Valentine's Concert Comes Through Clear as Bell

It was a night of contrasts on Valentine’s Day at Carnegie Hall. Violinist Joshua Bell and pianist Jeremy Denk made the 2,804-seat Isaac Stern Auditorium intimate, performing a selection of music from varying time periods and musical styles.

The duo began the concert with Tartini’s “Devil’s Trill” sonata from the 18th century, a piece of infamous technical difficulty, but Bell grabbed the audience’s attention with a first note of breathtaking sound quality. He proceeded to maintain this level of intensity without rest throughout the 15-minute sonata, nailing the challenging dissonances that give the piece its name.

Bell was clearly the star of the show, as his fame—thanks to The Red Violin soundtrack and the Washington Post’s street-musician experiment—far surpassed Denk’s. Even though the two parts of a sonata are supposed to be equal, Bell still acted like a soloist rather than a chamber musician, while Denk seemed more like an accompanist than a full half of the duo. Some passages in the first movement sounded a bit rushed by the violinist, as if he were not used to playing without an orchestra covering him and holding him back—but that’s the kind of adrenaline that makes live performances unique.

Suddenly moving to the 20th century but maintaining the dissonance from the first segment, the duo began Prokofiev’s “Sonata in F Minor,” which reminded the audience of the piano’s importance. A pianist himself, the composer emphasized the instrument’s percussive character and balanced the piano and violin parts equally. Both artists demonstrated their versatility with an unusually heavy sound in the low ranges while communicating with each other as if in musical conversation. Audience members literally held their breath during the soft endings and then released explosions of coughing between movements.

After intermission, the performers showcased two very different works from the 19th century: “Four Romantic Pieces” by Czech composer Dvorak and “Sonata in C Minor” by Norwegian composer Grieg. Bell truly brought out the loveliness of Dvorak’s work with an open and impeccably smooth sound that pervaded the auditorium. He incorporated his entire body into the process and closed his eyes, as if he were dancing to the music and his violin were an additional arm. Even with such physical stage presence, none of the technical details were sacrificed. But just after convincing the audience that romantic pieces must be his strength, Bell played out the “appassionato” of the Grieg sonata, impressively digging into his instrument and creating a dramatic resonance.

Knowing that the audience would not be satisfied with only the performance listed on the program, Bell and Denk performed two encores. The first, Bell’s own arrangement of his favorite song by Fauré, “Après un Rêve,” was cute. The second, in Bell’s words, was “not exactly Valentine’s Day music ... but the title does have the word ‘love’ in it.” The piece turned out to be Heifetz’s humorous arrangement of “March” from Prokofiev’s opera The Love for Three Oranges.

After the concert, many fans bought overpriced copies of Bell’s three most recent CDs in order to have them signed by the violinist. Proving that fame has not gone to his head, Bell was unnecessarily polite—he apologized for being late and answered a question from Spectator. Usually a soloist performing with prestigious symphonies around the world, Bell rarely has the opportunity to play with only a pianist. “It’s more intimate, more rehearsed, more opportunity to go deeper into the music with the chamber music setting,” he said. “I like the excitement with an orchestra, but I prefer this.”