Znaider/LSO/Honeck - Gynn, Schubert, and Brahms, 24 March 2013

Barbican Hall

Eloise Nancie Gynn – Anahata (world premiere)

Schubert – Symphony no.8 in B minor, D 759
Brahms – Violin Concerto in D major, op.77

Nikolaj Znaider (violin)

London Symphony Orchestra

Nicholas Collon, Manfred Honeck (conductors)

Eloise Nancie Gynn’s Anahata was the latest work to receive its first performance in the LSO Panufnik Young Composers Scheme. The best, alas, that could be said about it was that it was competently enough orchestrated, if relying far too heavily upon ‘eastern’ colour: bowed vibraphone, Tibetan singing bowl, and so forth. (Edward Said might never have existed.) Otherwise, the piece sounded akin to the sort of soundtrack one might hear on an average television programme: a few ‘effects’, which might have gravitated some meaning in conjunction with an external narrative, but with apparently zero musical justification. Tonal harmonies sounded rather more than shop-soiled. The work, one read, was ‘inspired by my [Gynn’s] exploration of spirituality through meditation. Finding a way through life and its obstacles and emotions; a journey inside, from the head and all its mental chaos, thoughts and “stuff”  ... into the stillness of the heart space, connecting to the peace within.’ I could go on quoting; on second thoughts, I am not sure that my stomach could withstand the effort. Nicholas Collon and the LSO seemed to give the piece a far more authoritative performance than it deserved. No matter; I doubt we shall hear it again.

 

I certainly cannot imagine that we shall hear it again in the company of the otherwise well-suited pair of Schubert and Brahms. Manfred Honeck, deputising for Sir Colin Davis, led a performance that for the most part convinced, though it sometimes went a little overboard in its pursuit of extremities, whether of tempo or of dynamic contrast. The opening cellos sounded dark, mysterious, yet controlled: just right. Perhaps the basic tempo adopted was on the fast side, but it soon yielded – arguably too much. Still, better to enjoy flexibility than Kapellmeister-ish straitjacket. Cultivated playing from the LSO alternated with furious eruption. It was the beauty of the softest playing, however, which ultimately lingered longest in the memory. Moreover, one certainly heard a good few of the harmonic seeds for Brahms, preparing the way for the second half. This was a musical landscape whose breadth tempted one to think of Bruckner, albeit with greater incident. Unwanted applause ensued. For the most part, the second movement flowed beautifully. ‘Beauty’, however, proved to be a slight problem, for however exquisite the opening of the second group sounded – and it certainly did – it sounded a little too much like an object of appreciation rather than a participant in a musical, indeed above all a harmonic, drama. It undoubtedly offered contrast with the outburst that followed, but the contrast seemed too much: an easy way out, however impressively controlled. That said, it was impossible not to warm to the echt-Viennese quality of Schubert’s Harmoniemusik: not just its exquisite tonal quality, for which the LSO players stood beyond praise, not only on account of its timbral differentiation, but also for its communication of the menace within the ‘heavenly’ material. With a stronger sense of continuity, this might have been a great performance. It is probably a good thing that I do not possess the vocabulary to describe those who applauded before the final chord had ceased to resound.   

 

Nikolaj Znaider joined the orchestra for Brahms’s Violin Concerto. The orchestra showed typically impressive symphonic heft in the opening, Znaider offering in response winningly-old fashioned silken sweetness, not that he lacked cleanness and precision. (Let us pass over the problematic cadenza.) Honeck proved an attentive ‘accompanist’, perhaps a little too much so, clearly following Znaider’s tempo fluctuations rather than emerging as an equal partner. As a whole, there was much to enjoy, but there is something a little amiss when Brahms sounds more ‘enjoyable’ than profound; I could not help but long for Menuhin and Furtwängler, or perhaps even Znaider and Sir Colin. The slow movement offered ravishingly beautiful woodwind playing, and not only from Fabien Thouand’s exquisitely turned oboe solo; once again, Vienna and even Mozart came to mind. When Znaider entered, he creditably sounded as first among equals rather than dominating soloist. With a flowing, uncontroversial tempo, this sounded as Brahms closer to Mendelssohn than to Schoenberg, but there is nothing wrong with that once in a while. The finale, however, proved somewhat awkward, a state of affairs that seemed more Honeck’s doing than Znaider’s. The ‘Hungarian’ rhythm of the principal theme was shaped with fine understanding, its rhythmic accent spot on. Alas, the music soon began to meander, for which Honeck appeared to over-compensate by bringing out an excessive, almost Tchaikovsky-like, array of primary colours as ‘interest’. Such vulgarity has no place in Brahms.

 

Takács Quartet/Power - Brahms and Haydn, 20 February 2013

Wigmore Hall

Brahms – String Quartet no.2 in A minor, op.51 no.2

Haydn – String Quartet in B-flat major, op.76 no.4, ‘Sunrise’
Brahms – String Quintet in G major, op.111

Edward Dusinberre, Károly Schranz (violins)

Geraldine Walther (viola)

András Fejér (cello)

Lawrence Power (viola)

 

 

The Takács Quartet, Wigmore Hall Associate Artists, is this week offering two concerts in which a Brahms quartet and a Haydn quartet are presented with a Brahms quintet. Friday’s concert will bring Brahms’s op.51 no.1, Haydn’s op.76 no.5, and Brahms’s Piano Quintet (with Charles Owen). This concert had the second of Brahms’s quartets, Haydn’s ‘Sunrise’ Quartet, op.76 no.4, and the G major Quintet, for which the Takács players were joined by violist Lawrence Power.

 

Brahms’s A minor Quartet opened in cultivated fashion, the players offering a flexibility that would pervade the performance as a whole. This was not the most richly Romantic Brahms, and there was perhaps a degree of loss in that, but there were gains too. Certainly that unexaggerated flexibility of tempo in the first movement and beyond seemed consonant in the best, that is un-slavish, sense with what we know of Brahms’s own performing practice in his music. A fine balance was upheld and explored between themes, motifs, and fragments – at times, almost Webern-like – and the longer line, the overall cumulative effect very much that of the ‘developing variation’ Schoenberg discerned in Brahms’s music and his own. Form was properly dynamic in conception and execution. The second movement was again very well-judged, part-way between Schumannesque intermezzo and something ‘later’ – always a concern in Brahms. ‘Dramatic’ outbursts made their point, yet were seamlessly integrated into a greater whole. There was melancholy, to be sure, but not, as in Nietzsche’s cruel jibe, ‘melancholy of impotence’, likewise in the third movement, its opening dramatically pregnant, its later counterpoint handled lightly yet without being underestimated. Counterpoint was afforded greater weight in the finale, in a reading of increasing cumulative power, which, tensions beneath the surface notwithstanding, yet retained a certain Viennese elegance.

 

Haydn’s ‘Sunrise’ Quartet sounded from its opening bars, as it should, as though Haydn were very much part of the same tradition as Brahms and yet in a sense more ‘timely’, less ‘late’, in his exploratory Classicism. The first movement showed admirable display for Haydn’s concision and spirit; if I have heard more extrovert performances, this nevertheless could not help but make me smile. Every note counted, as it must. Interplay between slow opening material – the apparent ‘introduction’ that is actually the beginning of the exposition proper – and what follows proved almost operatic, Mozart not so distant. The slow movement was heard as if in one, immensely variegated, breath, a model of intelligent and inviting Haydn playing. Infectious Schwung characterised the minuet, though its reprise suffered somewhat from imperfect intonation; the trio offered a delightful sense of partially deconstructed rusticity. There was again a Mozartian – well, almost Mozartian – poise to the final movement, but the rigour to the working out was unmistakeably Haydn’s own, as were the surprises.

 

Tuning was, rather to my surprise, a little wayward from the cellist in the opening of Brahms’s G major String Quintet; that had been rectified the second time around. The performance as a whole did not quite seem to hit its stride until the second subject, the opening material sounding slightly forced in its projection. It was a joy throughout, though, to hear that extra richness afforded by the addition of Power’s viola; if ever a composer were likely to benefit from such an opportunity, it was surely Brahms. The flexibility of the opening quartet was once again very much in evidence, especially dring the development and recapitulation. What one might call ‘detailed intensity’ came to the fore in the second movement, which nevertheless retained a sense of overall simplicity, however deceptive, almost akin to a superior ‘song without words’. The febrile quality to the third movement seemed just right: unstable and yet ultimately fulfilling, redolent once again of the worlds of Schoenberg and Webern. However much he might try, Brahms at his ‘late’ juncture cannot recapture Haydn’s unbounded joy. High, if mediated, spirits registered all the same in the finale.

Caussé/Dalberto - Weber, Brahms, and Berlioz-Liszt, 19 December 2012

Wigmore Hall

Weber – Andante e Rondo ungarese, J.79, op.35

Brahms – Viola Sonata in E-flat major, op.120 no.2
Berlioz-Liszt – Harold en Italie, S 472

Gérard Caussé (viola)

Michel Dalberto (piano).

