Thursday afternoon at the Festival of the Sound brought a brace of concerts presenting music connected with the First and Second World Wars of the last century. The four pieces presented a fascinating cross-section of responses to wartime experience from four different composers.
The World War One concert began with a chamber arrangement of Le Tombeau de Couperin by Maurice Ravel. The composer had already begun working on a piano suite in tribute to the great baroque composer François Couperin, using dance styles of Couperin's time as the basis for the structure and titles of his movement. After the war erupted, and the losses of life on the battlefields mounted, he dedicated each of the movements to a friend killed in the war. After the war, in 1919, he orchestrated four of the six pieces (the other two, Fugue and Toccata are too pianistic in effect) and this shorter version is the basis of the chamber arrangement we heard.
A tombeau (to use the old 17th-century term) is a work conceived as a memorial or tribute. In Ravel's case, the music is not especially sad or mournful. Words like "pensive" and even "playful" come to my mind instead. His own comment was, "The dead are sad enough, in their eternal silence." So Le tombeau de Couperin had best be considered as a tribute, rather than a memorial.
The arrangement made effective use of a quintet of violin, cello, oboe, clarinet, and piano. The oboe is essential, as it is a featured instrument on Ravel's own orchestration, and sounds as if the music never had any other form or instrument conceived for it. Although the piano was Ravel's own instrument, the texture of the piano part here used is very light, even minimal, and in places silent altogether. Thus, the arranger has preserved the light and airy texture so characteristic of Ravel's own masterly orchestration.
The Gryphon Trio were joined by James Mason and James Campbell on the winds. All five players absolutely captured the spirit of the music, at tempi that seemed always completely organic and not in the least "interpretive." This suite was a great delight.
It was followed by the five movement suite from L'histoire du soldat by Stravinsky. This music tells a story of a soldier, a violin, and an encounter with the devil, which has roots in an old folk tale. It's only really "war music" in the sense that it was composed during the war, and for a small chamber ensemble which was forced on the composer by wartime limitations.
As befits a folk tale, the musical style is quirky, playful, sometimes serious -- but with a wink and a nod. The seven players on this occasion captured that feeling perfectly. At least I know one thing for certain now. Bassoonist James McKay, introducing the work, mentioned how many times it had been performed at the Festival, and the names of some of the people who had narrated the story (there was no narration on this occasion). So I know for certain that it has always been performed before during the week I was absent, since I've never heard it in my life!
The second concert, the World War Two concert, was much more serious. It opened with the Gryphon Trio playing Shostakovich's Piano Trio No. 2 in E minor, Op. 67. Definitely a wartime work, and one in which the composer's signature mordant humour turns to bitter ashes. It's a strange and disquieting world which Shostakovich unfolds for us, and the Gryphons' performance relished that strangeness, that sense of life turned upside down and inside out, which informs the music.
The emotional highlight of the day, and (for me) of the entire Festival, came next with the performance of a septet version of Metamorphosen by Richard Strauss. The original work is subtitled as a "study for 23 solo strings," but we heard it in an arrangement for paired violins, violas, and cellos, plus one double bass.
As compared with the original, this arrangement actually highlighted the darkness of much of the music. Consider the original instrumentation of 10/5/5/3 (violins/violas/cellos/double basses) and you can see that the violins equalled the violas and cellos together, whereas in the arrangement the lower instruments outnumber the violins by more than 2 to 1. Sadly, then, there were places in the heavier textures where the violins were outnumbered and overwhelmed.
But if the balance didn't always match the original full score, the players definitely caught the feeling of the piece. There was no mistaking the elegiac tone of the final pages, with the quotation from Beethoven's Marcia funebre (from the Eroica Symphony) sounding solemnly and sadly from the bass. A powerful performance of a work still too little valued and known.
Thursday evening's concert was entitled Virtuosity but could equally well have been called, Anything You Can Play I Can Play Faster! My frequent readers know that I refer to this mythical song from time to time, and on Thursday night it came into my head twice.
It's the same old story to me. Just because you can play a piece that quickly doesn't necessarily mean you should. Also, and more critically, there's the question of whether -- in fact -- the musicians can keep the music under control at the speed they want to go. That was a real bugbear of my piano teacher when I was a kid. If you can't control it, don't go that quickly. I guess some of what he said rubbed off on me after all. (We won't go into the question of my present-day piano playing at this time!)
