Category Archives: Chamber music

Online Concert: Francesca Dego & Alessio Bax @ Wigmore Hall – Mozart & Brahms

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Francesca Dego (violin, above), Alessio Bax (piano, below)

Mozart Sonata for piano and violin in B flat major K454 Den første sommerfugl (1784)
Brahms Violin Sonata no.1 in G major Op.78 (1878-9)

Wigmore Hall, Monday 20 March 1pm

by Ben Hogwood

This was the first time violinist Francesca Dego and pianist Alessio Bax had performed together in public – but had that fact not been given to us by BBC Radio 3 announcer Andrew McGregor, the unsuspecting audience would have assumed they had been playing together for years. Both demonstrated an innate understanding of the music in this attractive programme, which had equal portions of light and shade.

Much of the light was found in the Mozart, his K454 violin sonata written during a phase where he was especially preoccupied with the key of B flat major. Around the violin sonata, regarded as one of the three crowning masterpieces in the form, sit the string quartet nicknamed the Hunt (K458) and the Piano Concerto no.18 (K456), the B flat neighbours evidence of a period where Mozart seems to have been especially fertile.

His stimulus on this occasion was the Italian violinist Regina Strinasacchi, a figure with whom the Italian Dego – a Mozart specialist herself – possibly felt an affinity. In detailing her affection for the work in the concert notes, Dego noted how Strinasacchi had studied at the Ospedale della Pietà, where Vivaldi once taught, before meeting Mozart in Vienna.

The piece made a winsome impression here, Dego showing how, in Mozart performance, less can so often be more. The pair enjoyed a poised introduction, Dego lingering on the last note before a sparkling Allegro moderato opened up ahead. There was definitely an air of spring to this movement, with burbling piano figures and bright violin melodies ideally balanced by the two.

The slow movement took time for thought, enjoying the space afforded to an operatic violin line, though never lingered unnecessarily. Dego’s tone was especially enjoyable here. The finale was very nicely done, with breezy humour and opportunity for virtuoso display for both instruments, tastefully taken.

Alessio Bax Pianist Photo: Marco Borggreve

As with several of his first forays into a new musical form, Brahms took several attempts before he was happy to publish his Violin Sonata no.1, which was completed just after the Violin Concerto. It is an attractive work with memorable themes, but a shadow fell over its composition due to the fate of Felix, the son of Clara Schumann and Brahms’s godson, who contracted tuberculosis, from which he died.

Dego and Bax brought this melancholy to the slow movement, the music turning hollow at the extremes of the piano register, Bax’s shaping of the low phrases especially expressive. The soft coda was bittersweet, a mood which carried over into the slow movement. Whereas the first movement had plenty of room given to its attractive melody, the finale pushed forward, Brahms looking to blossom into an exultant major but ultimately remaining troubled by the frequent reappearance of the minor key. There was however a good deal of energy and ultimately the sonata ended positively, the light and shade of this performance having given it a deeper perspective.

Dego introduced a bold encore choice, the second movement Tarantella of Busoni’s Violin Sonata no.2 – a work that should be heard in the concert hall far more often. On this evidence, a recording would be most welcome, given the musicality the two performers brought to this fine recital.

For more livestreamed concerts from the Wigmore Hall, click here

Online Concert: Tine Thing Helseth & Kathryn Stott @ Wigmore Hall

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Tine Thing Helseth (trumpet), Kathryn Stott (piano)

Nordheim Den første sommerfugl (1982)
Martinů Sonatina for trumpet and piano (1956)
Shostakovich 4 Romances on Poems by Alexander Pushkin Op. 46 (1936-7)
Piazzolla Café 1930 from Histoire du Tango (1986)
Grieg 6 Songs Op. 48 (1884-8)
Gershwin Prelude No. 2 in C sharp minor (c1923-6); By Strauss (1936)
Weill Youkali (1934)
Kreisler Toy Soldiers March (1917)

Wigmore Hall, Monday 6 March 1pm

by Ben Hogwood

What a joy to see the partnership of trumpeter Tine Thing Helseth and pianist Kathryn Stott renewed at Wigmore Hall, united in an original program of trumpet originals and imaginative arrangements from vocal sources.