Weber’s Andante e Rondo ungarese seems nowadays more often to be performed in its later bassoon version, but was originally written for viola and orchestra. I am afraid I had the same problem I have with most of Weber’s music written before the great trilogy of three ‘late’ operas: bewilderment that such trivial, anonymous music could have been written by the same man who composed Der Freischütz. In this case, the problem was compounded by use of what I assume must have been a piano reduction of the orchestral score; at any rate, no credit was given, either to Weber or to someone else. It put me in mind of accompanying for Associated Board exams – somehow, as a teenage schoolboy, I used to think that £10 was an acceptable rate, rehearsals included, but it certainly taught me to listen to other musicians – and especially so in some thumping chords it is difficult to imagine anyone who actually played the piano having written as such. There was, however, some gorgeous lyrical tone to savour from Gérard Caussé. It was amiable enough, I suppose, but an odd choice and, in whatever guise, ultimately banal, form seemingly little more than a matter of adding section to section. Did this really hail from the composer of Euryanthe? It sounded closer to Donizetti.

 

With Brahms, inevitably, one could think and feel: now for some real music. The op.120 sonatas – sorry, clarinettists – have always seemed to me still more suited to the viola, its rich, dark tone as suited to the composer as the dark mahogany of a Hamburg panelled room. Caussé proved warm and clean of tone, well-nigh ideal. The first movement’s tempo was well chosen, also flexible without drawing attention to itself. After a slightly anonymous start, the piano grew in stature too, also benefiting from a richly Romantic tone to Michel Dalberto’s Bechstein (an excellent, fitting choice of instrument). Brahms’s rippling, cumulative complexity found a convincing dialectical relationship with his melodic (viola and piano) genius. The music sounded closer to the violin sonatas with these forces, and rightly so. Metrical dislocations told in the second movement: more the piano’s doing than the viola’s, again without exaggeration. Perhaps structure might have been a little more malleable or protean, a little less sectional; the transition back to Tempo I seemed tacked on rather than a necessity. Nevertheless, there was some fine ghostly as well as ardent playing in the reprise. The players grasped the singular mood of the finale, poised between melancholy and passion, dramatising the conflict between them.

 

This was, I think, the first time I had heard Liszt’s transcription of Harold en Italie. It is a marvellous work; I cannot imagine why it is not heard more often. But then Liszt is the transcriber, arranger, and paraphraser to vanquish all others, with the possible exception of his heir Busoni. I barely missed Berlioz’s orchestra at all: quite a claim, the more I think about it. In this performance, Dalberto’s piano opening was fluent, full of anticipation, quite unlike the piano reduction of the Weber piece. There were touches, if only from time to time, of Lisztian bravura too. Caussé made an amusingly melodramatic entrance on stage, ready for his viola entry, quite in keeping, I thought, with Berlioz’s Romantic sensibility and once again lavished his beautiful tone upon the music. Intriguingly, the music begins to sound more virtuosic in this transcription. Might Paganini have accepted it after all? Probably not, but I could not help but wonder. Nervous rhythmic eccentricity came across strongly too. Dalberto’s repeated piano notes towards the end were worth hearing for their own sake. The ‘Marche des pèlerins’ was on the swift side, but perhaps that was as much a matter of dealing with the piano’s relative lack of sustaining power as anything else. Both transcription and performance imbued the movement with high Romanticism, quite different from the more Classically-inclined Berlioz one hears from, say, Sir Colin Davis. The third movement was spirited and again surprisingly virtuosic (from both). It was fascinating as ever to hear how much of Liszt’s own personality shines through, even when he is as faithful to the original as here. The same could be said of the final orgy, though on occasion Dalberto’s rendition of the piano part suffered from a certain hardening of tone. I was not entirely convinced by Caussé’s exit from stage, followed by a return for the end: too much of a good thing. However, it did mean that one concentrated, once past the surprise, upon Liszt’s piano writing. Dalberto’s rendition was not flawless but impressed nevertheless. The delightful choice of first encore – alas, I missed the second, not having realised that there would be one – was Schubert’s Ständchen, in what seemed to be Liszt’s piano transcription, with the vocal part transferred to the viola from the second stanza onwards. It sounded quite magical, performed with delightful Romantic sweep.

VPO/Rattle - Brahms, Webern, and Schumann, 17 June 2012

Barbican Hall

Brahms – Symphony no.3 in F major, op.90
Webern – Six Orchestral Pieces, op.6
Schumann – Symphony no.3 in E-flat major, op.97, ‘Rhenish’

Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra
Sir Simon Rattle (conductor)


This Sunday-evening visit to London by the Vienna Philharmonic and Sir Simon Rattle seemed heralded by little fanfare, especially when contrasted with last year’s concerts from Rattle and his ‘home’ Berlin orchestra. (The Mahler Third Symphony I caught, praised to the skies by many, was for me a less than happy experience.) Perhaps there was no need, the prospect speaking largely for itself; at any rate, the lack of hype was refreshing, relieving one of the temptation to react against it before the concert had even begun.

Alas, reaction would set in within a minute or two of its opening. I had not previously been a fan of what I had heard of Rattle’s Brahms; an inordinately fussy Proms performance of the Variations on a Theme of Haydn lodged itself in the memory for all the wrong reasons. This performance of the Third Symphony was worse still, indeed quite the worst I have ever heard. I tried to tell myself that it was skirting the risk of indulgence, when in truth it had passed into and beyond that territory some time earlier. The first movement’s second subject was taken at such a snail’s pace and with such little sense of any basic pulse that it was robbed of even the slightest aspiration to life. ‘Excitable’ would be a kind way of describing the opening of the development; its renewed attempt at vigour seemed to come from nowhere and soon passed into renewed torpor. The recapitulation proceeded in similar fashion to the exposition (heard twice); indeed, inflections of tempo were identical, so as to remove any doubts concerning ‘spontaneity’. It was all rather like wading through treacle, with the occasional nasty fall. The ‘Andante’ was subjected to similar pulling around, momentum quite lacking, certain passages milked as if in a bad parody of Rachmaninov. Here, as earlier Rattle seemed to confuse thinness and thickness with light and shade, but the fault surely lay with the orchestra too, which was on anything but its best form. Indeed, had the programme not told me that this was the Vienna Philharmonic, and had the orchestra on stage not resembled the Vienna Philharmonic, I should never have believed that it was. The third movement was a little better, less exaggerated, though ultimately Rattle still made a meal out of it. We reverted to type in the finale, when it occurred, sadly, to me that I had never heard the VPO sound so petulant, so brash; that, of course, was prior to a grotesque slowing of tempo for no apparent reason. Volume did not equate to depth, whether of tone or interpretation. I was left longing for the sanity of a Klemperer or a Sawallisch.

Webern’s Op.6 Orchestral Pieces, originally scheduled to close the first half, were shifted to the opening of the second. Whilst hardly receiving a revelatory performance, a comparison with Rattle’s 2010 Berlin Philharmonic Proms reading being unfavourable in most respects, this was much preferable to the Great Brahms Massacre. (Odd, how someone so skilled in the music of the Second Viennese School can be so utterly at sea with Brahms, but there it is.) Here at least there was a sense of life, and also of pulse. Perhaps the first piece was too swift for ‘Langsam,’ but it was a relief nevertheless. The translucence of the second and third pieces contrasted strongly with the sludge of Brahms, even though the Viennese players sounded as though they might have tried a little harder. At least the Funeral March was possessed of a proper sense of purpose, on the swift side again, but not inappropriately so. There were, moreover, intriguing hints of what was to come with Boulez and Stockhausen, as well as backward glances to Mahler. The tones of the fifth movement resonated wonderfully, as if in aftershock. Eeriness was poised between Heaven and Hell: a foretaste of Mahler’s ‘Purgatorio’ perhaps? Likewise the shards of Romanticism in the sixth movement glistened, yet still fell under the shadow of what had gone before. This performance, I should note, was given in the slimmed down 1928 revision.

Schumann’s Rhenish Symphony was given with a larger orchestra than has been recently fashionable, the five double basses almost as many in number as the first violins of which I have heard tell in certain performances. At least its first movement was not dragged out as its Brahmsian counterpart had been. Instead, we heard a generally hard-driven account, with a few arbitrary slowings down, especially during the development and recapitulation. I was puzzled here and throughout by the fierceness of the VPO’s tone, not least in the strings, but elsewhere too. Again, had I not known which orchestra this was, I should never have guessed. The second movement was oddly turbo-charged, again suffering from unpleasantness of orchestral tone. It seemed both to bludgeon and to skate over the surface. The basic, or better first, tempo for the third movement was relatively swift, but that was not really the problem; for one thing, it slowed down within a minute or so, dramatically. It was Rattle’s micro-management of every phrase that truly troubled: inordinately fussy, recalling that Proms Brahms performance, rendering the performance more or less incoherent. The Cologne Cathedral movement came off relatively well. Textures were sometimes congested, but at least there was a sense of direction to it. I was almost – almost, I repeat – moved. The relationship of the finale to its predecessor was unclear; it seemed too blithe, too much like unearned light relief. However, given much of what we had heard earlier, there was something to be said for light relief. That is, until it was eclipsed by blaring brass, such as I could never have imagined emanting from Vienna.

Kennedy/RPO/Litton - Brahms and Elgar, 12 June 2012

Royal Festival Hall

Brahms – Academic Festival Overture, op.80

Elgar – Enigma Variations, op.36

Brahms – Violin Concerto in D major, op.77

Nigel Kennedy (violin)

Royal Philharmonic Orchestra

Andrew Litton (conductor)

Few in the audience would, I suspected, have been present specifically for the first half of this concert, so I was a little surprised to see a few seats vacated after the interval. When it came to what made the concert memorable – and I wonder whether ‘unforgettable’ will prove nearer the mark – would be Nigel Kennedy’s performance of the Brahms Violin Concerto, and indeed what would come thereafter. Nevertheless, I ought to say something about the first half too. 

