Wednesday at the Festival roamed the entire range of possibilities from less-distinguished to less-known music, performed by a whole roster of outstanding artists.
The first of three concerts was entitled Canadian Songbook. In this programme, baritone Russell Braun and soprano Leslie Fagan joined with pianists Carolyn Maule and Guy Few in a diverse recital of Canadian song from every corner of the emotional universe.
The programme opened with two of Godfrey Ridout's folk-song arrangements. Braun and Fagan got off to a rousing start with the Québecois song Ah! Si mon moine voulait danser. This lively song is a real tongue-twister and both singers got the words out with total clarity and the essential sense of fun.
The contrast was huge with the mournful She's Like the Swallow, also arranged by Ridout, and the haunting Frobisher Bay by James Gordon.
Braun next sang an assorted set of three songs, two of them love songs, and Fagan responded with her own three songs, "from the woman's point of view" as she laughingly said.
The two then joined in a rollicking set of three spirituals arranged by John Greer.
Braun's next set was a group of three songs from around the beginning of the last century, including the hilarious O, What a Difference Since the Hydro Came by Claud Graves, which I first heard back in the 1990s at my very first Festival of the Sound.
Fagan followed up with a hysterical group of three "nursery rhymes" by Peter Tiefenbach -- although perhaps "nonsense songs" would be a better term, since her interpretations of the texts leaned somewhat towards adult entertainment only!
These comic gems led on to the conclusion, with both pianists on the bench at once and both singers joining in a recitative and duet from a Canadian operetta, Leo, the Royal Cadet by Oscar Telgmann. The singing was punctuated by several trumpet fanfares from the versatile Guy Few.
This whole recital was a fascinating study in the art of contrast. Braun and Fagan are both very fine and versatile artists, but their voices are produced in very different ways and with startlingly different results. It was intriguing to hear them shaping their voices into a common style somewhere in the middle for the duet numbers.
I was also reminded afresh of how both these singers, in their very different styles, share the undoubted gift of being able to make a second-rate piece of music seem much greater than it really is. Of course, it doesn't do any harm that both of them also know how to loosen up and have a bit of good fun while they're at it.
Now, how do you follow an act like that? You go on in the next concert, in typical Festival style, to a completely serious classical programme -- but one which might have fooled a few people.
That's because the first work on the # 2 concert of the day was a quartet for clarinet and piano trio by American composer Peter Schickele. As soon as you mention that name, people's ears perk up because he is even better known by his comical alias of P.D.Q. Bach, the last -- and oddest -- of J. S. Bach's twenty-odd children (as he likes to put it). But Schickele is also a serious composer in his own right, and on the strength of this piece I'd have to say a not inconsiderable one. The music was predominantly tonal, and a little tilted in the direction of minimalism in that melodic patterns were frequently repeated. But the total effect was more persuasive than the music of such composers as Steve Reich and John Adams -- which, frankly, bores me stiff. Certainly, the persuasion lay in part in the fluent performance by the Gryphon Trio and James Campbell.
Pianist Jamie Parker then followed on with a single Intermezzo -- just one! -- from Op. 118 by Brahms (# 2 in A major, just for the record). I certainly am not forgetting the likes of Schubert, Schumann, Chopin or Liszt when I say that the four late sets of pieces by Brahms are among the greatest masterpieces of the Romantic piano literature. Any opportunity to hear these wonderful masterworks is always welcome indeed! Getting hit with just one of them -- albeit played with wonderful sensitivity -- was a little like squirting an eyedropper of water in the mouth of a man dying of thirst in a desert. Sigh. "Please, sir, may I have some more?"
The Gryphons closed the concert with the Piano Trio No. 2 in E flat major, Op. 70 by Beethoven. This major work was played with a good deal more light and shade, nuance and subtlety, than one sometimes hears in Beethoven, and balance was impeccable throughout. A thoroughly enjoyable afternoon of music.
The evening concert was entitled Three Great Sonatas, and more than lived up to its billing. A friend from the Festival told me in passing that there were jokes around the Festival office about having a concert of Three Not-so-Great Sonatas! Hmm.
Pianist Charles Richard-Hamelin played in all three works. He was joined in Beethoven's Violin Sonata No. 7 in C Minor, Op. 30 No. 2 by violinist Martin Beaver, and in Chopin's Cello Sonata in G minor, Op. 65 by Yegor Dyachkov.
