Some days at the Festival of the Sound end up, by chance or design, revolving around a single theme or common characteristic (see yesterday's post for an example). Others, like this Wednesday of the first week, just bring together an intriguing assortment of music both well-known and less so, with an equally intriguing mix of musicians who may have played together frequently or may never have performed together before at all.
Sometimes it's those never-before events that can prove the most intriguing and exciting.
Wednesday began with a lovely recital by the team of baritone Russell Braun and pianist Carolyn Maule. This programme did have a theme of its own, the theme of the sea and water. It's a subject that has fascinated composers, poets and painters for many centuries.
Maule anchored the programme with a wide-ranging performance of Chopin's one and only (and masterful) Barcarolle, the rowing rhythm in the bass always discernible as the upper keyboard parts ranged from the lightly ethereal to the robustly emphatic.
Braun's numerous contributions ranged from a sensitive Auf dem Wasser zu singen of Schubert to a deeply-felt, majestic Old Man River from Jerome Kern's immortal score for Showboat. Off the beaten path treasures in this recital included two lovely late songs by Gabriel Fauré (not listed on the programme) and Srul Irving Glick's The Sea is Awash With Roses.
The second afternoon concert presented two intriguing rarities, both of which I heard for the first time at this Festival, many years ago.
Clara Schumann was one notable victim of a particular form of musical gender discrimination (another was the French violinist and composer, Louise Farrenc). Each of these women was greatly admired as a performer and as a teacher, but continued to be regarded as a distraction from the real composing work which was done by men. Odd.
Every time I hear Clara Schumann's Piano Trio in G Minor, Op. 17, I feel more and more regret that she abandoned her composing career. This is music of real substance and staying power. I often pull out the recording of the piece which I bought shortly after hearing it at the Festival back in the 1990s.
The Swiss Piano Trio gave the work a performance which definitely underlined its strength, power, and character. The opening allegro moderato gave ample evidence of the dramatic range of Schumann's musical thought. The lilting minuet and rustic trio contrasted well. The andante slow movement, if it lacked the drama of Beethoven, lacked nothing for emotional depth. The allegretto finale provided an apt conclusion to a work which deserves to be better known and more widely performed. Kudos to the Swiss Piano Trio for taking it up in the year of the 200th anniversary of Clara Schumann's birth.
The second major work was an equally rare bird, and for this one I had to go all the way back to either 1993 or 1994 -- the first two seasons I attended the Festival. I'm almost certain it was 1994.
Erno Dohnányi's Sextet in C Major, Op. 37, is a fascinating work -- and that's putting it mildly. It covers a far wider emotional and stylistic range than most composers would dare attempt in a single piece, and presents all kinds of unusual sonorities for the audience to enjoy. The music was composed in 1935, but many passages make more than a nod in the direction of Brahms -- both harmonically and in the choice of instruments in key passages. The Swiss Trio were joined in this work by viola Douglas McNabney, Ken MacDonald on French horn, and James Campbell on clarinet.
The first movement performance paid due attention to the composer's allegro appassionato -- a stormy, dramatic piece full of rich harmonies and forceful gestures, with themes that linger in the mind.
The second movement, marked Intermezzo Andante, belied that innocuous description as it was played with a depth and weight of tragic feeling that brought it close to the Brahms of the Fourth symphony. The combination of clarinet and horn moving in harmony above deep piano chords creates a good deal of that depth. So does a figure heard several times, in which a melodic note drops by a semitone while the bass rises by a third from the submediant to the tonic -- a sonority which also dominates Schoenberg's doom-laden Lied der Waldtaube.
The third movement brought a refreshing contrast in brighter tones and lighter harmonies, before the finale leaped out like a jack-in-the-box with its bouncy, jazzy main theme unlike anything else heard in the entire work. The melody is based on a catchy 3-3-2 rhythmic pattern. Good luck trying to chase this ear worm out of your head! The entire last movement was played just as it needs to be, total smile-on-your-face music -- right up to the final moments when the composer brings the piece to a rousing, affirmative conclusion on the subdominant chord, and then casually tosses in a two-beat cadence on the tonic. It always brings a laugh, and I'm sure Dohnányi laughed as he wrote it. It was evident that the ensemble were having themselves a great time playing this one.
The evening concert brought a first appearance by a dynamic young ensemble, the Rolston Quartet. The quartet first performed the String Quartet in F Major, Op. 59 No. 1 by Beethoven -- the first of the three "Razumovsky Quartets." This work was written in the same year as the Fourth symphony and shares with its year-partner a large scale of tone and ideas.
The Rolstons gave a reading which was appropriately big-boned, yet not lacking in subtlety. This was the work where Beethoven extended the bounds of the quartet genre as decisively as the Eroica had expanded the genre of symphony, so a grand and dramatic scale is very much to the point. The subtlety came with moments like the delicious pointing of the scherzando rhythms in the second movement, and the sense of suspended time in the slow movement. The work culminated in a hair-raising account of the finale, played at a fire-eating allegro tempo. I think the master would have approved.
There's a small side issue which troubled me from my seat close to the stage. I could see three of the players clearly. One looked completely detached. One looked sullen and unwilling. One spent most of the work displaying an angry frown which occasionally deepened into what looked like a grimace of pain. These three players looked distinctly uncomfortable and it made me feel uncomfortable too. And I know that they can smile because they certainly did during their curtain calls amid the uproar of applause and cheers -- cheers which they earned by their music making. Something for them to consider in future.
After this work, the quartet were joined by double bass Joel Quarrington and pianist Janina Fialkowska for a performance of a chamber arrangement of Beethoven's Concerto No. 3 in C Minor, Op. 73. The arrangement was made by composer Vinzenz Lachner, a contemporary of Schubert.
The first thing I noticed was the importance of adding that bass to the lineup. As compared to the Chopin concertos with string quartet which we've heard in the past, that fifth string instrument tilted the balance a little more towards the "orchestra," creating a more equal partnership -- or duel, if you like -- between soloist and accompaniment.
Fialkowska's performance of the solo part ranged from high drama to ethereal fantasy in the first movement, with darker solemnity and power in the slow movement, and a nice contrast in the almost folk-like idiom of the finale. Her performance was crowned by a cadenza written by Franz Liszt, which she tossed off with considerable aplomb and flair. I could probably have guessed at Liszt's authorship even if we weren't told beforehand, if only because of the dense, bass-heavy chords at key points in the cadenza. A fascinating addition to a magisterial performance.
The quintet achieved great things in the orchestral role, not least in successfully altering their tone colour for important lead lines that would normally be played by winds. The players matched the soloist in drama in the stormy passages of the first movement, and brought real gravitas to the slow movement. Their playing in the finale was nothing if not lively.
These chamber arrangements of classical concertos are always a fascinating experience, not least for the additional light they throw on works which we consider well-known.
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