Pianist resurrects mysticism of Schonberg at Orono show

Peter Serkin is a soldier when it comes to Schonberg. He stands at attention. He salutes and rushes into battle with the general’s music. It’s a just battle all right, and Serkin, a pianist who may well be today’s leading interpreter of Schonberg, came up victorious Wednesday with his Haydn/Schonberg Chamber Music Event at the Maine Center for the Arts.

In a completely other way, many in the audience may have felt at war with Schonberg’s music, too. His compositions do not have the characteristic architecture of classical music. Works such as Phantasy for Violin with Piano and Suite for Three Clarinets, Violin, Viola, Cello and Piano, both of which this group presented with fascinating poise and execution, achieve intensity by disfiguring the traditional and by unremittingly pounding out dynamics.

Some call Schonberg impressionistic. Others expressionistic. He was largely self-taught and generated the sense that his music was sufficient unto itself. These defiant qualities have led some critics to label him the bogeyman of the early avant-garde.

But to stop there is to greatly miss the force behind this amazing musical mathematician, whose innovations were given serious and exacting consideration at Wednesday’s concert. Serkin himself, who created this program and is touring internationally with this handful of formidable musicians, is so completely in dialogue with Schonberg that to hear and to watch him at the piano is to be in the presence of a phenomenon that is nearly mystical.

That’s not to say Serkin’s program was particularly warm. It had alacrity and precision but was not soulful. At one point, the musicians faced each other rather than the audience. And indeed, Schonberg’s “Ode to Napoleon,” with text written by Byron and performed Wednesday with Shakespearean richness by Mary Nessinger, is a rant against tyranny. It is infused with a kind of musical hatefulness and dissonance. While none of this is directed toward the audience, there’s no way to sidestep the agony and terror of the piece. Think of Beckett forcing himself into a painting by Picasso or Kandinsky – and you will get a sense of how demanding this piece is.

For many, Wednesday’s concert may have teetered confusingly between acerbic sounds and jagged rhythms. For others, it was a rare and welcome opportunity to hear music of one of the most significant composers of the 20th century. And for everyone, the addition of Haydn’s Trio for Piano, Violin and Cello with Serkin, Ida Kavafian and Fred Sherry, was a balm after the exhausting work of the Schonberg pieces.

As a melancholy figure and as a solitary composer who comes from one of the great eras of intellectual challenge in the arts, Schonberg blazed a trail that can be both baffling and boundless. It’s no wonder that it has taken 50 years from his death for his music to find a rightful place in performance. And as his magisterial work fractures balance and serenity, it rises as a sound oddly suited to our own chaotic times.