His music constitutes one of the central pillars of the classical chamber music repertoire. After similar days in previous seasons devoted to featuring the music of such composers as Schumann and Mendelssohn, it was only natural that the Festival should program a day devoted to the music of Brahms. Having decided to do that, it then made perfectly logical sense to divide the music across the three concerts into the early Brahms, the mature Brahms, and the final Brahms.
Anyone who thinks that the music of Brahms is staid and stodgy needs to experience some more of the composer's young works. Without ever being precisely "showy", certainly never as flashy as, say, Liszt, Brahms composed works for the piano which taxed the player to the limit and presented plenty for the audience to chew on as well. The same was true of his early excursions into chamber music.
In the first afternoon concert, violinist Helene Pohl and pianist Peter Longworth played the intense scherzo from the F-A-E Sonata. This composite work was created in 1853 as a gift to the celebrated violinist Joseph Joachim by Schumann, Brahms, and Albert Dietrich. Schumann assigned the scherzo movement to the 20-year-old Brahms largely on the basis of Brahms' powerful E flat minor scherzo for piano. The kinship between that piece and the F-A-E Scherzo is undeniable, the musical materials being handled in a similar style and worked up to an equally abrupt conclusion. Pohl and Longworth gave a fiery virtuoso reading of this early work.
Next, Longworth was joined by Ron Ephrat in Joachim's Hebrew Melodies for viola and orchestra. As a composer, Joachim was overshadowed by his colleagues and by his own reputation as the violinist of the age, but some of his music has more recently emerged from the shades. This group of pieces was interesting, as all three were in slow, lyrical style. Key switches from minor to major and back again were frequent. None of the music required especial virtuosity, but it was all both pleasing to the ear and well worth further acquaintance. Perhaps we could have more of Joachim's music in future festivals.
The main item in this first concert was Brahms' first Piano Trio, his Opus 8 in B major, composed in 1854. If the young Brahms had a fault, it was that his musical structures sometimes spread themselves too broadly. The concision of the mature Brahms was slow to develop. Longworth, in his introductory comments, pointed out that the Trio was originally longer -- and more wayward -- before the mature Brahms returned in 1889 to the scene of his youthful indiscretions and curbed the worst excesses, cutting down the first movement by a substantial amount and toning down the overtly-tragic original ending. As soon as I heard that, my instinctive first thought was to get hold of a recording of the original version so I could compare it to the final results!
Gil Sharon (violin) and Yegor Dyachkov (cello) joined Longworth in the Trio, and gave a masterly performance which held all the parts firmly together. For the most part, the three remained well-balanced. The key challenge in Brahms' chamber music with piano is to prevent the piano part from swamping the others. Brahms was apt to forget that he was writing a work for piano with instruments and start writing as if he was creating for solo piano, with the result that some of his densest, heaviest piano writing occurs in some of his early chamber music! In this piece, Longworth certainly kept in scale, and his colleagues were able to match him with strong yet well-rounded sound.
The second afternoon concert opened with the Cello Sonata No. 2 in F Major, Op. 99. Yegor Dyachkov gave a convincing account of the solo part in this work which sometimes strikes me as being one of Brahms' more cryptic utterances. The catch here was that the heavier piano writing sometimes overwhelmed him. This is certainly not entirely Peter Longworth's fault -- it's a built-in hazard, as noted above, but especially dangerous when the piano writing runs high as the cello part drops into its lower register.
Then the New Zealand Quartet took the stage, with Ron Ephrat, for the Viola Quintet in G Major, Op. 111. In spite of the opus number, this is the last work Brahms wrote during the period of his maturity. Indeed, he announced to his publisher that we was retiring after submitting this one!
It's a lovely piece, among the finest string writing Brahms ever created, and was played here with plenty of energy by all concerned. The intertwining of the two viola lines was a particular delight in several key spots where they are featured.
The man most responsible for the evening concert's program of late Brahms was Richard Mühlfeld. The year after the Opus 111 was published, Brahms heard Mühlfeld's playing on the clarinet and was inspired to produce a whole string of great masterpieces: a clarinet quintet, a clarinet trio, and two clarinet sonatas, all for Mühlfeld. Nor was that all. Brahms then went on to compose still more works, many of which are ranked among his finest achievements: the Four Serious Songs, eleven Chorale Preludes for the organ, and the piano pieces Opp. 116, 117, 118 and 119.
The evening's concert opened with an extraordinary audio recording of an interview with a pianist who had known Brahms and had heard him play the late piano pieces.
Peter Longworth then took centre stage in the cycle of six pieces, Op. 118. These inspired works contrast many emotions in a small space. The music moves, by turns, through moods of reflection, remembrance, anger, resignation, majesty, sadness, and many more. The pieces require the utmost in thoughtful interpretation; this is very inward music and requires deep thought of the artist. Longworth gave us all of that and more, in a reading of stature and immense intensity. In several of the pieces he selected a tempo a little slower than the speed many pianists would choose, but he sustained his choices beautifully through his thoughtful playing. In some of the slower pieces I would have wished for a little less sustained pedaling. The resonant acoustic of the Stockey Centre can do a lot of the work in that area! Conversely, Longworth used much less pedal than many artists in the fast Ballade in G Minor (no. 3) and in the stormy central section of the final Intermezzo in E Flat Minor. That crispness certainly enhanced the power of the playing in those pieces.
The intensity was beautifully sustained after the intermission when the New Zealand Quartet again appeared with James Campbell to play the lovely autumnal Clarinet Quintet in B Minor, Op. 115. This is one of the most frequently requested and played works in the history of this Festival, and I have heard Campbell play it on several previous occasions. What, then, was it about this particular performance than made me feel as if I were truly hearing the work for the first time?
Was it Campbell's introductory comments, with musical examples, highlighting the signposts along the journey? Was it his assertion that it takes a lifetime of living with this music to truly be able to appreciate it, whether as performer or as listener? Was it the music's position, coming at the end of a day's exploration of the musical career of a giant among composers? Perhaps it was the special je ne sais quoi of the quite remarkable working relationship among this team of artists. Or it may have been my own realization that I am now older than Brahms was when he composed it -- and that my own life experiences have prepared the ground, as never before, for me to deeply respond to this music.
All I can say is that every minute of this reading struck me as being prepared with utmost care, and presented within the almost circular structure of the entire work with a perfect accumulation of the musical meaning. When the final variation movement reached the point where the nostalgic return of the first movement's main theme ushers in the final coda, the emotional intensity was incredible for me. I may hear this work played better some day (although I have my doubts) but I don't suppose it will ever make quite such a huge impact on me as it did in this concert.
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