Strings were being plucked all over the place at the Festival on Wednesday. I may have missed the concert by the Canadian Guitar Quartet Tuesday, but on Wednesday I got chances in two different concerts to hear all four members playing in solo works -- and where there were no guitars, there was also a great deal of harp music to be heard. I love both.
The morning bought the now-traditional Baroque concert at the Seguin Valley Golf Club, a special event that includes a continental breakfast of croissants, pastries, and coffee in the ticket price. The program consisted of a good mixture of Baroque music for lute (transcribed on guitar) or for keyboard (transcribed on harp). Pluck, pluck, pluck.
There were four highlights from this programme for me. Renaud Côté-Giguère gave a fluid, fluent performance on guitar of the Prelude and Fuga from Bach's Suite in C Minor, BWV977 for lute. Julien Bisaillon played with equal skill and subtlety in a Passacaglia in D Major (variations on a ground bass) by Sylvius Leopold Weiss. If you think any of that sounds easy, just remember that the lutenist or (in this case) guitarist has to provide his own bass line while still playing the upper voicings. Weiss was a noted virtuoso lutenist and his compositions, like Bach's, are not for the faint-hearted!
Harpist Erica Goodman played a delightful three-movement harp sonata by Giovanni Battista Pescetti (actually written for harpsichord, but I won't tell if you won't tell). Flutist Suzanne Shulman and Goodman then joined in a beautiful performance of the Flute Sonata in G Minor, BWV1020 by Bach -- a work which some musicologists instead attribute to his son, Carl Philipp Emmanuel Bach. Shulman raised chuckles when she commented that she personally thought it was written by Francis Bacon. She also drew laughter from the audience when she introduced the famous Largo, Ombra mai fu from Xerxes by Handel (an aria sung in homage to a tree). It's often played at weddings or graduations, and she said, "While we play it, feel free to graduate, to marry the person next to you, or to hug a tree."
In the afternoon, we heard a recital with a French theme. A projection of Monet's famous painting of water lilies appeared on the screen while Suzanne Shulman, in a blue half-light, played Debussy's Syrinx for solo flute. The Cecilia Quartet, James Campbell, and Erica Goodman then joined with her in Ravel's beautiful Introduction and Allegro. Campbell described it as a septet, which is true, but the character of the music is such that it seems to me almost more like a concerto for harp and chamber ensemble. Whichever way you look at it, Goodman and her colleagues gave it a wonderful performance.
This concert went from heights to heights. The Cecilia Quartet were then joined by pianist Stewart Goodyear in Franck's Piano Quintet. It's dangerous to describe a performance as "definitive", but I felt this one came pretty close. This music requires the widest range of tone and colour from the players, from the sensitivity of some pages in the slow movement to the virtuoso fireworks of the work's conclusion. Balance was exemplary throughout the quintet, even when Franck's keyboard writing grew heaviest.
Although the slow movement is described as Lento, con molto sentimento it really works better if you ignore or at least tone down the molto sentimento, and that's how these artists played it. The tone was delicate, as it should be, but not swooping or swooning as some might be tempted to do. As for the finale, the first recollection of the opening movement was presented with an air of quiet reminiscence which completely belied the leading role it would soon play. And at the end that same genteel theme was driven to its conclusion with a force and ferocity such as I've never heard before. A stunning performance.
The evening concert opened with chamber versions of two of my all-time favourite musical works, works which I have indeed loved ever since I first began to discover classical music. One was Handel's Harp Concerto in B Flat, HWV294 and the other was Mozart's Concerto for Flute and Harp in C Major, K.299. The Handel was once believed to be originally written as an organ concerto for Handel himself to play (cue the virtuoso fireworks) but is now generally accepted to have been written for the harp first and then transcribed for organ. The Mozart concerto was written for a commission from a Parisian nobleman who played flute, and whose daughter played the harp. It's said that Mozart disliked the harp -- certainly he never wrote any other work for it -- but you'd never know that from the sound of the music. Harpists, on the other hand, could tell you a thing or two about the some of the nasty technical challenges hidden in the music.
Well, forget all of that. Erica Goodman played with surpassing fluency and beauty of tone in both works, well supported by the ensemble. Her dialogues with Suzanne Shulman on flute in the Mozart concerto were light and airy, so much so that the performance took wing. If you happened to glance my way during either of these beautiful works, I'm sure you'd have seen the smile. I love all kinds of music, but have seldom felt so much joy and delight in any concert.
After the intermission, the guitarists returned with some intriguing repertoire in a more modern style. The famous orchestral dance from Manuel de Falla's La vida breve didn't make as much impact on two guitars, although the virtuosity was undeniable -- the sound is too light to make it easy to hear the melody over the thrumming harmony.