Dreamy lines from the piano introduced the concert’s first item, Arne Nordheim’s Den første sommerfugl (The First Butterfly), full of spring promise as the insect’s flight gracefully orbited the hall. Helseth’s trumpet line was a lyrical one, speaking faintly of folk song. From here the pair moved straight into the compact and winsome Sonatina for trumpet and piano, one of the Czech composer Martinů’s miniature gems. Written while experiencing homesickness in New York, the work began with a gruff introduction from the piano, its repeated note figurations taken up by the trumpet in fanfare-like salvos generating a good deal of energy. Gradually this subsided into more poignant thoughts, the composer revealing his softer centre, and by the bittersweet chorale with which the work ends the sense was that of a composer looking for his fortunes to change. Both performers caught that shift of focus.

Next up was an imaginative choice, an arrangement of Shostakovich’s Four Pushkin Songs. The vocal lines transfer to the trumpet with surprising accuracy, both artists playing in such a way that the original spirit of the songs was fully maintained. Regeneration, the first song, was thoughtfully done, held notes on the trumpet carrying above delicate figuration on the piano. Premonition was an easy amble in triple time, but the fourth song, Stanzas, held the cycle’s emotional centre. A substantial song, as long as the other three combined, it began with a stern introduction from Stott before a compelling dialogue unfolded.

Complementing this was a beautifully floated account of Piazzolla’s Café 1930, tastefully augmented by Stott’s rhythmic attention to detail. The melodies really sang from Helseth’s trumpet, any breathing challenges overcome with deceptive ease. As she said at the end, a bit of Piazzolla is never wrong!

Helseth’s announcements between the groups of pieces were nicely done, with an easy charm that also showed how much the two artists were enjoying themselves. This much was clear again in six songs by Grieg, grouped together as Op.48 but once again transcribing with relative ease for the trumpet. Gruss (Greeting) featured a lovely depiction of bells, an outdoor scene, while Lauf der Welt was a rustic march. Helseth’s characterisation of Die verschwiegene Nachtigall (The secretive nightingale) was nicely done. Zur Rosenzeit (Time of roses) presented bright colours, while the final Ein Traum (A dream) was especially full of feeling.

We moved to a stylish Gershwin duo, starting with an account of Prelude no.2 that was especially enjoyable when the main theme returned with the mute in the trumpet. By Strauss was also a highlight, enjoying the Viennese waltz send-up, while Weill’s Youkali was a soave tango. Finally Kreisler’s Toy Soldiers March was a perky account, led off by the piano with crisp fanfares. Topping a highly enjoyable concert was an encore of Piazzolla’s Libertango, led off with a swing by Stott and played with great panache by Helseth, including pitch slides to perfection.

For more livestreamed concerts from the Wigmore Hall, click here

Online Concert: Vision String Quartet play Shostakovich & Mendelssohn @ Wigmore Hall

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Vision String Quartet [(Florian Willeitner, Daniel Stoll (violins), Sander Stuart (viola), Leonard Disselhorst (cello)]

Shostakovich String Quartet No. 8 in C minor Op. 110
Mendelssohn String Quartet No. 2 in A minor Op. 13

Wigmore Hall, Monday 27 February 1pm

by Ben Hogwood

Vision String Quartet are a dynamic young ensemble based in Berlin, who play with great freedom – foregoing printed music and playing standing up (save for the cello of course). Neither of these attributes are gimmicks, for they suit an ensemble who have a charismatic presence and gave two performances of substantial minor key string quartets with passion and attention to detail. The program presented an interesting juxtaposition, the pieces written in very different circumstances but using the string quartet medium to air very private thoughts.

The String Quartet no.8 is the most played in Shostakovich’s canon of 15 string quartets – and arguably receives a disproportionate coverage when compared to the other fine works in the cycle. Yet in a good performance it makes an extremely powerful connection with its audience, as they learn the circumstances in which the composer wrote it.

In 1960 Shostakovich was in fear of his life, and the Eighth Quartet was his unofficial epitaph. An autobiographical work, it contains quotes from some of his most successful and important earlier works, including the Piano Trio no.2, the First and Fifth Symphonies and the recently completed Cello Concerto no.1. It begins with a sombre Largo, which the ensemble played with great sincerity. It is sometimes argued that it takes a Russian quartet to fully understand these works, and certainly the Borodin String Quartet interpretations loom large over whoever dares to take them on, but this performance took the plunge with impressive surety.

