Music@Menlo scrambles, excels

The entirely new program retained a fragment of the original concert theme, the interplay of French and American music in the early 20th century. This was evident in George Gershwin’s “Rhapsody in Blue,” which celebrates its centenary this year. Gershwin’s music, and jazz in general, had a major impact on French composition in the 1920s. The four-hands arrangement of the “Rhapsody” by Henry Levine, played by Brown and Wu Han, deliberately mixes the piano and orchestral parts of the standard version, rather than assigning one to each pianist. Brown and Wu Han played loud passages together and exchanged phrases with finesse.

The performance began a little stiffly but grew livelier as it progressed. A delightful surprise was the appearance of clarinetist Jose Franch-Ballester — also a returning Menlo artist — in the aisle of the audience seating. He played Gershwin’s famous opening melody on the instrument to which it was originally assigned. It just wouldn’t be the same on piano.

The two French pieces on this replacement program were too early to be influenced by Gershwin, but they showcased the variety of French music. Hyeyeon Park and Gilbert Kalish played Claude Debussy’s “Petite Suite” with a focus on the suite’s bright and flowing melodies and an avoidance of impressionist haze. It was ideally charming Debussy.

Francis Poulenc’s Sonata of 1918 predates Poulenc’s evolution into a witty and sardonic composer. In the four hands of Brown and Park, it was full of clanging dissonant chords and mechanistic melody, a suitable evocation of either the war just ending or the automotive and factory age to come.

Brown and Wu Han also played four-hand works by two old masters. W.A. Mozart’s Sonata in C Major, K. 521, is lively and imitative, with the two pianists repeating each other’s phrases as two violins might in a string quartet. The performance of this extensive piece was crisp and elegant.

Felix Mendelssohn’s Allegro Brilliant, Op. 92, was first performed in 1841 by the composer and his friend, the famous pianist Clara Schumann. It could be gentle and lyrical, somewhat like Mozart, but it was also full of busy imitative passages and some florid elaborations typical of Mendelssohn’s display compositions for piano.

One other work in this concert was played by Brown alone. He composed it as well. He has just finished a period of residence at Yaddo, an artists’ retreat in upstate New York, where he sought quiet and inspiration. He found his muse in a chain of four lakes on the extensive grounds, each named for one of the original owners’ four children, all of whom died young. He gave the first performance of his resulting work at this concert. “Four Lakes for Children” not only references this inspiration but also indicates that these are works that could be played by children, though they’d have to be rather advanced players.

Brown’s music features gentle harmonies and simple melodic lines, with a soft-jazz cast rather than the typical modern classics. The four pieces include a variety of playing techniques, from cross-hand jumps to lyrical phrases passed between the hands. At one point, the pianist reaches over and directly tickles the strings of the piano.

The concert was preceded by one of Menlo’s free Prelude Performances, estimably played by the young professional international program artists of the festival’s Chamber Music Institute. Beethoven’s String Trio in G Major, Op. 9 No. 1, was chipper and precise, offering more of the piece’s flair than its humor. Different players took a similarly precise and earnest run through Shostakovich’s Piano Quintet in G Minor, Op. 57, turning at the very end to acknowledge the enigmatic ambiguity of this piece composed in a stressful time.