Andrew Litton’s account of the Academic Festival Overture opened in intriguing Mendelssohnian fashion, its lightness putting me in mind of his fine London Philharmonic recording of the Midsummer Night’s Dream music. Later, the performance turned more excitable, closer to Tchaikovsky. I am not sure that it really added up to Brahms, but at least it was not dull. (Thank goodness, though, that that treatment was not meted out to the Tragic Overture, or the Haydn Variations.) As for Litton’s podium manner, it threatened to make the late Leonard Bernstein seem restrained.

The Enigma Variations worked better, though the emphasis tended to lie upon sharp characterisation of each individual variation as opposed to a guiding thread running through the work as a whole. Oddly, however, and despite such discontinuities, the music often sounded closer to Brahms than the overture had. The Theme was a case in point, darkly beautiful, the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra’s cellos exhibiting great depth of tone, its violins commendable sheen. Another case would be the dark tones of ‘R.P.A’. Strauss, quite properly, had a look in for the first variation (C.A.E.); admiration of course ran both ways between the two composers. The brass, especially trombones, proved splendidly raucous in ‘Troyte’. ‘Nimrod’, though its opening was perhaps a little too febrile, received a warmly Romantic rather than pious reading, followed by a ‘Dorabella’ both whimsical and sardonic. A telephone did not quite succeed in disrupting the welcome air of mystery in the fourteenth variation (*** - Romanza), ‘E.D.U.’ proving excitable rather in the manner of the preceding overture. It was good to hear the tones of the Royal Festival Hall organ ring out here.

Now for Kennedy’s ‘half’. Though I have long admired his musicianship – far, far more serious, in the best sense, than he is often given credit for – this was my first opportunity to hear him in the flesh. I was certainly not to be disappointed. Doubtless there is hyperbole in his programme booklet declaration that ‘Bach, Beethoven, and Brahms are the raison d’être of classical music,’ but it remains refreshing to hear voiced so unapologetically the broader point being made, namely the centrality of Austro-German music: ‘At the Yehudi Menuhin School, it as made clear to us that central Europe is central to all that is good in classical music.’ And I find it difficult to disagree with Kennedy’s opening gambit: ‘It is a privilege to be playing what is probably the greatest violin concerto of them all for you guys this evening.’

It seemed as though Kennedy’s thoughts had rubbed off on Litton, for the opening tutti of the first movement sounded far more traditionally ‘Brahmsian’ than the Academic Festival Overture had. That is not to say that it was dull, or even sturdy, for it proved full of light and shade, but crucially there was a far stronger sense of harmonic rhythm, answered in turn by an electric – no, not in that sense – appearance of musical virtuosity on Kennedy’s part. (As he so rightly and indeed necessarily put it in the programme, ‘Unfortunately, for some modern proponents of violin playing, a fantastic technique and sound production are not (as in some other concertos) sufficient to tackle the philosophical demands of Brahms’s composition.’) Kennedy’s performance was to prove a standing riposte to emphasis ‘purely on gaining technique’, which he associates with much conservatoire teaching, not least ‘at the Juillard School of Boredom,’ where he studied alongside Litton. For, from the outset, his shaping of phrases and his sounding of the connections between them, spoke of true musical understanding. The sweetness of his tone, moreover, spoke of a wonderfully ‘old school’ approach, sounding almost midway between Heifetz and Menuhin, if you can imagine such a thing. Soloist and orchestra were palpably alert to the demands of the score as musical drama, to its playing out within and through Brahms’s concerto form. It was clearly above all Kennedy’s reading: Litton visibly followed his soloist’s rubato. Yet, in a performance that balanced formal demands with quasi-impovisatory calls arising from Kennedy’s not unreasonable belief in the importance of the gypsy tradition, there could be no complaint on that account.

That sense of the improvisatory came to a head in the cadenza. Kennedy, perhaps unsurprisingly, prefers the fantasy of Kreisler here to Joachim’s standard version, ‘very strong structurally but sadly lacking in pathos’. However, he elected instead to provide his own, apparently improvised, cadenza. Alarm bells might have rung upon reading the statement, ‘During this, you might detect my belief that Brahms loved gypsy music and that, therefore, if he had had the same access as we do to, say, Indian music or the blues, he would probably have incorporated these equally important types of community music into his work as well.’ What we heard proved rather less outrageous than one might have hoped or feared, at least during the purely solo part. Hints of ‘world’ music manifested themselves more strongly as the cellos began to sound a pedal point, cellos joined by other strings, and eventually by the entire orchestra. Yet there was surprisingly little sense of incongruity, and what there might have been was more than outweighed by the soloist’s personality and sheer communicative skill.

The slow movement was blessed by beautiful, characterful woodwind playing, not only from the oboe (John Anderson). Kennedy’s spinning of the violin line was ardent yet variegated, vocal yet indisputably instrumental. It was a more rhapsodic approach than one often hears – a characteristic that on occasion slightly foxed the orchestra – but there were no grounds to associate that with any lack of structural sense, line being maintained as if this were a great aria, or perhaps better, a song without words.

Likewise, in the finale, clearly channelled through the personality and to an extent the delivery of a gypsy musician, form remained clear and meaningful. The orchestra sounded reinvigorated and the results were thrilling. Though there was nothing wilful or distended about the performance, quite the contrary, it would probably have been more likely for Kreisler – or the ever-open-minded Menuhin – to smile upon it than for Joachim to have done so. Frankly, it was a struggle, and I am sure that Kennedy would maintain it to be a futile struggle, to keep one’s foot from tapping along with his. If Nietzsche maintained that much of the problem with German music was its dissociation from the dance, famously celebrating Carmen against Wagner, he perhaps should have heard this.

There was more, of course, to come. After a little joking around, including a proposal of marriage to leader, Clio Gould, Kennedy engaged in an utterly spellbinding duet with principal cellist, David Cohen. As scintillating, in-authenticke a performance of the Handel-Halvorsen Chaconne as one could every hope for – and then a great deal more – was our treat. Virtuosity and musicianship sounded in equal measure from both parties; what was perhaps most enthralling was to observe, indeed viscerally to feel, their response toward each other as chamber musicians. How rehearsed it was, I do not know – Kennedy referred to a ‘sort of rehearsal’ in Nottingham – but it sounded, if you will forgive the cliché, newly minted. A gypsy-style medley ensued, first with Cohen ‘accompanying’, but soon joined by the rest of the RPO strings, some of them also offered solo spots. It was great fun, and more than that: testament to Kennedy’s very real sense of music as a communal activity. Truly, there is only one Nigel Kennedy.

Volodos - Schubert, Brahms, and Liszt, 22 May 2012

Royal Festival Hall

Schubert – Sonata in A minor, D 784

Brahms – Three Intermezzi, op.117

Liszt – Sonata in B minor, S 178

Arcadi Volodos (piano)

Though I have long been aware of his reputation, this was the first time, whether on disc or in the concert hall, that I had heard Arcadi Volodos. I suspect that it will turn out also to be the last. There were peculiarities, which is arguably to put it mildly, to the first half, but I had assumed that Liszt would play more to Volodos’s strengths; as it turned out, I should have been better advised to have left at the interval.

The first movement of Schubert’s A minor sonata, D 784, added up to considerably less than the sum of its parts, even when the parts were often distinctly odd. There were fine moments, such as a beautifully quiet opening, though the sonority seemed more suited to Tchaikovsky than to Schubert. Moreover, Volodos showed himself alert to, or at least suggestive of, those weird foreshadowings of Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition. However, one often, for instance at the opening of the second group, had a sense of him holding back, afraid – doubtless not without reason – of unleashing his firepower upon a composer whose temperament might seem somewhat less than an ideal match. That said, there was certainly little holding back in the development section, which sounded, if hardly idiomatic, at least impressive. Volodos, from his outward appearance, was clearly committed to what he was doing, apparently lost in his own reveries. But as for what Schubert’s music might mean, let alone how it might add up… The slow movement had ultra-Romantic tone lavished upon it, and I can imagine that many would think it drawn out. Yet at least – and certainly by comparison with its predecessor – it had purpose and coherence. It sounded rather like a Liszt transcription of a Schubert song: not quite right, perhaps, but not so bad either. The finale had a surprisingly Brahmsian tone to its opening, not at all unfitting. Melodic oases were exquisitely voiced, moving in their way, though it was really too late by now.

The Brahms Intermezzi, op.117, received an individual reading by any standards, yet arguably provided the highlight of the evening. Each of the three pieces followed a similar trajectory: voicing as exquisite as that mentioned in the final movement of the Schubert sonata, with half-lighting – or perhaps rather less than half – wondrously evoked. I am not sure that I have ever heard the opening of the E-flat intermezzo so meltingly beautiful. Were the performances distended? Almost certainly, yet they intrigued rather than infuriated. Brahms sounded closer to Chopin, and in the central section of the third, to Liszt, than to Schoenberg; however, there was at the end a sense of loss, of aching longing, that stood not entirely unrelated to Brahms.