Renaud Côté-Giguère's composition Palio, inspired by the famous medieval horse-race in Siena, was treated to a fire-eating performance by the composer and colleague Bruno Roussel.
Even more exciting was the wild taxi ride of En las calles de Buenos Aires by Patrick Roux, for the unusual combination of four guitars and string quartet, which brought the concert to a lively end.
There were four highlights from this programme for me. Renaud Côté-Giguère gave a fluid, fluent performance on guitar of the Prelude and Fuga from Bach's Suite in C Minor, BWV977 for lute. Julien Bisaillon played with equal skill and subtlety in a Passacaglia in D Major (variations on a ground bass) by Sylvius Leopold Weiss. If you think any of that sounds easy, just remember that the lutenist or (in this case) guitarist has to provide his own bass line while still playing the upper voicings. Weiss was a noted virtuoso lutenist and his compositions, like Bach's, are not for the faint-hearted!
Harpist Erica Goodman played a delightful three-movement harp sonata by Giovanni Battista Pescetti (actually written for harpsichord, but I won't tell if you won't tell). Flutist Suzanne Shulman and Goodman then joined in a beautiful performance of the Flute Sonata in G Minor, BWV1020 by Bach -- a work which some musicologists instead attribute to his son, Carl Philipp Emmanuel Bach. Shulman raised chuckles when she commented that she personally thought it was written by Francis Bacon. She also drew laughter from the audience when she introduced the famous Largo, Ombra mai fu from Xerxes by Handel (an aria sung in homage to a tree). It's often played at weddings or graduations, and she said, "While we play it, feel free to graduate, to marry the person next to you, or to hug a tree."
In the afternoon, we heard a recital with a French theme. A projection of Monet's famous painting of water lilies appeared on the screen while Suzanne Shulman, in a blue half-light, played Debussy's Syrinx for solo flute. The Cecilia Quartet, James Campbell, and Erica Goodman then joined with her in Ravel's beautiful Introduction and Allegro. Campbell described it as a septet, which is true, but the character of the music is such that it seems to me almost more like a concerto for harp and chamber ensemble. Whichever way you look at it, Goodman and her colleagues gave it a wonderful performance.
This concert went from heights to heights. The Cecilia Quartet were then joined by pianist Stewart Goodyear in Franck's Piano Quintet. It's dangerous to describe a performance as "definitive", but I felt this one came pretty close. This music requires the widest range of tone and colour from the players, from the sensitivity of some pages in the slow movement to the virtuoso fireworks of the work's conclusion. Balance was exemplary throughout the quintet, even when Franck's keyboard writing grew heaviest.
Although the slow movement is described as Lento, con molto sentimento it really works better if you ignore or at least tone down the molto sentimento, and that's how these artists played it. The tone was delicate, as it should be, but not swooping or swooning as some might be tempted to do. As for the finale, the first recollection of the opening movement was presented with an air of quiet reminiscence which completely belied the leading role it would soon play. And at the end that same genteel theme was driven to its conclusion with a force and ferocity such as I've never heard before. A stunning performance.
The evening concert opened with chamber versions of two of my all-time favourite musical works, works which I have indeed loved ever since I first began to discover classical music. One was Handel's Harp Concerto in B Flat, HWV294 and the other was Mozart's Concerto for Flute and Harp in C Major, K.299. The Handel was once believed to be originally written as an organ concerto for Handel himself to play (cue the virtuoso fireworks) but is now generally accepted to have been written for the harp first and then transcribed for organ. The Mozart concerto was written for a commission from a Parisian nobleman who played flute, and whose daughter played the harp. It's said that Mozart disliked the harp -- certainly he never wrote any other work for it -- but you'd never know that from the sound of the music. Harpists, on the other hand, could tell you a thing or two about the some of the nasty technical challenges hidden in the music.
Well, forget all of that. Erica Goodman played with surpassing fluency and beauty of tone in both works, well supported by the ensemble. Her dialogues with Suzanne Shulman on flute in the Mozart concerto were light and airy, so much so that the performance took wing. If you happened to glance my way during either of these beautiful works, I'm sure you'd have seen the smile. I love all kinds of music, but have seldom felt so much joy and delight in any concert.
After the intermission, the guitarists returned with some intriguing repertoire in a more modern style. The famous orchestral dance from Manuel de Falla's La vida breve didn't make as much impact on two guitars, although the virtuosity was undeniable -- the sound is too light to make it easy to hear the melody over the thrumming harmony.
Renaud Côté-Giguère's composition Palio, inspired by the famous medieval horse-race in Siena, was treated to a fire-eating performance by the composer and colleague Bruno Roussel.
Even more exciting was the wild taxi ride of En las calles de Buenos Aires by Patrick Roux, for the unusual combination of four guitars and string quartet, which brought the concert to a lively end.
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