It may come as something of a shock to my regular readers to see the first season review of the Festival of the Sound popping up in March this year -- since the Festival normally runs for 3 1/2 weeks from mid-July!
But no one could fairly claim that this Festival ever stands still or gets into a rut. This year they've proven it by: [a] taking up a challenge from duo pianists Anagnoson and Kinton to run an off-season concert series, and [b] raising the money to buy a beautiful Yamaha grand piano for the small concert hall in the Festival Station Gallery and then [c] inviting A&K to give the first public performance on this new instrument as a special fund-raising event to officially launch the Festival's 39th season.
How could I resist?
James Anagnoson and Leslie Kinton form the pre-eminent Canadian ensemble regularly performing piano music for duo (4 hands at 1 piano) and for 2 pianos. They're very long-time friends of the Festival, so inviting them for this occasion would have been a natural idea even if they hadn't given the whole plan the initial kick-start.
For this launch concert, they gave an hour-long performance consisting of four works and an encore. They led off with the first of Schubert's three Marches militaires, quite likely (as Leslie Kinton said) the best-known work ever composed for piano duo. Where many players will hammer this piece into the ground, Anagnoson and Kinton treated it to a buoyant, lightweight, yet still energetic performance.
Following this came the emotional centrepiece of the program, Schubert's Fantasy in F Minor, a work which is better-known among musicians and audiences in such places as Parry Sound than to the wider musical public. It's in four linked sections, lasting some twenty minutes or so, but I have always felt (especially in the final pages) that it could quite easily have become a symphony instead. I believe that it could fitly be orchestrated in Schubertian style to emphasize the full power of that conclusion.
In this performance, A&K highlighted the contrasts in the first movement, without overplaying them. Drama set in with the emphatic dotted rhythms and triplet cascades of the slower second section. The third part, the scherzo, flew by at high speed in a raucous celebration mingled with quieter reminiscences. It was the finale that set the seal on this performance, a granitic account of that extraordinary fugue building to a climax of utmost power. The fugue culminated in that breathtaking incomplete cadence succeeded by a gigantic pause before the opening theme stole in quietly to set up the coda. Never have I heard the four astounding final modulations played with so much power and purpose. And never have I been so aware of the influence of the late Schubert on the art of Anton Bruckner, whose symphonies make frequent use of similarly powerful speaking silences.
For light relief, the duo next played the first of three marches for piano duo by Beethoven. These pieces were published by Beethoven, under the opus number 45, and date from 1803, the same year that the second symphony was published. Despite their published status, the march we heard struck me as being more in the nature of a chip from the master's workbench -- charming, melodic, bouncy, undoubtedly skillful, but not overly memorable.
The programme concluded with the seventh Slavonic Dance by Antonin Dvorak. This opens as one of the more placid dances in the two sets, before erupting into a brilliant faster section. Anagnoson and Kinton have many years of experience with these pieces, and it shows. Especially effective was the gradual slowing down and quieter playing in the coda, where the dance appears to be well on its way to dying, before a last brilliant eruption wraps it up in two quick bars.
As an encore, they then performed the succeeding Slavonic Dance # 8, rightly characterized by Leslie Kinton as being in "G Minor-Major" since the key shifts at practically every second bar. This is a fiery burst of energy from start to finish, with its frequent 3x2 and 2x3 cross-rhythms alternating as often as the keys. A&K played it with flair and power to burn, missing only perhaps the last degree of oomph at the point where the score is clearly marked grandioso as the main theme returns fortissimo. Minor detail like that aside, it was an exhilarating conclusion to a most rewarding recital.
Following the planned programme, Festival Artistic Director gave a speech highlighting some of the key events and performers of what is shaping up as an unusually rewarding summer season, and the audience then adjourned to the rotunda at the other end of the building for fruit, veggies, cheese and crackers, wine, and coffee -- all included in the ticket price for this special event.
There are two more special pre-season concerts planned, and then the annual Canada Day musical fireworks cruise on the Island Queen V, before the main Festival officially opens on July 20th. The box office for the season will open on April 2. Full details are available online at the website, festivalofthesound.ca.
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