Festival of the Sound 2022 # 5: Short Day Cut Shorter

 Day 5 of the Festival turned out to be the shortest day ever. First, the evening concert with Stewart Goodyear had to be cancelled.  I would have missed it anyway because of a quick side trip to Toronto. Then, the afternoon concert was slow getting started and I had to slip out of that one half way through.

So, here's my review of the one and only piece I heard.

 

I:  Canadian Pianofest # 4 -- Beethoven Concerto No.4

The afternoon concert began with Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 4 in G major, Op. 58, again in a chamber reduction for string quintet. I have to say up front that I found this procedure less defensible here than in the case of Chopin, for two reason: Chopin's work was published with the "or piano and strings" tag on the score, and the orchestral part in Chopin's case is both less significant and less well arranged than in Beethoven. 

 

However, if we're going to have chamber versions of well-known concerti, there's certainly less harm done by using this one than, say, the majestic fifth ("Emperor") concerto or either of the piano concerti of Brahms (God forbid!).

The beauties of Beethoven's fourth concerto are too well-known to require any comment from me, other than to say that it is my own personal favourite of the five. Janina Fialkowska sailed serenely into the opening solo phrase, but that proved to be a curtain-raiser to a performance which lacked for nothing in drama, colour, and tonal variety. 

 

Certainly, the first movement grew out of that opening into a finely detailed reading with a great deal of power. In the smaller space of the Stockey Centre, and with the smaller ensemble, I registered many fascinating details which might go unnoticed in a larger hall with a full orchestra. At the end of the movement, Fialkowska used a lengthy cadenza which was not familiar to me. I wonder whose hand set this down? Perhaps it was Fialkowska herself; many artists have composed their own cadenzas for this concerto. As it was, I felt it was altogether too much of a good thing and came perilously close to overshadowing the entire remainder of the movement (a purely subjective reaction, I hasten to add).

 

The dramatic exchanges of the slow movement were not impaired at all by having a much smaller body of string tone, as the quintet (the Rolston Quartet and Joel Quarrington) played with notable bite and precision, more clipped and staccato than one often hears from a large orchestra. Fialkowska's piano interpolations were appropriately gentle in a smooth legato.

 

The lively finale followed on, bursting with energy from start to finish. Fialkowska's gripping performance of the solo part reached an appropriate climax in the final brief cadenza and the rousing coda which follows on.

 

Canadian Pianofest # 5:  

 

Cancelled.