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In concert – Steven Isserlis and Friends – Fauré at the Wigmore Hall (5)

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Steven Isserlis (cello) – with Joshua Bell, Irène Duval (violins), Blythe Teh Engstroem (viola), Connie Shih, Jeremy Denk (pianos)

Fauré Dolly Suite Op.56 (1894-6)
Enescu Pièce sur le nom de Fauré (1922)
Ravel arr. Garban Berceuse sur le nom de Garbriel Fauré M74 (1922)
Koechlin Hommage à Gabriel Fauré Op.73bis (1922)
Fauré Cello Sonata no.2 in G minor Op.117 (1921)
Fauré String Quartet in E minor Op.121 (1923-4)

Wigmore Hall, London
Tuesday 5 November 2024

Reviewed by Richard Whitehouse Picture (c) Wigmore Hall Trust

So to the final concert of this series, curated by cellist Steven Isserlis and centred on Fauré’s larger chamber works in the centenary of his death. The last of five concerts was rounded out in its coverage by including his most popular work for piano duet, along with miniatures from several pupils of one who was held in equal esteem as a teacher.

It is doubtless as easy to describe the Dolly Suite with patronizing charm as it is to play it so but, with Jeremy Denk and Connie Shih an alert if always sensitive partnership, there was no likelihood of this latter. A limpid take on the evergreen Berceuse was followed by no less a deft rendition of Mi-a-ou; the ineffable charm of Le jardin de Dolly made a telling foil to the skittish evocation (of a dog) that is Kitty-valse, then the searching poise of Tendresse created a delightful contrast with that affectionate send-up of Chabrier in Le pas espagnol.

Quite why the journal Le Revue chose Fauré’s 77th year to publish an edition devoted to his music is unclear, but it did enable seven former students to express their admiration through miniatures that encapsulate his own idiom as surely as theirs. Hence the intricate texture and enfolding harmony of Enescu’s Pièce, the pert elegance of Ravel’s Berceuse arranged (from its violin-and-piano original by Lucien Garbon), then the gently inflected wit of Koechlin’s Hommage to remind one of the latter composer’s service to Fauré as sometime orchestrator.

These three items were engagingly played (and introduced) by Denk, and it seemed a pity the other four (by Aubert, Ladmirault, Roger-Ducasse and Schmitt) could not have been included – perhaps at the start of the second half – given the appositeness of the programme. This first half ended with the Second Cello Sonata which, while it resembles its predecessor in form, is appreciably more forthcoming as to expression. It is evidently a work that Steven Isserlis first played as a teenager, and there could be no mistaking his identity with the close-knit dialogue of its opening Allegro, pathos bordering on the elegiac of its central Andante that started out as music commemorating the centenary of Napoleon’s death, and effervescence of a finale as endows what is otherwise typical late Fauré with a genial humour never less than captivating.

After the interval, this series ended in the only way possible with the String Quartet that was Fauré’s last work. In his initial remarks, Isserlis mentioned how long it had taken for him to ‘get’ this piece and, indeed, its three movements each unfolds in a seamless polyphonic flow which can feel disconcerting even in the context of the composer’s other late chamber works. Whether or not they play it frequently, Joshua Bell, Irène Duval, Blythe Teh Engstroem and Isserlis audibly had its measure – their steady though always flowing tempo for its Allegro moderato ideally complemented by the luminous radiance of its Andante; before its Allegro elides elements of scherzo and finale in music whose dextrous pizzicato writing and gently cumulative intensity conveys an affirmation that speaks of a challenge, and a life, fulfilled.

As a work and as a performance, it set the seal in the only way possible on a series of concerts through which the quality and substance of Fauré’s chamber music could not have been more eloquently confirmed, which is just as should be expected from a retrospective of this nature.

You can watch the concert below, thanks to the Wigmore Hall YouTube channel:

For more information on the Fauré series, visit the Wigmore Hall website – while you can also read Arcana’s interview with Steven Isserlis about the French composer

Published post no.2,355 – Thursday 5 November 2024

In concert – Steven Isserlis and Friends – Fauré at the Wigmore Hall (4)

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Steven Isserlis (cello) – with Joshua Bell, Irène Duval (violins), Connie Shih, Jeremy Denk (pianos), Quatuor Agate [Adrien Jurkovic, Thomas Descamps (violins), Raphaël Pagnon (viola), Simon Iachemet (cello)]

Fauré Cello Sonata no.1 in D minor Op.109 (1917)
Enescu Violin Sonata no.2 in F minor Op.6 (1899)
Fauré Piano Trio in D minor Op.120 (1922-3)
Ravel String Quartet in F M35 (1902-03)

Wigmore Hall, London
Monday 4 November 2024

Reviewed by Richard Whitehouse Picture (c) Wigmore Hall Trust

Tonight’s instalment of the Wigmore Hall series focussing on Fauré’s larger chamber works was also the most cohesive in its alternating two of the composer’s late pieces with formative ones by Enescu and Ravel for what was a fascinating programme of echoes and anticipations.