The Liszt B minor sonata opened with great promise, the piano sound apparently just right. Unfortunately, even that soon descended into bludgeoning, the delicate passages coming off much better. Why, however, I soon asked myself, all the agogic accents? Why the inserted pauses? Why was everything pulled around to no apparent purpose? This of all works, certainly the most extraordinary piano sonata in formal conception between Schubert and Boulez, requires a musician who will project both its overall structure and its motivic cohesion. Volodos turned the work into something resembling an over-extended operatic paraphrase. He did not deserve the minute or so when an audience member declined to answer the telephone, just as he had not deserved the barrage of coughing here and in the first half, but this was as uncomprehending a performance of Liszt’s towering masterpiece as I have ever heard. That many members of the audience could greet it with a standing ovation for me simply beggared belief. Whatever would they do, were they, to cite two recent outstanding performances on the South Bank, to hear Maurizio Pollini or Pierre-Laurent Aimard perform the work? Here, alas, there was not the slightest sense of an Idea. Most of the recapitulation was simply brutalised. Oddly, the first encore, Liszt’s En rêve sounded, if a little sugary, at least conceived of in a single breath. As for the other encores, I think I have said enough already.

The Sixteen - Brahms, Schumann, and Clara Schumann, 16 March 2012

Hall One, Kings Place

Schumann – Spanische Liebeslieder, op.138, nos 4 and 9
Clara Schumann – Romance in E-flat minor, op.11 no.1
Brahms – Zigeunerlieder, op.103
Schumann – Liebesfrühling, op.37: ‘So wahr die Sonne scheiner’
Schumann – Vier Duette, op.78: ‘Tanzlied’
Schumann – Fantasiestücke, op.12, nos 2 and 3
Brahms – Neues Liebeslieder, op.65

Members of The Sixteen:
Julie Cooper, Charlotte Mobbs (soprano)
Alexandra Gibson, Martha McLorinan (alto)
Jeremy Budd, Mark Dobell (tenor)
Alex Ashworth, Eamonn Dougan (bass)

Christopher Glynn, John Reid (piano)
Harry Christophers (conductor)

Having ‘unwrapped’ Beethoven, Chopin, and Mozart, Kings Place in 2012 is mounting a year-long series, ‘Brahms Unwrapped’. This was the second of two contributions from The Sixteen, or rather members thereof, ‘The Eight’, Brahms’s Zigeunerlieder and Neue Liebeslieder accompanied by vocal and piano works by Robert and Clara Schumann. It made for a relatively short programme, but there are worse things than that.

Two songs from Schumann’s 1849 Spanische Liebeslieder opened the programme. ‘Bedeckt mich mit Blumen’, for two sopranos, made for a slightly staid opening, but ‘Blaue Augen hat das Mädchen’, for tenor and bass, proved livelier, the captivation exerted by the girl’s blue eyes for the two protagonists readily apparent. I am sorry to say that I have never heard, or indeed played, a piece by Clara Schumann I have wished to re-encounter, and this piano Romance, op.11 no.1, offered not exception. It was actually a better piece than many I have heard from her, but it proved four-square, repetitious, and unadventurous harmonically, never rising above the generically Romantic: pleasant enough, if you like that sort of thing. Alas, I cannot report on the respective contributions of the two pianists, or indeed of particular singers, by name, since the programme gave no indication as to which was which, or to who was performing what.

The Zigeunerlieder opened in rather peculiar fashion, one of the two tenors – I shall call him Tenor I – sounding closer in style to Weill than to Brahms; it worked surprisingly well, but I could not help but wonder whether it were intended. More troublingly, however, Harry Christophers, who now joined the ensemble to conduct, drove the music hard. I am not convinced that it needs a conductor; this evening’s experience suggests otherwise. It tends to flow more easily, to sound more ‘natural’ in expression, without. ‘Lieber Gott, du weißt, wie oft bereut ich hab’ benefited from commendable attention to detail, yet, like so many of the songs, sounded over-determined. ‘Kommt dir manchmal in den Sinn’ relaxed somewhat, however, and was all the better for it, permitting one to relish Brahms’s harmonies and their implications. Likewise, there was a nice sense of sad mystery to ‘Horch, der Wind klagt in den Zweigen traurig sacht,’ though there was some especially ropy singing from Tenor II here. Tenor I sounded strained in the closing ‘Rote Abendwolken ziehn am Firmament’; indeed, I was taken aback throughout at the problems both tenors experienced.

Schumann’s ‘So wahr die Sonne scheiner,’ a Rückert setting for alto and bass duet, sounded rather lovely: modest, but heartfelt, a welcome change from the over-determination of the conducted works. ‘Tanzlied,’ for soprano and tenor, benefited from a winning lilt to the waltz and its progress; the soprano shone, but the tenor again proved a bit of a trial. Two of Schumann’s Fantasiestücke followed, given by whichever was the pianist who had not performed the piece by Clara. ‘Aufschwung’ was dextrous, though it sounded closer to Mendelssohn than to a progenitor of Brahms. The performance was not especially probing, but pleasant enough, if short-breathed; it stopped very abruptly. ‘Warum?’ exhibited a fine piano touch, though it was perhaps unduly insistent.

The Neue Liebeslieder are of course for piano duet; the new piano texture was both welcome in itself and well navigated by the pianists, richer without ever becoming occluded. As for the vocal performances, much the same could be said as for the Zigeunerlieder. Christophers needed to calm down, and really had no business in part-conducting a piece such as ‘An jeder Hand die Finger’, for soprano solo (rather good, if somewhat bright in tone for Brahms). At least he desisted for most of the other solo songs. Even, though, where a piece went less hell for leather, for instance in ‘Finstere Schatten der Nacht’, it tended to emerge too moulded, audibly as well as visually. ‘Weiche Gräser im Revier’ was marred by Tenor II, ‘Ich kose süß mit der und der’ by Tenor I, who offered charmless, often out-of-tune, bellowing. A pity, given the quality of much of the rest of the singing. ‘Am Donaustrande, da steht ein Haus,’ from the op.52 Liebeslieder-Walzer, was a winning encore, more gemütlich than pretty much anything that had gone before. On the whole, however, the evening lacked Viennese charm and idiom; instead, we were left with an impression that Evensong had preceded the performances. To have had the singers stand around the piano, without conductor, might well have offered a better starting-point.

Bell/LPO/Jurowski - Mozart, Brahms, Zemlinsky, and Szymanowski, 22 February 2012

Royal Festival Hall

Mozart – Symphony no.32, KV 318
Brahms – Violin Concerto in D major, op.77
Zemlinsky – Psalm no.23, op.14
Szymanowski – Symphony no.3, ‘The Song of the Night’

Joshua Bell (violin)
Jeremy Ovenden (tenor)
London Philharmonic Choir (chorus master: Neville Creed)
London Philharmonic Orchestra
Vladimir Jurowski (conductor)

A peculiar programme, this, in which it was difficult to discern much of a connection between the first and second halves. But there was much to enjoy, and only one work – or rather, part of one work – proved a little disappointing. Saddeningly if predictably, audience acclaim tended to be in inverse proportion to the success of the performance; indeed, quite a few audience members did not even bother to stay for the second half.

Mozart’s thirty-second symphony received for the most part a splendid reading. It was heartening to see Vladimir Jurowski employ a sensible, if hardly excessive, complement of London Philharmonic strings: 10.10.8.6.4. If only he had not deigned to employ natural trumpets and ‘period’ kettledrums – though not, curiously, natural horns. (He did the same last year, in a performance of Haydn’s eighty-eighth.) Nevertheless, the first section combined liveliness and grandeur, non-fussy articulation and a sense of drama. The Andante section flowed without being harried, breathing the outdoor air of the serenade, as well as its easy-going charm, whilst the reversion to the initial tempo brought with it a proper sense of return. It was just a pity that the kettledrums sounded like dustbin lids: I can imagine what Beecham would have said…

Joshua Bell joined the orchestra for Brahms’s Violin Concerto. The first movement could be accounted an unalloyed success, its orchestral introduction – ‘introduction’ hardly seems appropriate here – beautifully handled by Jurowski: well-phrased, mellifluous, clear of purpose. Bell’s tone proved silvery and golden by turn, the latter coming to predominate, always perfectly centred upon the notes. However, he could show vehemence where required, though even then it would be exquisitely shaded. And how the second subject sang – both from soloist and orchestra! Form was clear, as it should be, but without turning into a mere formula; there was always, for which Jurowski must surely be credited, a keen sense of the organic to Brahms’s progress. Bell should be applauded for trying out his own cadenza but, alas, it proved no match for Joachim’s. As for the rest of the movement, though, I could find no fault whatsoever; nor should I have wished to do so. It was unfortunate, to say the least, that an alarm of some sort coincided with the opening bar of the slow movement. But the real problem, or rather one of the two real problems, was the tempo: it simply sounded too fast for an Adagio, and more importantly, too fast for this Adagio. The opening, moreover, emerged a little too moulded in Jurowski’s hands. Bell seemed at times simply to be trying too hard. One could not fault his playing as violin playing, but his seeming insistence to wring out the last drop of intensity from every phrase became a little too much: Brahms veered dangerously close to Korngold, and Bell’s approach seemed strangely at odds with Jurowski’s. The finale was ideally paced: there was clearly much for the audience to enjoy and, I dare say, to swoon over, but a little less would have been more for me. Bell’s approach seemed better suited to lovers of violin virtuosity than Brahms, but if you consider Brahms an out-and-out Romantic, closer to Paganini than to Schoenberg, you would probably have thought differently. Even I, however, wearied a little of the intensity of his vibrato. It all seemed a great pity, since the first movement had promised so much, but sections of the audience whistled and hollered nevertheless.

