The Sacramento Bee Newspaper

eortiz@sacbee.com On any given day hundreds of classical music recitals are offered up with well-known gems from the classical and romantic eras on the program. However, the number of those that juxtapose that music with a spare work by a living composer are, sadly, too few. On Wednesday at Sacramento’s Westminster Presbyterian Church noted pianist Natsuki Fukasawa and Sacramento Philharmonic cellist Susan Lamb Cook offered such a concert. The Music at Noon series concert included works by Chopin and Schumann. But it was the elegant and profound suite of six pieces called “Six Postcards for Cello and Piano” by local composer and pianist Richard Cionco that made this concert stand out from any other. The quality of the musicality of this concert was mostly high. Pianist Fukasawa impressed with her urgent but sensitive playing. In the chamber realm, Fukasawa distinguishes herself as a pianist with a keen sense for dynamics. She also does not shy away from letting a dramatic essence pervade her playing when the music calls for it. It is never the kind of playing that veers into overplaying, as she proved during Chopin’s Sonata in G minor, Op. 65. Fukusawa and Cook play together often, and are well-paired, though Cook is sometimes outmatched in the equation. The concert began with a well-paced and conversational approach to Schumann’s Adagio and Allegro, Op. 70. But it was the work that followed – Cionco’s “Six Postcards” – that radiated. And it radiated by virtue of the music’s quiet yet powerful nature. Cionco’s tonal music never cries out for attention. Neither does it demand much real estate. The six pieces are brief and meditative in scope. Some seem as if they are over moments after they have begun. Could there be any other facet more suited to music in today’s digital and hurried world? Perhaps the presence of Cionco’s work was purely an outgrowth of his being Fukasawa’s husband. However, it is no far-fetched notion to think that his work would come to the fore, regardless. A soaring musical line defines the opening work: “Up.” Here the music rises and disperses like a rapidly traveling and disintegrating cloud. The pastoral-sounding “North Coast” followed. This piece, the shortest of the six, proved that, like haiku, less is more. On “Two Rivers” the piano anchored a solemn dialog with the cello. “Nowhere” followed, and this was the most interesting of the six pieces – with the music unfolding slowly as musical meditation. Here, the piano is answered by an urgent emotional digression from the cello. The work ends with the engaging and painterly “In flight.” Cook shaped her notes here with a tactile roundness. This result was music that was full of wit and personality. Cook later got to imprint her musical personality on “Greensleeves” by adding tasty, almost Rococo ornamentations. But at concert’s end, it was Cionco’s work that kept resonating. It did so by contrast and relevance. In the here and now, brevity and economy have become prized notions. And when these are married to originality of thought in the musical realm, the results are almost always noteworthy.