While not necessarily the weakest of those works played in this series, Fauré’s First Cello Sonata is the least remarkable – the melodic content reduced to barest essentials such that its main motifs can verge on the anonymous. That said, its opening Allegro is a model of formal economy and expressive restraint, Steven Isserlis and Connie Shih being no less perceptive in the pensive musing of its central Andante or the urbanity of a final Allegro whose ‘commodo’ aspect was always evident. Less may not always be more, but it is rarely less than appealing.

Less often heard than its successor, Enescu’s Second Violin Sonata is no less significant. Its composer’s first masterpiece, much of the fascination lies in the degree to which its melodic ideas evolve across and between each of the three movements for a potent demonstration of motivic unity. This was something Irène Duval conveyed in ample measure, yet without ever neglecting that reticent or sometimes ominous quality characterizing much of its content – at least until the quixotic finale channels these diverse elements towards a resolution achieved almost despite itself. Throughout, Jeremy Denk’s pianism was a model of lucidity and poise in a performance which went all the way in confirming this work as one of the three greatest masterpieces by a teenager – the other two being written 74 years earlier, then 72 years later. (presumably Mendelssohn’s Octet and a piece to be confirmed! – ed)

Fascinating how much Enescu’s precocity resembles Fauré’s maturity in what was the latter composer’s penultimate work. Compact almost to a fault, the Piano Trio is dominated in all respects by a central Andantino whose melodic eloquence has intensified almost to the point of ecstasy by its close, not least as rendered by Joshua Bell, Isserlis and Denk in what was a near-ideal performance. Succinctness almost gets the better of the outer movements, though it would be churlish not to acknowledge the tensile energy of its opening movement and the exhilaration of a finale whose element of syncopation marks Fauré’s nearest approach to the jazz idiom. Interesting as it is to hear this piece with clarinet as was originally intended, its interplay of violin, cello and piano is no less inevitable than in the parallel work by Brahms.

The well-regarded Quatuor Agate duly took the stage for Ravel’s String Quartet, evidently a work for which Fauré expressed only muted enthusiasm. Superbly played though a little self-regarding interpretively, this account was at its best in its latter stages – the inward rapture of its slow movement in pointed contrast to the volatility and ultimate decisiveness of its finale. The opening movement at times verged on expressive inertia and the scherzo’s deft humour was rather self-conscious, but the overall conviction of this performance still came through. Seemingly the Agate will not be playing Fauré’s String Quartet which forms the culmination of tomorrow’s concert and of this series; one that also includes the Second Cello Sonata and music written in tribute to a composer whose greatness could hardly be doubted now as then.

You can watch the concert below, thanks to the Wigmore Hall YouTube channel:

For more information on the Fauré series, visit the Wigmore Hall website – while you can also read Arcana’s interview with Steven Isserlis about the French composer

Published post no.2,354 – Wednesday 5 November 2024

In concert – Steven Isserlis and Friends – Fauré at the Wigmore Hall (3)

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Steven Isserlis (cello) – with Joshua Bell, Irène Duval (violins), Blythe Teh Engstroem (viola), Jeremy Denk, Connie Shih (pianos)

Fauré Violin Sonata no.1 in A major Op.13 (1875-6)
Saint-Saëns Piano Trio no.2 in E minor Op.92 (1892)
Ysaÿe Solo Violin Sonata in D minor Op.27/3 ‘Ballade’ (1923)
Fauré Piano Quintet no.2 in C minor Op.115 (1919-21)

Wigmore Hall, London
Sunday 3 November 2024

Reviewed by Richard Whitehouse Picture (c) Joanna Bergin

This third instalment of the Wigmore Hall’s journey through Fauré’s larger chamber works, as overseen in typically understated fashion by Steven Isserlis, took in works from (almost) either end of this composer’s output alongside pieces by two very different contemporaries.

It was Joshua Bell’s recovering illness that brought a switch in programme such that tonight began with the First Violin Sonata which established Fauré’s reputation and remains among his best-known works (also the only one of these pieces in a major key). The melodic verve of its initial Allegro responded well to Bell’s tonal warmth, despite marginal loss of focus as the development ran its cumulative course, then the Andante lacked little in lyrical intimacy nor the scherzo in nimble dexterity. That the final Allegro felt less than animated (not much evidence of ‘quasi presto’) was understandable in context and, even if it meant rounding off this performance with less than ideal decisiveness, there could be no doubting the sense of epiphany as its main theme returns transformed for an apotheosis of heightened eloquence.

