Robbins performed a solo recital on the Coronado Library’s Steinway Baby Grand Piano. In a nod to Beethoven’s forthcoming 250th birthday, the internationally-acclaimed pianist performed the three best-known of the master’s 32 sonatas, the Pathetique, composed when Beethoven was 28 years old and beginning to be aware of his onset deafness; the Moonlight, composed at the age of 31; and the Appasionata, composed when he was 34 and fully stricken by his failing hearing.
Robbins performed the three masterworks from memory.
The lyrical lines of the Pathetique’s Adagio cantabile movement were a study of contoured beauty. The third movement Rondo’s brio and dynamic contrasts projected pure joy.
One could imagine the reflections on a lake, with the opening movement of the Moonlight Sonata, and the last movement, Presto agitato, mirrored Beethoven’s resentment of the woman he loved turning to someone else.
The Appassionata reached the supreme pinnacle under Robbins’ agile fingers. He made the piano sing with sweetness and roar with anger as the passionate music filled the room.
The audience expressed its appreciation with prolonged applause and a standing ovation.
At 4 p.m., Robbins again participated in an All-Beethoven Chamber Music Concert with colleagues Haroutune Bedelian, faculty violinist at the University of California, Irvine; Lorna Griffitt, faculty Pianist at UCI; and Armen Ksajikian, Los Angeles-based cellist.
Robbins and Griffitt opened with an early work, a charming two-movement Sonata for Piano, 4 hands, Opus 6, which had variations in the recapitulation, a practice differentiating the innovative Beethoven from his Classical forebearers.
Violinist Bedelian and Pianist Griffitt followed with a reading of the Sonata for Violin and Piano No. 3 in E-flat major. The piano writing is of grand dimension while the violin, in this less-flattering key (violins sound best in keys related to their open strings of G,D,A,E) has a difficult time competing.
The final Archduke Trio with Bedelian, Ksajikian, and Robbins served as a glorious finale to the musical afternoon. The three musicians played with fine ensemble, musical taste and lovely sound quality. The four-movement work was dedicated to the Archduke Rudolph of Austria, one of Beethoven’s most loyal benefactors.
There was no charge for these concerts.
What a great gift to the community, presenting artists of such high caliber to entertain, enlighten and elevate the spirit.
Thanks to the Coronado Music and Arts Foundation.
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Eileen Wingard is a retired violinist with the San Diego Symphony who now is a freelance writer specializing in coverage of the arts. She may be contacted via eileen.wingard@sdjewishworld.com
it would be so helpful if Eileen would post these events here before they happen so we could go too.