'French Soundscapes' brings forward laureate violin-harp partnership

 Returning to town a year after his first post-competition engagement here, Luke Hsu, 2018 bronze

Luke Hsu applied an engaging personality.

medalist in the International Violin Competition of Indianapolis, has made the most of a delayed duo appearance with a fellow laureate, Mélanie Laurent, 2019 gold medalist in the USA International Harp Competition.

"French Soundscapes" was the title of a program originally scheduled for last March. Wednesday's concert at the Indiana History Center marked the end of this season's Laureate Series. The partnership worked superbly. Besides duo and solo performances by the two top-prize winners, the concert took in a collaboration with the Ronen Chamber Ensemble in Saint-Saens' "Introduction et Allegro" for harp, flute, clarinet, and string quartet — plus the Pavane from Ravel's "Mother Goose Suite" as a soothing encore.

In his 2019 recital, a more conventional program with assistance at the piano from Chih-Yi Chen, Hsu showed his affinity for defining a piece's emotional terrain clearly in his manner with Brahms' Sonata in D minor. He was especially sensitive to the Viennese lilt pervading this familiar masterpiece. 

A similarly well-judged focus on expressive variety showed up straight away as the concert opened with the three-movement Suite en duo by Jean Cras. My previous acquaintance with this French composer (1879-1932) was limited to an astonishingly attractive four-act opera, "Polypheme," a CD set of which arrived "over the transom" several years ago and which I never expect to see staged.  

The rhythmic acuity of Hsu and Laurent animated every movement of the Suite, climaxing in the 11-

Melanie Laurent of France displays idiomatic rightness.

beat meter of the Très animé finale. Hints of Cras' affinity for the voice emerged in the Prembule opening of the first movement, in the declamatory French manner. The exchange of imitative material between the instruments was well-judged throughout; the craftsmanship seemed exemplary, and it took this tight partnership to fully reveal it.

Each guest soloist had a solo outing. Laurent revealed her extraordinarily wide spectrum of color in Marcel Granjany's Rhapsodie pour la harp. Changes in the splendid showcase's expressive direction were well managed. The harmonic wealth as the piece neared its end was enchanting. 

Hsu's turn in the spotlight was a  piece amply familiar from the prominence of the six Ysaye solo sonatas in the Indianapolis competition. Eugene Ysaye's Sonata No. 6 in E suits Hsu's love for highlighting contrasts. The shading he had applied last year to Brahms seems even more suitable to the mannerist variation of tone and texture that Ysaye displays. Except for an off-pitch final stab of punctuation, this performance was spot on, with all the requisite punch and variegated seductiveness. 

Saint-Saens' Fantaisie brought the concert up to intermission. Its imaginative outreach was signaled by the way the performers outlined the work's gradual gathering of melodic elements. Some drama ensues as the prelude episode recedes. The well-coordinated performance had the operatic heft of its composer's characteristic "public" manner: Saint-Saens' facility never spends much time cultivating intimacy. 

A lighter, more folk-based way of applying a personal touch to music in the public sphere got career-long cultivation from Astor Piazzolla in the Argentine composer's tango revelations. Histoire du tango brings forward the demotic vigor of the dance form: the first movement had Laurent applying forceful hand smacks to her instrument. "Cafe 1930" featured some introspective harp that catches the tango's capacity for rumination. "Nightclub 1960" meets in the center of the dance's popularity, with a sad episode showing that the woes of personal relationships are never distant from the breezy nonchalance of nightlife. Again, this duo seemed to reach a full understanding of how to trace the meaning.

Homer Ulrich's  book "Chamber Music" handles Ravel's chamber music nicely, but dutifully brings up "Introduction et Allegro" only to dismiss it, for all its charms, as not really chamber music: "the work is essentially an orchestral piece, hence requires no further mention here." It's a mini-concerto for reduced forces: The solo instrument is supported by two wind instruments (flute and clarinet) plus a string quartet; the other instruments form an ensemble. The Ronen Chamber Ensemble gave stalwart partnership to Laurent in this tidy display of the harp's versatility and acumen for working in combination with other instruments. 

It does that so well in French orchestral music, where the harp is  often an essential part of a score's character. It was a pleasure to hear it brought to the fore under the hands of so able an artist, working smoothly with a prize-winning violinist.