At a time when Fauré was grappling with the implications of what became his Second Piano Quintet, Saint-Saëns was writing his no less substantial Second Piano Trio with relative ease. Its stylistic retrenchment is not hard to discern, witness the opening movement’s prolonged and ultimately doomed struggle to break free of a main theme riven with doubt and anxiety. Tensions relax appreciably in the sequence of middle movements – a lithe and ingratiating Allegretto, an Andante of ‘song without words’ lyricism, then a Grazioso with more than its touch of quixotic humour – during which, interplay between Bell, Isserlis and Jeremy Denk was at its most felicitous. Returning to weightier issues, the finale takes in some intensively contrapuntal passages prior to a conclusion whose headlong impetus came to the fore here.

After the interval came the third of Ysaÿe’s solo sonatas – the Ballade dedicated to Enescu but, as Bell pointed out, premiered by his teacher Josef Gingold who had been the last pupil of its composer; its ‘introduction and allegro’ format incisively delineated on this occasion.

Thence to Fauré for his Second Piano Quintet. Although written relatively quickly compared to its predecessor, it is no less fastidious in content or elusive in character – witness the initial movement whose harmonic subtlety is accentuated by the flexibility of its rhythmic contours, which latter aspect comes to the fore in a scherzo whose angularity betrays more than a touch of malevolence. Is there a more consummate instance of this composer’s art than its Andante? Once characterized as a synthesis between Beethoven and Wagner, it exudes a transcendent calm entirely its own in which the eloquence of Irène Duval and Blythe Teh Engstroem added appreciably to the underlying affect. If the finale is less remarkable, it injects an impetus that propelled the work to a headily affirmative close which was conspicuous by its presence here. An impressive performance of a masterpiece that, while it will never achieve in popularity what it has in respect, could never seem other than communicative when realized with this empathy – something that should be no less evident in the remaining concerts of this series.

You can watch the concert below, thanks to the Wigmore Hall YouTube channel:

For more information on the Fauré series, visit the Wigmore Hall website – while you can also read Arcana’s interview with Steven Isserlis about the French composer

Published post no.2,353 – Tuesday 5 November 2024

In concert – Steven Isserlis and Friends – Fauré at the Wigmore Hall (2)

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Steven Isserlis (cello) – with Joshua Bell, Irène Duval (violins), Blythe Teh Engstroem (viola), Jeremy Denk, Connie Shih (pianos)

Hahn Variations chantantes (1905)
Fauré Piano Quartet No. 2 in G minor, Op. 45 (1885-6)
Fauré Piano Quintet No. 1 in D minor, Op. 89 (1887-1905)

Wigmore Hall, London
Saturday 2 November 2024

Reviewed by Richard Whitehouse

If it did not get off to quite the start intended due to illness, this Wigmore series centred on Fauré’s chamber works certainly hit its stride with two such pieces from crucial junctures in their composer’s output.

Providing a degree of context was music by Reynaldo Hahn – remembered primarily for his operettas and songs, but whose chamber output is considerable. Hardly a defining statement, Variations chantantes sur un air ancien (its full title) draws on the aria ‘Beato chi può’ from Cavalli’s 1655 opera Xerses for what feels less a set of variations than a sequence of variants of unwavering restraint amply reflecting that blithe detachment of its theme. Steven Isserlis conveyed this in full measure, heard alongside some ingratiating pianism from Connie Shih.

Having achieved a successful balance between formal density and expressive eloquence in its predecessor, his Second Piano Quartet has Fauré laying even greater emphasis on the cyclical transformation of motifs which, hitherto associated with Liszt and Frank, is here imbued with a new cohesion. This is evident from an opening movement whose sonata design unfolds in a constant yet methodical state of change, Isserlis and Joshua Bell restlessly trading exchanges with Blythe Teh Engstroem a lyrical counter-balance and Jeremy Denk the deft anchor-point.

This approach served no less well the ensuing scherzo, with its engaging alternation between pizzicato and bowed playing as well as a tangible mordancy that never quite surfaces. Nor is it entirely absent from a slow movement whose vernal eloquence is informed by more than a little equivocation, and which only waylays continued motivic evolution in the finale. Here the music’s striving towards a decisive while hardly affirmative resolution seemed palpably in evidence, confirming this work to be a triumph of human resilience over existential odds.

If this work marks the culmination of Fauré’s earlier creative maturity, his First Piano Quintet effectively straddles its central phase given the near-on two decades between conception and completion. What had started out for four instruments in four movements ended up as five in three, yet there is nothing tentative about an initial movement whose pervasive introspection belies an emotional eddying no less subtle than the motivic intricacy these players uncovered, and in which the expressively effulgent playing of Irène Duval was an undoubted enrichment.