Technically the quartet were superb, the lower parts of viola and cello driving the faster passages with obdurate figures. Meanwhile first violinist Florian Willeitner found a suitably plaintive tone over the held drone from the other three instruments when the music almost came to a standstill, a most moving part of the first movement. The torrid second movement gritted its teeth, while in the chilling fourth movement, the rat-a-tat motion (thought to depict gunfire or the Russian authorities knocking on the door) left a lasting impression. The Vision players were keen to emphasise the dissonances throughout, and this approach carried all the way through to the final resolution, which was all the more telling as a result.

After this performance Mendelssohn’s String Quartet no.2 in A minor was warm in comparison, yet this is not one of the composer’s sunniest works, written as it was in the grip of an unrequited love.

Affectionately played, the first movement caught the right tension between major and minor key, with an airy outlook from Willeitner’s first violin, but with the increasing incursion of the minor key something of a shadow fell over the music. The temperature warmed appreciably for the second movement, its figures delicately sung and balanced  with attractive countermelodies from around the quartet.

The third movement was a subtle charmer, its subject responding well to an unfussy presentation and subtle rubato, the Vision happy to manipulate the lilting dance rhythms rather tastefully. A skittish end cut to a vigorous, almost violent set of tremolos ushering in the presto finale, which fizzed with energy and enthusiastic interplay. The Vision Quartet secured a really nicely paced finish, winding down to a seraphic major key coda which was thoughtful and radiant.

As an encore the quartet delved into their new album Spectrum for Copenhagen, a collaborative work penned by the four instrumentalists themselves. A persuasive rhythm took shape over a cello ostinato figure, given out by the quartet with drive and passion. The piece had a rustic air which spoke of the outdoors, offering a promise of spring after two wintry works.

For more livestreamed concerts from the Wigmore Hall, click here – and for more about the artists, visit the Vision String Quartet website

On Record – Robert Saxton: Portrait (Métier)

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Saxton
A Hymn to the Thames (2020)
James Turnbull (oboe), St Paul’s Sinfonia / Andrew Morley
Fantasy Pieces (2020)
Fidelio Trio [Darragh Morgan (violin), Tim Gill (cello), Mary Dullea (piano)]
Time and the Seasons (2013)
Roderick Williams (baritone), Andrew West (piano)
Suite (2019)
Madeleine Mitchell (violin), Clare Hammond (piano)

Métier msv28624 [69’40’’]
Producers / Engineers Adaq Khan, Stewart Smith (Time and the Seasons)

Recorded 12 March 2014 at King’s Hall, Ilkley (Time and the Seasons); 27 January 2020 at St John the Evangelist, Oxford (Suite); 7 November 2021 at Conway Hall, London (Fantasy Pieces); 28 January 2022 at St John the Evangelist, London (A Hymn to the Thames)

Reviewed by Richard Whitehouse

What’s the story?

Having issued several of his works on miscellanies, Métier now issues a release devoted to Robert Saxton – this Portrait comprising four pieces which, written during the past decade, make for a revealing overview of the composer’s musical and wider aesthetic convictions.

What’s the music like?

Earliest among these works is Time and the Seasons – a song-cycle to Saxton’s own poems, in which memories of the composer’s long attraction to the south-eastern Norfolk coast are elided with a seasonal traversal from then back to winter; and itself underpinned by a tonal evolution drawing the six songs into a musical continuity. A piano solo Summer Seascape provides a formal and expressive pivot, the baritone solo Autumn an entrée into the The beach in winter as foregrounds human activity against a backdrop of temporal permanence.

Although they likewise have descriptive titles, the five pieces that comprise Suite for violin and piano seem inherently abstract in their content. Following the cumulative activity then limpid evocation of the first two, the others play without pause – the visceral immediacy of Jacob and the Angel, then the ethereal interplay in Bells of Memory, leading into Quest with (as in the song-cycle) a sense of this music having come full-circle yet simultaneously setting out fresh possibilities – tonal and emotional – to be pursued in future compositions.

The composer himself notes that Fantasy Pieces for piano trio, despite its title and scoring, is not related to Schumann’s eponymous work in any formal or thematic sense. Instead of the latter’s four character-pieces, moreover, Saxton opts for six continuous items whose fluidity of content and intuitive follow-through readily point up the various connotations of the title. That the closing piece seeks to provide a definite resolution while imparting a sense of open-endedness to the sequence overall is merely the most arresting facet of this engaging work.

