Tuesday was another full day at the Festival, with no less than three events. So, without further ado....
I: Canadian Pianofest # 7: Brahms and Dvořák
These two composers make a natural pair in recital, partly because of their near-identical lifetimes, partly because of the way in which Brahms, already well-known, promoted the music of Dvořák, and partly because of a good measure of stylistic similarity.
The concert opened with a late work by Brahms, the Sonata for Clarinet and Piano No. 1 in F Minor, Op. 120. As with some other late works of this master, the music can seem enigmatic to the unwary, especially so in the first two movements. The third and fourth movements, Allegretto grazioso and Vivace are much more straightforward and easily grasped at a first hearing, as well as displaying a strong sense of good spirits verging on out-and-out playfulness, which one does not often associate with Brahms.
The Sonata was beautifully played with much subtlety by clarinetist and Artistic Director James Campbell and pianist Charles Richard-Hamelin. Occasionally, the piano managed to swamp the clarinet for a few seconds at a time -- a natural hazard of almost all Brahms chamber music for piano and solo instrument. Overall, Richard-Hamelin displayed great but not total awareness of this hazard. A rewarding performance of a work not often heard in many circles.
Dvořák's Piano Quartet No. 2 in E-Flat Major, Op. 87, made a fine partner for the Brahms. There's one curious feature of this work which I've often noticed, and at least one other musician in the audience shared my feelings here. The first movement, Allegro con fuoco, somehow always sounds like a finale! In part this arises from the fiery character of the main theme, but also a culprit is the end of the movement, in which Dvořák drops into a quiet, slow meditation of a kind found in the last bars of many of his later works.
The ensemble of Karl Stobbe (violin), Ryan Davis (viola), and Cameron Crozman (cello) together with Richard-Hamelin, gave the first "last" movement a rousing performance which emphasized the seeming finality of the last emphatic chords. No wonder some of the audience tried to applaud! The rest of the quartet unfolded with great character and individuality, among a flow of memorable melodic ideas which were one of the great specialties of this master. Particularly noteworthy was the clear articulation from all four players of the sweet little trilling theme in the third movement. The last (really the last) movement then followed in a powerhouse performance of considerable energy and force.
II: Canadian Pianofest # 1: Janina Fialkowska in Recital
No, that title isn't a misprint. Following on her sold-out performance last week, Janina Fialkowska graciously agreed to repeat the entire programme for a second audience. The only difference was that, on this occasion, she played the entire hour-long recital, including her encore, in one whole set without leaving the stage. I have no further comments to add about her magnificent playing after hearing the recital again, so here's the link backwards to my review of the original performance.
III: The Elora Singers
The second choral concert of the Festival played to a sold-out hall on Tuesday night, with the chamber choir from the Elora Festival, under their Artistic Director, Mark Vuorinen, in a programme entitled "Baltic Twilight: Music From the Heart of Europe."
This programme almost entirely avoided the familiar. Many of the composers were not previously known to me, and the music as a whole was almost all unknown.
Many of the modern choral works on offer remained firmly grounded in the "beautiful shimmering sounds" school of choral writing, so common today, in which the text often remains undistinguishable in a welter of lovely but complex choral tone. Nor is this solely an issue of language, although some texts were sung in the original languages set by the composers.
A striking exception was an intriguing work by Arvo Pärt, Which Was The Son, in which the composer set the entire lengthy passage of St. Luke's Gospel giving the complete genealogy of Jesus of Nazareth, all the way back to Adam. This piece adopted a striking variety of choral styles, shifting in clearly-delineated sections from one style to another while setting the text whose unvarying pattern contrasted sharply -- yet remained at all times clearly audible.
Another striking contrast came with two successive settings of If Ye Love Me, the first a sixteenth-century motet by Thomas Tallis, and the second a contemporary work inspired by that motet, composed by Frank Ferko. The cool serenity of Tallis, and the utter clarity of his word-setting, was notable in a field where a number of composers set those qualities at lower value.
For the final three works on the programme, the duo pianists Elizabeth and Marcel Bergmann took turns on the keyboard to accompany the choir. These pieces included Craig Hella Johnson's striking arrangement of What a Wonderful World and All of Us, a good marker for the overall character of the final set.
Across the whole evening, the 24 singers of the choir -- many of whom took solo parts in one number or other -- created a flow of beautiful choral tone with fine balance and blend, while Vuorinen's clear, understated direction kept all the varied styles of music moving accurately along, as far as I could judge. A memorable evening.
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