The concert opened with Haydn's jolly Cello Concerto in C Major, with a string quintet backing up cellist Yegor Dyachkov. The concerto works are not among Haydn's greatest achievements -- really, more like chips from the master's workbench. But they are great fun to listen to, and this performance certainly proved the point. Dyachkov tackled the solo part with plenty of vim and vigour, and the use of a smaller ensemble cast more light on the music (for me) than a larger orchestra would do.
And so, all was well until the finale. Here's where the horse race happens today, with cellists everywhere competing to see who can get through the movement in the shortest time. I'd say this performance was much more musical than I expected, given the hectic tempo, but I still hope one day to hear some sane person choose a slightly slower speed where we can actually hear all the notes. This hectic, helter-skelter mode of playing is undoubtedly exciting but does that make it good music?
After the concerto, the unexpected treat was a rarely-played String Quintet No. 2 in G Major by Dvořák. I've had a lifelong love for this Czech composer's music, but have to confess that this work was completely new to me. I'll have to go shopping for a recording, but in the meantime I certainly enjoyed the performance which highlighted the composer's well-known gift for lyrical melody.
The concert concluded with one of the most popular chamber works at the Festival, the Piano Quartet No. 1 in G Minor, Op. 25 by Brahms. It was this work which introduced me to the wonders of the world of chamber music, and I came to it by way of Schoenberg's masterly orchestral transcription. The original sets the standard for many of the works to come from Brahms: vigorous rhythms and cross-rhythms, off-beat accents, rich harmonies and dense piano writing. In fact, the trouble usually arises with the piano overpowering the three string players.
No such problem arose in this performance. The strings played with fire and panache in the faster movements, and pianist Jamie Parker shaded his performance with more subtlety, and less use of the sustain pedal, than I've sometimes heard from him in the past. Sforzandi in the scherzo were clean and tight, and the slow movement brought the most beguiling playing from all involved.
But then came the finale, the notoriously fiery Rondo alla zingarese, and the urge to overspeed struck once again. The main body of the movement wasn't any worse than any other performance I've ever heard, and the players were all well in control. But then came the final accelerando coda, and what we got was not just an acceleration but a second-stage blastoff into hyperdrive. Within a few bars, the notes began blurring together and the tight ensemble began falling apart. I guess it was to their credit that they finished together, but it would have been much better if they'd settled for overdrive instead of hyperdrive, as most musicians do.
Once again, my mantra: never do your damnedest when your next-to-damnedest will work better.
The World War One concert began with a chamber arrangement of Le Tombeau de Couperin by Maurice Ravel. The composer had already begun working on a piano suite in tribute to the great baroque composer François Couperin, using dance styles of Couperin's time as the basis for the structure and titles of his movement. After the war erupted, and the losses of life on the battlefields mounted, he dedicated each of the movements to a friend killed in the war. After the war, in 1919, he orchestrated four of the six pieces (the other two, Fugue and Toccata are too pianistic in effect) and this shorter version is the basis of the chamber arrangement we heard.
A tombeau (to use the old 17th-century term) is a work conceived as a memorial or tribute. In Ravel's case, the music is not especially sad or mournful. Words like "pensive" and even "playful" come to my mind instead. His own comment was, "The dead are sad enough, in their eternal silence." So Le tombeau de Couperin had best be considered as a tribute, rather than a memorial.
The arrangement made effective use of a quintet of violin, cello, oboe, clarinet, and piano. The oboe is essential, as it is a featured instrument on Ravel's own orchestration, and sounds as if the music never had any other form or instrument conceived for it. Although the piano was Ravel's own instrument, the texture of the piano part here used is very light, even minimal, and in places silent altogether. Thus, the arranger has preserved the light and airy texture so characteristic of Ravel's own masterly orchestration.
The Gryphon Trio were joined by James Mason and James Campbell on the winds. All five players absolutely captured the spirit of the music, at tempi that seemed always completely organic and not in the least "interpretive." This suite was a great delight.
It was followed by the five movement suite from L'histoire du soldat by Stravinsky. This music tells a story of a soldier, a violin, and an encounter with the devil, which has roots in an old folk tale. It's only really "war music" in the sense that it was composed during the war, and for a small chamber ensemble which was forced on the composer by wartime limitations.
As befits a folk tale, the musical style is quirky, playful, sometimes serious -- but with a wink and a nod. The seven players on this occasion captured that feeling perfectly. At least I know one thing for certain now. Bassoonist James McKay, introducing the work, mentioned how many times it had been performed at the Festival, and the names of some of the people who had narrated the story (there was no narration on this occasion). So I know for certain that it has always been performed before during the week I was absent, since I've never heard it in my life!