The second half was what had attracted me to the concert in the first place. Performances of Zemlinsky’s setting of the twenty-third psalm and Szymanowski’s third symphony do not come along every day; indeed, I had heard neither in concert before. Zemlinsky’s piece is an endearing oddity, at least to me, since I cannot help but find some of the music at odds with the text. But Jurowski, the LPO, and the London Philharmonic Choir gave it a wonderful performance, probably finer than any recording I have heard. The opening offered nicely pastoral woodwind, responded to by a fine, rich-toned viola solo (guest principal, Jonathan Barritt), before the ‘heavenly’ Mahler-ish (Fourth Symphony) music took over. Jurowski proved adept at bringing out affinities not only with Mahler, but also with early Schoenberg – though it is not always clear who is influencing whom in the latter case. Whatever its oddities, the psalm was magically brought to life by all concerned, never more so than in the heavenly final bars (Mahler’s Fourth again).

Szymanowski’s Third Symphony is, I think, a masterpiece, quite on a level with Zemlinsky’s Lyric Symphony and indeed the Polish composer’s own King Roger. It has much in common with the latter work, not least its sumptuous scoring and harmony, and of course its homoeroticism. Here, in this Song of the Night, Szymanowski responds to the verse of the thirteenth-century Persian mystic, Jalāl’ad-Dīn Rumi, and how he responds! If the opening bars are richly perfumed, and they certainly were in performance, then we soon hear something akin to an orchestral magic carpet. (Please forgive the orientalism, but it is more or less unavoidable in so orientalist a work.) If not quite possessing the sumptuousness of Boulez’s recent recording with the Vienna Philharmonic – surely now a first choice, though Rattle’s CBSO reading remains very fine indeed – then Jurowski’s LPO account still managed for the most part to emerge victorious over the Royal Festival Hall acoustic. The organ-founded climaxes, not always ideally prepared, packed quite a punch, but it was the Debussyan and Tristan-esque magic that truly ravished, for which conductor, orchestra, and choir were equally responsible. More than once, a progression recalled the Zemlinsky psalm too, but that seems most likely to have been coincidence and shared influence rather than direct connection. Ecstasy, when it came, proved quite overwhelming. Londoners will soon have a second opportunity to hear the symphony, when Boulez will conduct a performance with the LSO: doubtless not to be missed, but nor was this.

Pražák Quartet - Mozart and Brahms, 12 February 2012

Wigmore Hall

Mozart – String Quartet no.21 in D major, KV 575
Brahms – String Quartet no.3 in B-flat major, op.67

Pavel Hula, Vlastimil Holek (violins)
Josef Klusoň (viola)
Michal Kaňka (cello)

This was a puzzling concert from the Pražák Quartet, both works performed receiving distinctly mixed performances. Perhaps oddest was the opening movement of Mozart’s first ‘Prussian’ quartet. The exposition was strangely unstable, the players seemingly unable to settle upon a tempo, and when finally they did, it sounded far too fast for ‘Allegretto’, more like ‘Allegro [vivace]’. Despite some notably rich-toned viola playing from Josef Klusoň, the reading simply did not hang together, much of the movement sounding not only rushed but skated over. The ensuing ‘Andante’ was much more like it: the tempo worked, and was settled upon. There was, moreover, an apt mood of sweet elegance to the movement as a whole, and a far stronger sense of direction too. Vibrato would have horrified the puritans: good! The brisk minuet (one-to-a-bar, with a vengeance) needed to smile more; it emerged unduly fiercely, a little like a caricature of Beethoven. The high cello line in the trio sang clearly; perhaps it was emphasised a little too strongly, but at least we were reminded of its origins in the Prussian king’s cello-playing. Solos in the finale were better integrated. However, although eventful, it was rushed, even garbled at times. And that was before I recalled Mozart’s tempo marking: ‘Allegretto’. Grace, alas, stood at a premium.

Brahms’s B-flat major quartet suffered from a hard-driven first movement. The density of the composer’s argument came across, likewise to a certain extent Beethovenian antecedents (especially opp. 74 and 95) but Brahms never benefits from sounding frantic. Richer string tone would have been desirable too. That was forthcoming in the slow movement, which achieved a successful union of gravity and Classical poise. There was now a real sense of where the music was heading, though the journey remained as important as the destination. The third movement evinced nervous intensity and a delight in Brahms’s metrical intricacies and dislocations. Despite a barrage of coughing, this was highly, dramatically involving. A charming traversal of the finale’s variations was generally well characterised, though there were occasions when a little more (German?) intensity would have been welcome; Brahms sounded too much like Dvořák here.

Müller-Brachmann/Heilmann - Heine settings by Schubert, Brahms, and Schumann, 16 January 2012

Wigmore Hall

Schubert – Schwanengesang, D 957: songs by Heine
Brahms – Der Tod, das ist die kühle Nacht, op.96 no.1
Es schauen die Blumen, op.96 no.3
Meerfahrt, op.96 no.4
Es liebt sich so lieblich im Lenze, op.71 no.1
Schumann – Liederkreis, op.24

Hanno Müller-Brachmann (bass-baritone)
Hendrik Heilmann (piano)

Having only given a cursory glance at the programme beforehand, it was a welcome surprise upon arriving at this lunchtime concert to realise that the verse would all be Heine’s. First off were the Heine settings from Schubert’s Schwanengesang. The immediate impressions from the opening bars of Der Atlas were of excellent diction, Hanno Müller-Brachmann truly drawing one into the poet’s words, a reminder that Müller-Brachmann’s instrument is truly a bass-baritone, darker than one often hears in this repertoire, and of alert musicianship from Hendrik Heilmann on the piano. Those would be impressions that would endure, indeed deepen, throughout the recital. Müller-Brachmann quite rightly made no distinction between performance of words and music, the two coming together as Lied: the words ‘Du stolzes Herz!’ (‘You proud heart!’) received emphasis without the slightest disruption to the musical line. Ihr Bild was hallucinogenic, voice and piano as one, Müller-Brachmann and Heilmann offering an uncanny (unheimlich, one is almost bound to translate) synergy, not just unanimity, of the vocal line and the piano bass. There was, moreover, true rage, to be heard upon the final line: ‘daß ich verloren hab’!’ (‘that I have lost you!’). Heilmann showed himself fully adept at handling Schubert’s modulations and their meaning in Das Fischermädchen, the interlude between second and third stanza fairly taking one’s breath away, whilst his una corda playing in Die Stadt proved evocative in both pictorial and, crucially, metaphysical senses. Müller-Brachmann’s voice here and in Am Meer sounded properly Wagnerian in its musico-dramatic response, a reminder of his Amfortas and his Rheingold Wotan. A slight roughness of tone on the final line may have been deliberate: the woman has poisoned him with her tears. It was, if anything, a slight blemish in the face of such manifest sincerity. Finally, Der Doppelgänger: Müller-Brachmann’s initial tone and manner took us into his confidence as a teller of ghost-stories, proceeding truly to shake us at the great climaxes – Amfortas again – as the protagonist found himself, the wraith, revealed in the moonlight.

Brahms’s settings, though of course from a later date (1877-c.1885), are less Wagnerian, arguably more song-like in a ‘conventional’ sense. Within its more modest bounds, Der Tod, das ist die kühle Nacht emerged as a heartfelt gem, intimate but not withdrawn. Heilmann’s account of the piano part to Es schauen die Blumen emphasised its inward tumult, decidedly upon the verge of ‘late’ Brahms. The pianist’s way with the rocking water music of Meerfahrt and the glistening waves of Es liebt sich so lieblich im Lenze likewise hit the spot, the latter almost suggesting Debussy, the former’s syncopations telling musically just as they would in Brahms’s solo piano works. I was surprised and intrigued by how close the piano writing sounded to contemporaneous Liszt.

Schumann’s Liederkreis, op.24, received equally distinguished performances, expectancy present from the very opening of Morgens steh’ ich auf und frage. When Müller-Brachmann told us that he wandered through the day dreaming, as if half asleep, that was precisely how it sounded, the delicacy of Heilmann’s postlude both underscoring and unsettling. The mad hopelessness of Es treibt mich hin was searingly conveyed, whilst the echt-Romanticism of Ich wandelte unter den Bäumen sounded painfully beautiful. If Heine’s irony is lost here, that is Schumann’s doing, and what we gain as well as lose! For there was to be no sacrifice of tonal beauty, the third stanza of Schöne Wiege meiner Lieden (‘Hätt’ ich dich doch nie gesehen, Schöne Herzenskönigin!…’ / ‘Would that I had never seen you, though, fair queen of my heart!...’) as ardent as it was bitter. One could have said much the same of Schumann’s wondrous postlude. Beauty and danger – and beauty in danger – were equally apparent in Berg’ und Burgen schau’n herunter, Heine’s Rhine Journey. (Heine was himself of course a Rhinelander by birth, born in Düsseldorf; indeed, its university would eventually rename itself after him.) Poet’s and composer’s ambivalence were conveyed, as they must be, but again without hardening or lessening of tone. (Were I truly to scramble to criticise, I might note that Müller-Brachmann opened the second line with ‘auf’ instead of ‘in’, but I can think of nothing more negative to say.) Bitter beauty was also the hallmark of the final Mit Myrten und Rosen, its piano interludes almost unbearable, not just in themselves but as a consequence of what had gone before: evidence, were it needed, of a true collaboration between two fine musicians. Love’s spirit (‘Der Liebe Geist’) was both rendered ravishing and yet lain bare as a pernicious delusion: the Wahn of Schopenhauer and Hans Sachs. For an encore, we were treated to a rapt, painfully seductive, further Schumann setting, Die Lotosblume.

