Tucson, Arizona  Sunday, 11 March 2001

Arizona Daily Star

Arts Journal

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Musical sparks shimmered and whirled through the TCC Leo Rich Theatre last Tuesday with spectacular, sometimes frenzied speed, as husband-and-wife pianists Kevin Fitz-Gerald and Bernadene Blaha blazed through a recital. The event was sponsored by the Arizona Friends of Chamber Music as part of the 2001 Tucson Winter Chamber Music Festival.

At the heart of the program was the world premiere of Elizabeth Raum's Sonata for Piano Four Hands, commissioned by two Tucsonans - Friends of Chamber Music president Jean-Paul Bierny and Fred Chaffee.

With Blaha playing the primo (or treble) part and Fitz-Gerald playing the secondo (or bass), the couple gave the work a tight, fiery reading; both revel, though differently, in speed. As in other pieces on the program, Blaha delivered the emotional fireworks, while Fitz-Gerald played with more reserve.

The sonata unfurled melody after singing melody with a relentless forward drive that in the end seemed to split it into two separate pieces, rather than creating a united whole. The first, neoclassical movement proved an intricate, heady battle among all four hands for control of two motives.

The second and third movements were more romantic in style. The second, "The Geneva Variations," developed variations from a startlingly rich, aria-like melody that came to Raum's granddaughter Geneva in a dream when she was 3. Raum deepened and darkened her granddaughter's airy song by weaving into it the Dies Irae from the Catholic Mass for the Dead. The third movement, "Hymn to the Children," lifted the work to finish with a pianistic declaration of exulting, upbeat power.

The audience briefly paused in reflection, and then leapt to its feet for applause. Raum joined Blaha and Fitz-Gerald on stage, and commissioners Bierny and Chaffee delivered roses to all three musicians.

Also on the program were Sergei Rachmaninoff's "Six Morceaux for Piano Four Hands," Op. 11 and John Corigliano's "Gazebo Dances for Piano Four Hands." Fitz-Gerald gave Sergei Prokofiev's Piano Sonata No. 3 in A minor, Op. 28, a brilliantly technical reading.

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In the it's a small world department, Raum created the role of Alice in her opera "The Garden of Alice" for soprano Tracy Dahl, who recently sang a stunning Marie in Arizona Opera's "Daughter of the Regiment." Raum's opera is based on "Alice in Wonderland," but, notes the composer, with "a dark, Kafkaesque end."

Jennifer Lee Carrell