The Festival moved into the last and biggest week of its 40th anniversary season with a rare Monday afternoon concert. Rare because it was a Monday afternoon, and even rarer because it ran as a full-length concert with intermission, not the usual daytime 60-75 minutes.
The title of my review gives the clue. This concert, entitled "And So We Began" in the Festival's publicity and literature, re-enacted the all-Beethoven programme given at the very first concert 40 years ago. On the same day of the year. At the same time of day. With the same artists? That, no. The exact same programme? Well....
In his pre-concert remarks, James Campbell honestly admitted that the Horn Trio featured on the original programme had been replaced with a Clarinet Trio. In his words, as near as I can recall: "I didn't have a horn player lying around, and couldn't find one out in the street."
The programme opened with the impostor (so to speak): the Clarinet Trio in B-flat Major, Op. 11, performed by Campbell with the Cheng²Duo of pianist Silvie Cheng and cellist Bryan Cheng. It's a bouncy, fun piece, definitely closer to Mozart than to the Beethoven of, say, the final quartets. Notably light in touch from all three players, with plenty of crisp staccato to give the music a spring in its step, this was a wonderful appetizer to begin the musical banquet.
It was followed by the famous warhorse Piano Sonata No. 8 in C Minor, Op. 13, the "Pathetique." Glen Montgomery's reading of this work was a bit of a mixed bag. His carefully limited application of the sustain pedal and thoughtful placement of the una corda pedal were admirable, and his phrasing both clear and logical. His tempo choices kept the individual notes clear and distinct at all times, something that many Beethoven pianists fail to respect adequately.
However, his playing developed an odd and distracting mannerism in which the two hands failed to arrive on the beat at the same time. This began in the hands-crossed passage which occurs twice in the first movement. One hand seemed to be keeping strict time while the other indulged in wayward rubato. It became more frequent still in the finale. As long as the left hand arrived before the right, you could forgive it as an interpretive application of appoggiatura, but when the right came ahead of the left it simply sounded disjointed. A pity, because there was otherwise much to admire in Montgomery's performance of this oft-abused sonata.
After the intermission, Moshe Hammer took the stage alongside Montgomery for the Violin Sonata No. 4 in A Minor, Op. 23. Again, we were treated to clear-toned, clean-edged playing on both instruments, the piano part showing no signs of the odd disjunction heard in the Pathetique. Moshe Hammer phrased eloquently in the lyrical passages, and played with great vigour and precision in the faster sections.
The culmination of the concert was the Piano Trio in D Major, Op. 70 No. 1, the "Ghost" Trio. This three-movement work consists of an Allegro vivace e con brio and a Presto framing a much longer Largo assai e espressivo. It's that long and intense central movement which gives the work its nickname, a sobriquet usually (although not universally) attributed to Carl Czerny.
In this performance, the Cheng²Duo were joined by violinist Yolanda Bruno. While the two outer movements were played with considerable brio and sparkle, the extra weight given to the slow movement effectively made it the trio's centre of gravity. The three musicians maintained a constant air of intensity through all the long crescendo passages, and showed no sign of falling away from that intensity during the subsequent diminuendo in each case. The ghostly quiet effects were as effective as the sonorous forte sections.
Although the first movement was dynamic and the finale exciting, the standing ovation which followed was undoubtedly influenced by the especially powerful and thoughtful performance of that slow movement. A memorable performance indeed.
In his pre-concert remarks, James Campbell honestly admitted that the Horn Trio featured on the original programme had been replaced with a Clarinet Trio. In his words, as near as I can recall: "I didn't have a horn player lying around, and couldn't find one out in the street."
The programme opened with the impostor (so to speak): the Clarinet Trio in B-flat Major, Op. 11, performed by Campbell with the Cheng²Duo of pianist Silvie Cheng and cellist Bryan Cheng. It's a bouncy, fun piece, definitely closer to Mozart than to the Beethoven of, say, the final quartets. Notably light in touch from all three players, with plenty of crisp staccato to give the music a spring in its step, this was a wonderful appetizer to begin the musical banquet.
It was followed by the famous warhorse Piano Sonata No. 8 in C Minor, Op. 13, the "Pathetique." Glen Montgomery's reading of this work was a bit of a mixed bag. His carefully limited application of the sustain pedal and thoughtful placement of the una corda pedal were admirable, and his phrasing both clear and logical. His tempo choices kept the individual notes clear and distinct at all times, something that many Beethoven pianists fail to respect adequately.
However, his playing developed an odd and distracting mannerism in which the two hands failed to arrive on the beat at the same time. This began in the hands-crossed passage which occurs twice in the first movement. One hand seemed to be keeping strict time while the other indulged in wayward rubato. It became more frequent still in the finale. As long as the left hand arrived before the right, you could forgive it as an interpretive application of appoggiatura, but when the right came ahead of the left it simply sounded disjointed. A pity, because there was otherwise much to admire in Montgomery's performance of this oft-abused sonata.
After the intermission, Moshe Hammer took the stage alongside Montgomery for the Violin Sonata No. 4 in A Minor, Op. 23. Again, we were treated to clear-toned, clean-edged playing on both instruments, the piano part showing no signs of the odd disjunction heard in the Pathetique. Moshe Hammer phrased eloquently in the lyrical passages, and played with great vigour and precision in the faster sections.
The culmination of the concert was the Piano Trio in D Major, Op. 70 No. 1, the "Ghost" Trio. This three-movement work consists of an Allegro vivace e con brio and a Presto framing a much longer Largo assai e espressivo. It's that long and intense central movement which gives the work its nickname, a sobriquet usually (although not universally) attributed to Carl Czerny.
In this performance, the Cheng²Duo were joined by violinist Yolanda Bruno. While the two outer movements were played with considerable brio and sparkle, the extra weight given to the slow movement effectively made it the trio's centre of gravity. The three musicians maintained a constant air of intensity through all the long crescendo passages, and showed no sign of falling away from that intensity during the subsequent diminuendo in each case. The ghostly quiet effects were as effective as the sonorous forte sections.
Although the first movement was dynamic and the finale exciting, the standing ovation which followed was undoubtedly influenced by the especially powerful and thoughtful performance of that slow movement. A memorable performance indeed.
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