Okay, I admit it: I cheated. I skipped not one but two afternoon concerts on Thursday. This was a result of that not-unusual Week Three phenomenon known as "hitting the wall." But I also took the afternoon off because I wanted to summon up the extra energy needed for what was coming on Friday (and just wait until you hear about that -- see below).
Those of us who sit down to write reviews in the wee hours of the morning sometimes face intriguing little issues in clarifying detail, at a time of day when consulting the performers involved is basically impossible -- since they and all other sensible people are asleep. Here's one example: the evening concert opened with what was listed as the Quartet in D Major, Op. 2 No. 2 by Haydn. However, according to two sources I consulted, Op. 2 No. 2 is in E major. Hmm.
I'd call it a simple misprint, except that we heard this early quartet in an arrangement in which the first violin was replaced by a guitar. Was the music recast in D Major for technical reasons or for convenience relating to the use of the guitar? Or was it another example of the ubiquitous misprint gremlins at work?
Whatever the truth of the matter, this cheery, five-movement work was played by a string trio of Yolanda Bruno (violin), Christine Vlajk (viola), and Bryan Cheng (cello), with the four members of the Canadian Guitar Quartet taking turns in the leader's chair, movement by movement. It lent an unusual and appealing Mediterranean air to Haydn's music, but this performance was especially interesting for allowing us to study in turn the quite different playing styles of the four guitarists.
After a brief pause, Yolanda Bruno returned with pianist Glen Montgomery to give the most hair-raising, fire-eating rendition I've ever heard of Ravel's virtuoso showpiece, Tzigane. In this rhapsodic, free-form work, Ravel took up the then-popular exotic style loosely rooted in eastern European gypsy or Roma tradition, melded in the virtuoso fireworks of such violinists as Sarasate, and then raised the resulting combination to a level of complexity and ferocity scarcely matched by any rival.
The gimmick: you simply can't get at the "ferocity" of the music by playing with sweet, angelic, lyrical tone. Bruno didn't even try. Her Tzigane snapped, snarled, growled, even roared as her bow dug deep and hard into the strings, over and over. It was a wonder to me that she didn't break all the bow hairs as she played. At the midpoint, when the pianist finally gets to join in, she and Montgomery kept right together through all the tricky accelerando passages which litter the second half of the work. The final chords could only be described as being ripped right off the score. Wow. I've never heard any other violinist go for broke so recklessly, or with such rewarding results.
After an intermission, with time for some deep breaths, we heard another one of Vinzenz Lachner's arrangements of a piano concerto for string quartet, double bass, and piano. This one was Mozart's Concerto No. 23 in A Major, K.488. For me this has always been one of the most specially lovable of all Mozart's concertos, an affectionate marriage of soaring lyricism with virtuoso skill. Alexander Tselyakov took the piano part, and the New Zealand String Quartet were joined by double bass Joel Quarrington.
There was much to admire in this performance. The scale of tone from both strings and piano allowed for ideal balance between the two, not pulling their punches, but not overplaying. There was no hint here of overly-precious or fastidious playing evoking the gentle clink of Dresden china, nor did anyone try to haul Mozart prematurely into the Romantic era in the manner that was fashionable when I was young. The perfect balance became especially delightful in the slow movement, which is written in the manner of a dialogue between piano and orchestra, with each in turn falling silent to listen to the other.
Also commendable was the ease and fluency of the playing by all, a definite need of the music of Mozart and of this concerto particularly. Any hint of Sturm und Drang would be out of place. The ease was especially noteworthy in the endless roulades and passagework of the piano's part in the finale.
The Festival environment allows for only limited rehearsal time, and sometimes glitches can happen as a result -- always a risk in any public performance, and here doubly understandable. But I was disappointed when the final movement of the concerto came perilously close to breaking down and halting completely. Fortunately, the performers managed to pull out and keep going but I would have to say it was the nearest brush with complete disaster I can ever recall hearing in a concert. Not an isolated incident, either: it was the last of four or five such moments in the concerto performance.
Up next: the marathon Celebration Day which commemorated the Festival of the Sound's 40th anniversary with 40 musical works played in a single day on Friday, August 9.
No comments:
Post a Comment