The second concert, the World War Two concert, was much more serious. It opened with the Gryphon Trio playing Shostakovich's Piano Trio No. 2 in E minor, Op. 67. Definitely a wartime work, and one in which the composer's signature mordant humour turns to bitter ashes. It's a strange and disquieting world which Shostakovich unfolds for us, and the Gryphons' performance relished that strangeness, that sense of life turned upside down and inside out, which informs the music.
The emotional highlight of the day, and (for me) of the entire Festival, came next with the performance of a septet version of Metamorphosen by Richard Strauss. The original work is subtitled as a "study for 23 solo strings," but we heard it in an arrangement for paired violins, violas, and cellos, plus one double bass.
As compared with the original, this arrangement actually highlighted the darkness of much of the music. Consider the original instrumentation of 10/5/5/3 (violins/violas/cellos/double basses) and you can see that the violins equalled the violas and cellos together, whereas in the arrangement the lower instruments outnumber the violins by more than 2 to 1. Sadly, then, there were places in the heavier textures where the violins were outnumbered and overwhelmed.
But if the balance didn't always match the original full score, the players definitely caught the feeling of the piece. There was no mistaking the elegiac tone of the final pages, with the quotation from Beethoven's Marcia funebre (from the Eroica Symphony) sounding solemnly and sadly from the bass. A powerful performance of a work still too little valued and known.
Thursday evening's concert was entitled Virtuosity but could equally well have been called, Anything You Can Play I Can Play Faster! My frequent readers know that I refer to this mythical song from time to time, and on Thursday night it came into my head twice.
It's the same old story to me. Just because you can play a piece that quickly doesn't necessarily mean you should. Also, and more critically, there's the question of whether -- in fact -- the musicians can keep the music under control at the speed they want to go. That was a real bugbear of my piano teacher when I was a kid. If you can't control it, don't go that quickly. I guess some of what he said rubbed off on me after all. (We won't go into the question of my present-day piano playing at this time!)
The concert opened with Haydn's jolly Cello Concerto in C Major, with a string quintet backing up cellist Yegor Dyachkov. The concerto works are not among Haydn's greatest achievements -- really, more like chips from the master's workbench. But they are great fun to listen to, and this performance certainly proved the point. Dyachkov tackled the solo part with plenty of vim and vigour, and the use of a smaller ensemble cast more light on the music (for me) than a larger orchestra would do.
And so, all was well until the finale. Here's where the horse race happens today, with cellists everywhere competing to see who can get through the movement in the shortest time. I'd say this performance was much more musical than I expected, given the hectic tempo, but I still hope one day to hear some sane person choose a slightly slower speed where we can actually hear all the notes. This hectic, helter-skelter mode of playing is undoubtedly exciting but does that make it good music?
After the concerto, the unexpected treat was a rarely-played String Quintet No. 2 in G Major by Dvořák. I've had a lifelong love for this Czech composer's music, but have to confess that this work was completely new to me. I'll have to go shopping for a recording, but in the meantime I certainly enjoyed the performance which highlighted the composer's well-known gift for lyrical melody.
The concert concluded with one of the most popular chamber works at the Festival, the Piano Quartet No. 1 in G Minor, Op. 25 by Brahms. It was this work which introduced me to the wonders of the world of chamber music, and I came to it by way of Schoenberg's masterly orchestral transcription. The original sets the standard for many of the works to come from Brahms: vigorous rhythms and cross-rhythms, off-beat accents, rich harmonies and dense piano writing. In fact, the trouble usually arises with the piano overpowering the three string players.
No such problem arose in this performance. The strings played with fire and panache in the faster movements, and pianist Jamie Parker shaded his performance with more subtlety, and less use of the sustain pedal, than I've sometimes heard from him in the past. Sforzandi in the scherzo were clean and tight, and the slow movement brought the most beguiling playing from all involved.
But then came the finale, the notoriously fiery Rondo alla zingarese, and the urge to overspeed struck once again. The main body of the movement wasn't any worse than any other performance I've ever heard, and the players were all well in control. But then came the final accelerando coda, and what we got was not just an acceleration but a second-stage blastoff into hyperdrive. Within a few bars, the notes began blurring together and the tight ensemble began falling apart. I guess it was to their credit that they finished together, but it would have been much better if they'd settled for overdrive instead of hyperdrive, as most musicians do.
Once again, my mantra: never do your damnedest when your next-to-damnedest will work better.
No comments:
Post a Comment