Less formally involved, the central Adagio prefigures the introspection of its composer’s last years – not least through a seamlessness of texture which, as here, never precludes variety of nuance. After this, the finale can seem less remarkable merely by fulfil its function within the overall scheme, but those thematic elements (of which one the songwriter Bart Howard was evidently aware) that evolve from the previous movements are assuredly realized on route to an apotheosis no less affecting for having delayed its resolution almost until the last moment.

Never neglected but rarely received with more than guarded admiration, Fauré’s late chamber works rely on an advocacy central to such music-making as was heard tonight. Hopefully this will prove no less evident throughout the remaining three programmes in this important series.

You can watch the concert below, thanks to the Wigmore Hall YouTube channel:

For more information on the Fauré series, visit the Wigmore Hall website – while you can also read Arcana’s interview with Steven Isserlis about the French composer

Published post no.2,352 – Monday 4 November 2024

In concert – Kirill Gerstein, BBCSO / Sakari Oramo: Bacewicz & Busoni @ Barbican Hall

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Kirill Gerstein (piano), BBC Symphony Chorus (lower voices), BBC Symphony Orchestra / Sakari Oramo

Bacewicz Symphony no.2 (1951)
Busoni Piano Concerto in C major Op. 39 (1901-04)

Barbican Hall, London
Friday 1 November 2024

Reviewed by Richard Whitehouse Pictures (c) BBC / Sarah-Louise Bennett

Wait years for a performance of Busoni’s Piano Concerto then (at least) two come (almost) at once. As 2024 sees the centenary of the composer’s death and it is much his largest work for the concert hall, this was doubtless to be expected though a welcome occurrence all the same.

Having first played it in Boston seven years ago (later released on Myrios), Kirill Gerstein (below) and Sakari Oramo were intent on utilizing an experience unusual in the context of this work. This was evident at the outset of its Prologo e introito – the long orchestral introduction having a cumulative impetus that carried into the soloist’s imposing entry, with this physicality finding contrast in the delicacy of passagework and the sensitivity of dialogue later in this movement. Nor was there any lack of capriciousness in a Pezzo giocoso whose more ambivalent asides pointedly underlined, and its more populist elements always integrated into the ongoing flow.

Centrepiece in every respect, Pezzo serioso made a memorable impression. The sombreness of its introduction complemented by the undulating poise of Gerstein’s playing in the ensuing barcarolle section, before a remorseless build up of intensity towards its central climax found piano and orchestra in true accord; the re-emergence of earlier themes of a pathos abetted by a conclusion whose gently insistent rhythmic undertow led to an ending of exquisite finesse.

Rarely can the All’italiana have conveyed such scintillating appeal at this headlong a tempo, making for a tarantella of infectious wit but one whose ever more daring flights of fancy never threatened to lose focus – the BBC Symphony Orchestra responded with unfailing conviction, while the climactic cadenza made for a seamless link into the Cantico. Here male voices, placed at the rear of the platform instead of offstage, assumed the musical foreground as this finale built in a rising arc of tension to an apotheosis of a triumph the more cathartic for its sense of release.

How Busoni’s epic work comes over in performance is in part determined by what has been heard earlier in the programme. Tonight’s concert got it just right with a rare hearing (at least in the UK) for the Second Symphony from Polish composer and violinist Grażyna Bacewicz.

Oramo (above) had previously given notice of his sympathy for her music via recordings of the Third and Fourth Symphonies (Chandos), and this performance did not disappoint. Playing for just over 20 minutes, the Second has a variety of incident and overall impact out of all proportion to its length – whether in the opening movement as this alternates between equivocation and resolve, the eloquence of a Lento in which Bacewicz’s orchestration is at its most resourceful, a Scherzo whose poetic asides never threatened to offset its prevailing vivacity, then a Finale that (as with Roussel’s Fourth Symphony which may have provided the model) ended almost too soon yet whose incisiveness always felt apposite to the whole. Throughout, Bacewicz was conscious of the implications of Socialist Realism while steering clear decisively of its values.

Hopefully this and Bacewicz’s First Symphony will be appearing in due course as a follow-up volume. For now, it gave ready enhancement to a concert whose enterprise and conviction are further proof, is such were needed, of that continued rapport between Oramo and the BBCSO.

For details on their 2024-25 season, head to the BBC Symphony Orchestra website. Click on the names to read more about pianist Kirill Gerstein, conductor Sakari Oramo and composer Grażyna Bacewicz

Published post no.2,351 – Sunday 3 November 2024