Müller-Brachmann’s artistry is by now well known, certainly in Germany but also in this country. Heilmann’s was new to me, but I hope to hear more; it seems that he is an active chamber musician too. (It sounded like it.) The concert will be broadcast on BBC Radio 3 at 2 p.m. on Saturday 21 January.

A new Brahms piano piece to be performed by András Schiff

A Brahms album leaf (Albumblatt) discovered by Christopher Hogwood when looking through a music collection in the USA, is to be given its first performance on BBC Radio 3 by András Schiff. Both Schiff and Hogwood will be interviewed for the 21 January broadcast of Music Matters (12.15 p.m.). I suspect - though who knows? - that the piece is unlikely to prove a lost masterwork, coming as it does from 1853, when Brahms was but twenty years old; by the same token, however, it is equally unlikely to be without interest, especially for those of us who consider ourselves to have an especial interest in and love for Brahms's music. Intriguingly, the theme is said to be a forerunner of that to the Trio to the second movement of the Horn Trio, op.40, composed twelve years later. Following the broadcast, a 'behind-the-scenes video' of the recording will be available on the Radio 3 website. In the meantime, here are the Scherzo and Trio from Itzhak Perlman, Daniel Barenboim, and Dale Clevenger:

Quatuor Ebène: Prokofiev, Debussy, and Brahms, 12 December 2011

Wigmore Hall

Prokofiev – String Quartet no.1 in B minor, op.50
Debussy – String Quartet in G minor, op.10
Brahms – String Quartet in A minor, op.51 no.2

Pierre Colombet, Gabriel Le Magadure (violins),
Mathieu Herzog (viola)
Raphaël Merlin (violoncello)


The Quatuor Ebène’s visits to the Wigmore Hall have proved chamber music highlights of their respective seasons for some time now; the present concert did nothing to buck that trend. This was an evening of superlative quartet playing, even by the players’ own exalted standards, a welcome respite from but also challenge to the vile weather currently sweeping the streets of London.

First on was Prokofiev. There is some fine music to his two quartets, especially in this, his first, though it would be difficult to argue that he was the most natural of string quartet composers. Even the key, B minor, is somewhat perverse, as any cellist will tell you. Not that one would have guessed the problems from this performance, in which, the Ebène quite rightly acted as counsel for the defence. The first movement witnessed the identity of the themes and greater structure clearly and keenly delineated. Intriguingly, here and throughout, this was a more highly-strung – if the pun may be forgiven – Prokofiev who emerged than one often hears in his chamber music, partly a matter in this first movement of a fastish tempo but also, crucially, truly dramatic tension. There was excellent, productive contrast between the players acting as soloists and as part of an ensemble, voices emerging therefrom where called upon, and seamlessly blending back into the texture thereafter. Last but not least was a recognition that, in this music as in so much of the rest of his output, Prokofiev’s greatest gift was as a melodist. Then there came as powerful a contrast, without undue exaggeration, as one might wish for between the slow, vaguely Beethovenian introduction to the slow movement and the ‘Vivace’ proper, its thrills as visceral as they were musical. Rhythmic command and ensemble were outstanding, the quartet rightly playing Prokofiev with the abandon and the coherence one would expect in Bartók. This was Prokofiev the modernist with a vengeance, all the more striking since one expects to find him more readily elsewhere. The final ‘Andante’ permitted each player to present – ‘display’ would give entirely the wrong impression – his particular quality to the turning of a melodic phrase, and equally his own individuality of tone. In the broadest of generalisations, one therefore heard the suavity of cellist Raphaël Merlin, the richness of Mathieu Herzog’s viola, the burning intensity of Gabriel Le Magadure on second violin, and a sweet-toned, Cinderella-like lyricism, tinged with Grumiaux-like elegance from Pierre Colombet’s first violin. At least that was the impression at one point, for the changing demands of the music at its more hysterical would at least partially transform those qualities, to highly dramatic effect. Yet above all, this movement was lyrical, in a fashion out of which its form could emerge as naturally as I have yet to hear.

Debussy’s quartet completed the first half. Its first movement opened in a different yet recognisable manner: suavely graceful, the tone more obviously Gallic, though that certainly did not preclude intensity at climaxes. Indeed this could, where appropriate, be Debussy as impassioned as one might hope for – though never more so. Cyclic concision was a hallmark of the entire reading, not least in the transmission of the crucial triplet figure from the first to the second movement, and also of course beyond. That second movement burned with concentrated intensity, albeit with plenty of opportunity, never overlooked, for refreshment in contrast. Unanimity of ensemble never sounded clinical or slick – one can think of a few well-known quartets for whom that would not have been the case – but arose out of straightforwardly excellent, ever-alert quartet-playing. The ‘Andantino’ was given an elegant, sweetly melodic reading, exhibiting a degree of repose, though only relatively so, for it was no less attentive than any other movement to the relationship between detail and the whole. An urgent but satisfying cyclic unification marked the finale, movement and work becoming much more than the sum of their parts. Everything fell into place, though not bureaucratically; it was more a matter of ultimate victory for an Apollonian imperative.

Brahms’s second quartet was heard after the interval. Again, the sonority one heard could be characterised as different and yet the same. (I thought of Hans Sachs advising Walther that a song cannot always be for spring.) The general sound was more deeply Germanic, as one would expect, yet remained blessed by the elegance and clarity the best Franco-Flemish players have often brought to this repertoire. There was more than a hint of Schubert’s ‘Rosamunde’ Quartet, perhaps especially to the first movement’s second subject, though the motivic working unsurprisingly emerged more tightly-knit. Throughout, the players showed themselves heedful of Brahms’s melodic impulse, which engenders its own passions; there is no need to apply anything from without. Again, the Classical and Romantic were held in well-judged balance and tension during the second movement: not in some abstract equilibrium, but according to the particular needs of the material. The relative minor’s intervention was impassioned and not without influential, but the intermezzo-like mood ultimately if uneasily prevailed. Brahms’s Beethovenian inheritance was readily felt in the alternating, conflicting material of the third movement, vividly dramatised. There was even a hint of Haydn in the faster scherzo music, though Schubert again proved the principal ghost in its more wistful counterpart. The finale made clear that, as ever with Brahms, any ‘Hungarian’ colouring is just that: colouring. The real battle to be fought is ‘German’, through and through, its contrapuntal travails here evoking Beethoven and Bach, whilst inevitably looking forward also to Schoenberg. There was charm too, of an undeniably Viennese variety, though tragedy would out.

Garrick Ohlsson: Handel, Brahms, Liszt, and Scriabin, 29 November 2011

Wigmore Hall

Handel – Suite no.2 in F major, HWV 427
Brahms – Variations and Fugue on a Theme of Handel, op.24
Liszt – Bénédiction de Dieu dans la solitude, S 173/3
Scriabin – Trois Etudes, op.56
Fragilité, op.51 no.1
Piano Sonata no.5, op.53


It was not entirely clear what the two halves of this recital had in common, apart, that is, from pianist Garrick Ohlsson, though it was an attractive enough collection of pieces, even if performances only intermittently caught fire. Handel’s F major Suite – not the B-flat major Suite from which Brahms would take his theme – opened promisingly, the ‘Adagio’ first movement delicately Romantic, perhaps sounding more Bachian than one tends to hear (insofar as one hears Handel’s keyboard suites at all). The following ‘Allegro’ received a clean performance, a bit Gouldian for my taste, not least in its unyielding brightness. Murray Perahia imparts greater grace and depth to this repertoire. I missed a proper sense of momentum in the third movement ‘Adagio’, which was also occasionally heavy-handed, a besetting problem for a good part of the recital, The closing fugue certainly boasted contrapuntal clarity, though again, a greater willingness to yield might have elicited more grateful results.



Brahms’s Handel Variations followed. Again, Ohlsson opened promisingly, Handel’s Air actually sounding more elegantly idiomatic than much of the complete suite had done. The early variations set up a variable pattern that would be followed throughout: some finely characterised playing, some less so. For instance, the first variation sounded choppy and – that word again – unyielding, whereas its successor magically revelled in Brahms’s Schumannesque writing, the intimations of his later Haydn Variations wonderfully apparent. The third variation fell somewhere in between. I liked Ohlsson’s shaping of the composer’s Bachian reminiscences (the B-flat minor Prelude from Book I sprang to mind) in the fifth variation, whilst the eleventh, though it rippled pleasantly enough, somewhat lacked poetry. The rich tone lavished upon the thirteenth variation overcame a nearby intervention from a wristwatch chime. (Unforgivably, the same watch would intervene precisely an hour later in the second half.) However, the fourteenth suffered from an unduly abrupt ending: surely a case in which Brahms’s gruffness benefits from a little tempering. It was something of a tonal relief to reach G minor in the twenty-first variation, but execution remained prosaic, lacking fantasy, whilst the final, twenty-fifth variation sounded more heavy than joyous. Much the same could be said of the fugue, in which Ohlsson again declined to adopt a more yielding approach. There was much to be said for his structural grasp, the connection between variations and the theme clear throughout; yet man, even Brahms, cannot live on structure alone.