Beethoven was treated to a performance of sparkling brio in the quicker movements, contrasted with the gently lyrical adagio cantabile of the slow movement. Dyachkov's signature emotive style suited well the bigger, bolder gestures of the Chopin. Together with Richard-Hamelin, he made out a good case for the long first movement, Chopin struggling to contain his natural impulses into the straitjacket of sonata form. As always, I found the succeeding three movements much more enjoyable and involving.
After the intermission, a very great rarity: Richard-Hamelin gave a welcome performance of Schumann's Piano Sonata No. 1 in F sharp minor, Op. 11. It's always baffled me that so many pianists seem to fight shy of the Schumann sonatas. In over half a century of concert going, this is the first time I have ever heard one of them played live!
Richard-Hamelin brought great clarity to a score which teems with contrasting episodes. This sonata behaves, at times, almost more like an opera than a sonata, with different characters each determined to have their say. As always, I wished that the meltingly beautiful Aria movement could be a little longer. The episodic scherzo and the dramatic finale both cohered firmly, and playing throughout was of a high order. A great conclusion to a wonderful day of widely-varied music!
That's because the first work on the # 2 concert of the day was a quartet for clarinet and piano trio by American composer Peter Schickele. As soon as you mention that name, people's ears perk up because he is even better known by his comical alias of P.D.Q. Bach, the last -- and oddest -- of J. S. Bach's twenty-odd children (as he likes to put it). But Schickele is also a serious composer in his own right, and on the strength of this piece I'd have to say a not inconsiderable one. The music was predominantly tonal, and a little tilted in the direction of minimalism in that melodic patterns were frequently repeated. But the total effect was more persuasive than the music of such composers as Steve Reich and John Adams -- which, frankly, bores me stiff. Certainly, the persuasion lay in part in the fluent performance by the Gryphon Trio and James Campbell.
Pianist Jamie Parker then followed on with a single Intermezzo -- just one! -- from Op. 118 by Brahms (# 2 in A major, just for the record). I certainly am not forgetting the likes of Schubert, Schumann, Chopin or Liszt when I say that the four late sets of pieces by Brahms are among the greatest masterpieces of the Romantic piano literature. Any opportunity to hear these wonderful masterworks is always welcome indeed! Getting hit with just one of them -- albeit played with wonderful sensitivity -- was a little like squirting an eyedropper of water in the mouth of a man dying of thirst in a desert. Sigh. "Please, sir, may I have some more?"
The Gryphons closed the concert with the Piano Trio No. 2 in E flat major, Op. 70 by Beethoven. This major work was played with a good deal more light and shade, nuance and subtlety, than one sometimes hears in Beethoven, and balance was impeccable throughout. A thoroughly enjoyable afternoon of music.
The evening concert was entitled Three Great Sonatas, and more than lived up to its billing. A friend from the Festival told me in passing that there were jokes around the Festival office about having a concert of Three Not-so-Great Sonatas! Hmm.
Pianist Charles Richard-Hamelin played in all three works. He was joined in Beethoven's Violin Sonata No. 7 in C Minor, Op. 30 No. 2 by violinist Martin Beaver, and in Chopin's Cello Sonata in G minor, Op. 65 by Yegor Dyachkov.
Beethoven was treated to a performance of sparkling brio in the quicker movements, contrasted with the gently lyrical adagio cantabile of the slow movement. Dyachkov's signature emotive style suited well the bigger, bolder gestures of the Chopin. Together with Richard-Hamelin, he made out a good case for the long first movement, Chopin struggling to contain his natural impulses into the straitjacket of sonata form. As always, I found the succeeding three movements much more enjoyable and involving.
After the intermission, a very great rarity: Richard-Hamelin gave a welcome performance of Schumann's Piano Sonata No. 1 in F sharp minor, Op. 11. It's always baffled me that so many pianists seem to fight shy of the Schumann sonatas. In over half a century of concert going, this is the first time I have ever heard one of them played live!
Richard-Hamelin brought great clarity to a score which teems with contrasting episodes. This sonata behaves, at times, almost more like an opera than a sonata, with different characters each determined to have their say. As always, I wished that the meltingly beautiful Aria movement could be a little longer. The episodic scherzo and the dramatic finale both cohered firmly, and playing throughout was of a high order. A great conclusion to a wonderful day of widely-varied music!
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