CLASSICAL MUSIC / KENNETH HERMAN : Charlotte Zelka to Perform Krenek Sonata <i> His</i> Way

Keyboard players are forever arguing the protocols of authentic performance and correct interpretations of the masters. Few, however, have topped harpsichordist Wanda Landowska’s classic retort to a fellow Bach interpreter.

“Well, my dear,” declared the imperious Landowska. “You can play Bach your way, and I’ll play Bach his way.”

Sunday afternoon at UC San Diego’s Mandeville Auditorium, Charlotte Zelka will perform Ernst Krenek’s Fifth Piano Sonata in what should be a most authoritative interpretation. Back in 1950, Krenek wrote the three-movement sonata for Zelka, at the time an aspiring 20-year-old Los Angeles piano student. She not only gave the sonata its first performance, but has played it frequently in this country and in Europe, where she performed for many years with the contemporary music ensemble Die Reihe.

Krenek will be on hand for Zelka’s 3 p.m. recital and will be feted at a program at the university’s Price Center before the recital. The 88-year-old Austrian-born composer has a longstanding relationship to UCSD music department, where he is fondly referred to as its godfather. A mentor of both Robert Erickson and Will Ogden, two of the department’s founders, Krenek and his rigorous advocacy of avant-garde composition shaped UCSD’s musical profile from the beginning.

Zelka, who now coaches chamber music at the Pasadena Conservatory, does not perceive Krenek’s Fifth Sonata as one of his more stylistically daunting works.

“While it is a 12-tone piece, it is also highly Romantic, more impassioned than his late works. In my experience, this sonata has been a real crowd-pleaser, even with audiences not particularly attuned to contemporary music.”

On her recital, Zelka will also play Artur Schnabel’s “Piece in Seven Movements.” To record collectors who hoard their disks of Schnabel’s masterful Beethoven performances, it usually comes as a surprise to learn that the legendary pianist also composed orchestral and chamber music.

“Krenek and Schnabel were very good friends,” Zelka explained, “but Krenek knew Schnabel in the 1920s as a composer. Krenek tells the story on himself of learning about his colleague’s piano career when he stumbled across a poster in Vienna announcing a recital given by Schnabel.”

At Sunday’s program before the recital, Krenek will give a short talk, and a video about Krenek’s influence on music at UCSD will be shown. A resident of Palm Springs, the composer has visited the campus frequently and has conferred with faculty and guest performers as they prepared his compositions for concerts and musical tributes.

Zelka, who has continued her friendship with Krenek over the last 40 years, noted that Krenek’s age has not dulled his acuity. His most recent composition will be premiered this June.

“He is in amazing shape for a man who is approaching 89,” she said. “He has the same old passion and verve he always had.”

Love’s labors ready for editing. John Stewart, retired provost of UCSD’s Muir College, has finally completed his biography of Ernst Krenek. A lifelong admirer of the composer, Stewart worked on his project for 17 years. The University of California Press now has his bulging, 750-page manuscript, and Stewart hopes the biography will appear next year to mark Krenek’s 90th birthday. According to Stewart, a German translation of the book, to be published by Barenreiter, will appear the following year.

Programming as you like it. When pop musicians go on tour, audiences can count on hearing cuts from their latest album on the concert. John Williams’ recital last week at Symphony Hall proved that the London-based classical guitarist is not above taking a cue from the world of pop music. Almost every composition on the program can be found on a recently released Williams recording.

Perhaps because Williams tours so infrequently, he was able to draw a respectable house of 2,000, just a few hundred short of a sellout. Would that the hall’s resident orchestra could draw such a crowd for a typical subscription concert.

Ticket sales kept the La Jolla Chamber Music Society’s new director Neale Perl on pins and needles until curtain time, however. In true San Diego fashion, pre-concert sales were modest, but hordes of last-minute buyers swamped the ticket office. Although the program was delayed 20 minutes, Williams’ grateful fans did not appear miffed.

Measure for measure, they beat the competition. First-place winners in last weekend’s Young Artists Competition held at UC San Diego included violinist Jennifer Hamlin of Bonita; pianist Hiroko Kunitake of San Diego; flutist Martin Glicklich of California State University, Northridge; trombonist Fu Min Huang of U.S. International University and San Diego mezzo-soprano Patricia McAfee. About 40 musicians entered this 34th installment of the La Jolla Civic-University Orchestra’s annual competition. A $500 prize was awarded to each winner--there were four instrumental categories and one vocal--and each musician will have the opportunity to perform with the La Jolla Civic-University Orchestra on its June 4 Mandeville Auditorium concert.