Liszt’s Bénédiction de Dieu dans sa solitude received an increasingly involving performance, though it laboured a little under a weighty opening not entirely free of the ponderousness of which Ohlsson’s sometime teacher, Claudio Arrau, often stood accused by his detractors (for me, quite unjustly). This was nevertheless preferable to mere flashiness, and there was much to enjoy in the richness of tone Ohlsson conjured from the piano: an excellent Steinway ‘demonstration’. He can sustain a line too, as became increasingly apparent. If the central section does not necessarily show Liszt at his most inspired, I have heard it sound considerably less prosaic than it did here. The remainder of the work permitted a degree of poetic fantasy often lacking elsewhere. There were, however, a few unfortunate harmonic hangovers that might have been alleviated by more careful pedalling. (Sometimes even Liszt’s own pedal markings need reinterpretation for a modern instrument.)

The first two of Scriabin’s three op.56 Etudes emerged both glittering and languorous, delicate enigmas vying with an apt degree of skittishness. (That watch alarm this time collaborated with someone towards the back of the hall endlessly rummaging in a plastic bag.) The third, however, emerged in glassy, even brutal tone. Laughter greeting its conclusion bewildered, for whatever accusations of excess one might hurl at Scriabin, a riotous sense of humour is not the most obviously founded candidate. Fragilité was a pleasant enough interlude, but the fifth sonata was clearly the (spiced, even perfumed) meat to this section. Ohlsson’s performance shared both the virtues and the vices of what had gone before. Yet, if his is hardly the most ingratiating of pianism, he exhibited a fine sense of form here, a requirement not always fulfilled in music that can often sound merely elusive, arguably incomprehensible. It was a pity that such elucidation was mitigated by a considerable degree of heavy-handed bludgeoning. As for the charmless Chopin encores, the less said the better.

Prom 32: Teztlaff/BBC SO/Gardner, 7 August 2011

Brahms – Violin Concerto in D major, op.77
Mahler – Das klagende Lied (original version)

Christian Tetzlaff (violin)
Melanie Diener (soprano)
Anna Larsson (mezzo-soprano)
Stuart Skelton (tenor)
Christopher Purves (baritone)
Theodore Beeny, Augustus Bell, Timothy Fairbairn, Thomas Featherstonehaugh, Matthew Lloyd-Wilson, Oluwatimilehin Otudeko (trebles)
BBC Singers (chorus master: Stephen Jackson)
Edward Gardner (conductor)

Brahms’s Violin Concerto and Mahler’s Das klagende Lied did not seem to be the most obvious bedfellows – there has been some rather peculiar programming at this year’s Proms – and even after further consideration, the only real connection I could muster was that they were written at the same time: the concerto in 1878, the cantata between 1878 and 1880. At any rate, Christian Teztlaff gave a fine account of the former, though he was not always matched by Edward Gardner’s conducting, which was mostly unobjectionable – more than can be said for many examples – but not especially rich in insight. The BBC Symphony Orchestra was generally on good, if not infallible, form, its first movement contribution more lyrical than stentorian. (A mobile telephone provided unwanted interruption during the first exposition.) Teztlaff’s solo performance was intensely committed, fiercely dramatic, and unwavering in intonation, the cadenza (Joachim’s) providing both intimacy and direction. The opening of the ensuing coda proved splendidly autumnal, though its conclusion was arguably rushed by Gardner. Unwelcome applause intervened prior to a slow movement in which Tetzlaff generally acted as first among serenade-like equals, the spirit of Mozart undeniably present. Though the opening woodwind solos, especially Richard Simpson’s oboe, were well taken, there was a sense that they might have sung still more freely had Gardner moulded them less. That is a minor criticism, however, for Tetzlaff’s sweet-toned rendition ensured that the heart strings would be tugged where necessary, without the slightest hint of undue manipulation. Gardner, to his credit, held the audience at bay during the brief pause before the finale. Rhythms were well pointed here, though there were times when the orchestra felt a little driven. Tetzlaff’s musicianship and virtuosity were never in doubt; it would be good to hear him in this concerto with a more experienced Brahmsian, such as Bernard Haitink, Kurt Masur, or Sir Colin Davis. If anything even better was his poised, thoughtful, richly expressive encore account of the Gavotte en rondeau from Bach’s E major Partita. Not for the first time, the smallest of forces seemed to project better than a typical symphony orchestra in the problematic acoustic of the Royal Albert Hall.

Gardner fashioned a performance of Das klagende Lied that was more ‘operatic’ than benefits the music. Or, to put it another way, it concentrated on highlighting of certain textual ‘incident’ and artificially whipped-up excitement in a stop-and-start way that recalled Sir Georg Solti (though I am not sure whether Solti conducted this particular work). At least, though, we could hear vibrato-laden strings, a relief after the horror tales of Sir Roger Norrington’s recent Ninth Symphony. The orchestral introduction to ‘Waldmärchen’ was somewhat hesitant at first, and then, as if to compensate, was fiercely driven. It eventually settled, but the movement as a whole did not. The second stanza, though well presented vocally and orchestrally, simply dragged, Gardner seemingly finding it impossible to alight upon a just tempo. Uncertain brass slightly marred the brothers’ entry into the forest, though tenor Stuart Skelton gave a good sense of Mahler as balladeer. When, during the final two stanzas, Mahler’s Wagnerian inheritance – Gardner seemed previously to have done his utmost to make the composer sound closer to Verdi! – inevitably came to the fore, whether through harmony, instrumentation, and vocal line, it was almost a sense of too little, too late. Anna Larsson, a late substitution for Ekaterina Gubanova, nevertheless proved a wonderfully rich mezzo soloist.

Intimations of the First and Second Symphonies in the introduction to ‘Der Spielmann’ came across clearly – how could they not? – but, in Gardner’s hands, there was something unnecessarily four-square to the phrasing. Christopher Purves, however, proved plaintive indeed upon the words ‘Dort ist’s so lind und voll von Duft, als ging ein Weinen durch die Luft!’, even though the pacing now had become unduly distended. The first entry of the off-stage band sounded splendid in itself, but Gardner struggled – and failed – to keep it together with the ‘main’ orchestra. There were, happily, no such problems later on. Tempi here and in the concluding ‘Hochzeitsstück’ veered towards the comatose, however, interspersed with ‘compensating’ rushed passages. What should sound wide-eyed in its staggering youthful ambition and accomplishment tended merely to sprawl. (Applause again intervened between the second and third movements.) Choral diction was very good throughout, though it would have done no harm to have had a larger chorus. Treble voices touched in their fragility, helping to prove once again that it is this original version of Das klagende Lied that has the superior claim to performance. I cannot begin to understand David Matthews’s programme note claim that the revised two-part version is ‘incontrovertibly tighter and arguably more effective’. If the effect were somewhat sprawling, that was the fault of Gardner’s performance, not of the work itself, which is a much better piece than this evening’s audience may have been led to believe.

Prom 6: Capuçons/Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France/Chung - Weber, Brahms, and Stravinsky, 19 July 2011

Royal Albert Hall

Weber – Oberon: Overture
Brahms – Concerto in A minor for violin and violoncello, op.102
Stravinsky – The Rite of Spring

Renaud Capuçon (violin)
Gautier Capuçon (violoncello)
Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France
Myung-Whun Chung (conductor)

It seems that the core German repertoire is not really Myung-Whun Chung’s thing. Neither Weber’s Oberon overture nor Brahms’s Double Concerto received bad performances, but neither especially impressed – or if the latter did, it was on account of the soloists. Weber’s overture opened beautifully, the opening horn call (unconducted) as weich – the German seeming so much more apposite than ‘tender’ – as any I can recall. The rest of the introduction was very slow, yet retained its line. However, the ensuing Allegro proved too much of a contrast at breakneck speed, with an enormous slowing for the second subject that definitively turned the overture into a mere operatic pot pourri. The Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France played well throughout, though, clean string playing a decided boon in Weber’s brief fugato passage.

Chung’s Brahms again opened promisingly, the orchestra sounding more at home than it had during the previous night’s Beethoven Triple Concerto. There was a good sense of world-weariness, of swimming against the tide in an expansive account, which permitted one to hear and to consider a wealth of instrumental detail – this truly is the land of developing variation, whence Schoenberg hails – if ultimately there would prove to be a little too much ‘mere’ accompaniment from the podium. The richness of Gautier Capuçon’s cello tone was an immediate joy upon his entry, his brother Renaud’s violin equally delectable, once again displaying a golden-age ability so elegantly to turn a phrase. It was the soloists who performed most of the dramatic shaping, but they accomplished that most convincingly. And how they sang, whether alternately, or in duet, never more so than in the almost Elgar-like lines of the slow movement. The finale benefited from a perfectly chosen tempo, the cello’s voicing of the second theme and the violin’s response a particular joy. Greater fire from Chung would have helped, though; he sounded too relaxed. Once again, it was left to the Capuçons to provide direction, which they maintained, even intensified, in a mesmerising encore performance of the Handel-Halvorsen Passacaglia. It made one long for more Baroque music from this quarter.

Chung emerged as a conductor transformed for The Rite of Spring – which, notably, he conducted without a score. The OPRF sounded in its element too, from the opening, unmistakeably ‘French’-toned bassoon, to the last. I was intrigued by the way the rest of the woodwind blended with and cast into relief the bassoon to turn the Introduction into a strange variety of Harmoniemusik – at least until the intervention of a mobile telephone. Rhythms were tight throughout, but also generative, Stravinsky’s cellular method properly to the fore. (It is perhaps worth noting that Chung appeared to use Boulez’s redrawing of the bar lines.) Energy never sapped, permitting that extraordinary melodic profusion that is the Rite’s greatest boast truly to be heard, never more so than in the sage’s music. If I say that the orchestra’s playing was cultivated, then I mean it in the best sense: it was not precious, but treated the music as music rather than as an extravaganza, dynamic gradations of an almost infinite nature proving especially telling. The percussion section deserves particular note, unfailingly secure in rhythm and in the precise presentation of colour. This excellent Rite was followed by a brief, showy encore from Carmen.

First Night of the Proms: BBC SO/Bělohlávek - Weir, Brahms, Liszt, and Janáček's Glagolitic Mass, 15 July 2011

Royal Albert Hall

Judith Weir – Stars, Night, Music, and Light (BBC commission, world premiere)
Brahms – Academic Festival Overture, op.80, arr. Sargent
Liszt – Piano Concerto no.2 in A major, S.125
Janáček – Glagolitic Mass (September 1927 version)

Benjamin Grosvenor (piano)
Hibla Gerzmava (soprano)
Dagmar Pecková (mezzo-soprano)
Stefan Vinke (tenor)
Jan Martiník (bass)
David Goode (organ)

BBC Singers
BBC Symphony Chorus (chorus master: Stephen Jackson)
BBC Symphony Orchestra
Jiři Bělohlávek (conductor)

The First Night of the Proms seems to be edging back, if a little hesitantly, from the strange, unsatisfying tasting menu approach adopted for a few years. Last year it reverted to the long-established tradition of a single large-scale work, often but not always choral, with Mahler’s Eighth Symphony. This year we heard an excellent performance of Janáček’s Glagolitic Mass, but with a first half whose programming did not really come off. A fanfare followed by an overture followed by a concerto probably had at least one piece too many, but might have persuaded had the two opening works proved more convincing. It seemed an excellent idea to open with a newly commissioned work and Judith Weir seemed an interesting choice. Stars, Night, Music, and Light, written for chorus and almost the same orchestral forces as Janáček’s mass (minus harps, offstage clarinets, and celesta) sets words from George Herbert’s Man:

The stars have us to bed;
Night draws the curtain, which the sunne withdraws;
Musick and light attend our head.

So far so good, yet the opening kettledrum rolls and brass fanfares signalled a damp squib of a curtain-raiser. My friend put it succinctly: ‘a cross between Vaughan Williams and MGM’. And whilst there seemed to be an aspiration to a briefer (three-minute) version of RVW’s Serenade to Music, it was quite without that work’s magic. ‘Lush’ tonal harmonies, too shop-soiled by popular entertainments for us to be able to take them anything other than ironically, jostled with descending scales on the organ that sounded as if straight from the music hall: Poulenc, but again apparently without irony. There was a little more bite from the brass, but the overall effect was of camp without wit. I suspect that this is destined to remain an ‘occasional piece’.

The following Brahms Academic Festival Overture was heard with Sir Malcolm Sargent’s additional part – restoration, if you will – for chorus at the close: the Gaudeamus igitur, with an ‘occasional’ final line from Sargent: ‘Vivant academiae musicale!’ (‘Long live music colleges!’) If you like that sort of thing, that is the sort of thing you will like; it sounded a bit like an attempt to resurrect a 1950s world of school prize days. Jiři Bělohlávek took the overture at so swift a pace, despite generally alert playing from the BBC Symphony Orchestra, that it actually sounded quite frantic at times: a first for me and, I hope, a last.

That over with, we were treated to an estimable performance of Liszt’s Second Piano Concerto. If Liszt is not having quite the anniversary year some of us had hoped for – where is Christus or The Legend of St Elisabeth? – then the Proms are to be commended for featuring his music throughout the season. Bělohlávek and the BBC SO immediately sounded much more at ease; I had the impression, rightly or wrongly, that the piece had benefited from greater rehearsal time than the Brahms. Moreover, string tone, previously somewhat wiry, now mellowed and blossomed. That was before Benjamin Grosvenor, at nineteen years old apparently the youngest Proms piano soloist, had played a note. There was nothing jejune about Grosvenor’s performance, which deserved to be taken seriously indeed. From the outset, his pearly piano tone rendered Liszt’s line both clear and meaningful, rhythmic alertness from all concerned adding much to that sense of direction and meaning. Much of the concerto, quite rightly, was taken as chamber music – the real reason that Liszt wrote relatively little ‘pure’ chamber music is that, like Wagner’s, it is there in his larger-scale works – with piano and orchestral contributions nicely shaded, never unduly forced. When the music turned martial, such transformation was never overstated: that vulgarity of which Liszt, not entirely unjustly, has often been accused was not present on this occasion. Indeed, Bělohlávek and Grosvenor proved well attuned to the subtleties of Liszt’s transformational technique, which was to cast such a shadow over the course of twentieth-century music, to the Second Viennese School and beyond. Virtuosity never appeared as mere virtuosity: even the diabolical had something of the classical to it. True, one did not experience the electric shock of Sviatoslav Richter’s glissandi, but one encountered a pianist who seemed to have as sure a grasp of Liszt’s form. An auspicious Proms debut indeed!

The Glagolitic Mass was given in a new edition by Jiří Zahrádka and Leoš Faltus, which apparently restores passages simplified prior to the first performance in December 1927. According to the programme, the changes included simplification of rhythms, removal of the ‘offstage’ marking for a passage for three clarinets in the ‘Věruju’ (Credo) and cuts to both that movement and the ‘Svet’ (Sanctus). More may be read here concerning the edition, which Zahrádka modestly terms ‘an informative curiosity of sorts’. For what it is worth, I tend to prefer the practice of opening the Mass with the Intrada, but here we heard the Introduction, which to my ears fizzles out by comparison. Perhaps it remains more important, however, to recount that the Mass received a performance as impressive as that of the Liszt concerto. One can often tell a great deal – as, indeed one did during the Liszt – from the opening bars of a performance. Such was also the case here, for sharpness of attack, command of the composer’s idioms, and a fine ear for what one might call the ‘pastoral’, did the term not seem so constricting in Janáček’s all-embracing sound-world, characterised those bars. If the conclusion of the Introduction sounded somewhat sedate, that was my only real cavil. The ‘Slava’ (Gloria) made it clear, as did so much of the rest of the score and its performance, that this was a God of Nature, of wide-open spaces, of pantheistic, Cunning Little Vixen-like wonder. Oddly, then, one proceeds the passages referring to Christ almost as if they were tales of an ancient saga – Bartók’s Cantata Profana came to mind, though it was written slightly later – rather than items of faith relating to the second person of the Holy Trinity. Or at least that is what I did on this occasion, guided no doubt by so fresh and ‘open’ a performance. Stefan Vinke’s delivery was not without strain, but one can hardly expect Janáček’s lines to be despatched otherwise: crucially, there was imparted a sense of wonder, of intoxicated lyricism. Much the same could be said of Dagmar Pecková’s contributions. Those soloists, the tenor in particular, have the lion’s share of the solo work, but Jan Martiník and Hibla Gerzmava impressed where they could too. It was, though, the combined forces of the BBC Symphony Chorus and BBC Singers who made the greatest vocal impression of all, whether in tossing cries of glory from male to female sections, and back again, or in the beautiful a cappella singing of the ‘Agneče Božij’(Agnus Dei), in which the chorus sounded as dynamically malleable as the orchestra. There was a great deal to praise from the BBC SO too, whether in solo work (the three pairs of kettledrums, or Stephen Bryant’s sweet-toned violin solo at the opening of the ‘Svet’) or in the almost overwhelming closing peroration of the Intrada. The dark, even sinister imprecation of the ‘Agneče Božij’ (no ‘Dona nobis pacem’ here, be it noted) was indeed first and foremost orchestral. David Goode’s performance, both during the 'Allegro' organ solo and elsewhere, was first-class, well-chosen registration and dextrously-navigated changes of manuals turning the monster of the Royal Albert Hall organ into a musical instrument, and a modernistically interesting musical instrument at that. There was no comparison with the puny electronic instrument Sir Colin Davis’s recent Barbican performance had to endure. And behind, or rather in front of, the vast forces, was the wise, guiding hands of Bělohlávek. He has sounded out of sorts in too many BBC concerts; yet, in the right repertoire, whose idiom he clearly understands, and which he evidently relates to Slavonic (or, more often, Czech) speech rhythms, he remains an impressive musician. For the Glagolitic Mass to come across in so apparently ‘natural’, unforced, yet exultant fashion must have been in good part his doing.