Closure and un-restrictedness are no less crucial in A Hymn to the Thames, a concertante for oboe and ‘Classical’ forces whose four movements outline the river’s journey from its source in the Cotswolds to its estuary at the North Sea. Allusions to places encountered on route are deftly inferred (notably choral works by Taverner and Tallis), with the soloist a ‘first among equals’ as it leads the orchestra on through these contrasted musical landscapes towards a heightened arrival as the river meets the sea and, in turn, a comparable sense of renewal.

Does it all work?

It does. Saxton observed several years ago his music had become both more serial and tonal in its preoccupations, as is evident from the works recorded here. An incidental fascination is how each section or movement, appealing in itself, yet leaves a sense of open-endedness that is only resolved through the context in which they appear. This will doubtless be evident on a larger scale when Saxton’s Scenes from the Epic of Gilgamesh is premiered by the English Symphony Orchestra in Oxford as part of its 21st Century Symphony Project on March 10th.

Is it recommended?

Very much so. Excellence of performers and performances is matched by sound which gives little indication of any disparity in venues or dates, and the composer provides informative booklet notes. Hopefully further releases of Saxton will be forthcoming from this source.

For purchase information on this album, and to hear sound clips, visit the Divine Art Recordings Group website. For more on the composer, visit Robert Saxton’s dedicated website – and for more on the performers, click on Clare Hammond, Madeleine Mitchell, Andrew Morley, James Turnbull, Andrew West, Roderick Williams, Fidelio Trio and St. Paul’s Sinfonia

Online Concert: Jean-Efflam Bavouzet plays Haydn @ Wigmore Hall

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Jean-Efflam Bavouzet (piano)

Haydn
Piano Sonata in D major Hob.XVI:24 (c1773)
Piano Sonata in A flat major Hob.XVI:46 (c1767-8)
Piano Sonata in E flat major Hob.XVI:49 (1789-90)

Wigmore Hall, Monday 20 February 1pm

by Ben Hogwood

Haydn’s piano sonatas remain an underappreciated corner of his output as a composer. This is understandable on one hand, given the sheer volume and consistency of his output in other forms. The symphonies, string quartets and piano trios all enjoy higher billing, but gradually the sonatas are coming up on the rails.

This is in part due to recent recordings from pianists such as Jean-Efflam Bavouzet, Marc-André Hamelin and Peter Donohoe. Bavouzet, however, has gone further, completing a cycle of the sonatas in eleven instalments for Chandos. If they are all as stylishly played as this BBC Radio 3 Lunchtime Concert, then many treats await.

First of three works in this recital was a D major sonata full of vim and vigour. Bavouzet enjoyed its brightly voiced start, securing a lovely articulation to the right hand while bringing the historical connections through. The energy of Domenico Scarlatti was in evidence, while in the aria-like slow movement there was an operatic air. With an expressive right hand and softly alternating left, Bavouzet found Haydn’s soft centre, before enjoying the florid right hand and the playful nature of in the finale.

In the second work we enjoyed classic, ‘exploratory’ Haydn, the composer experimenting with different forms and far flung keys – such as the D flat major chosen for the slow movement. Here the influence is more C.P.E. Bach, heard in a captivating Allegro, adorned with ornaments in the right hand. Bavouzet once again showed off a bright, clear sound and lightness of touch, with sleights of humour visible at every turn. The slow movement did indeed travel further afield, creating an air of mystery, with exceptional playing in the upper reaches of the right hand. The finale was crisp and clear.

Proof that Haydn sonatas are starting to make themselves better known came with the third work. This was not the E flat sonata placed 52 in Haydn’s output – often chosen as an example sonata in a concert programme. Instead we had a winsome and deeply personal work, written for the composer’s personal friend and confidant, Maria Anna von Genzinger at the turn of 1789 and 1790. As the musicologist Daniel Heartz notes, we know more about the composition of this piece than any other in Haydn’s output, due to the correspondence between the pair, where the composer gives uncharacteristic outpourings of feeling and loneliness.

Bavouzet’s performance immediately took on a conversational air, wit and underlying tenderness lying just beneath the relatively grand gesture of the opening. The intimate, thoroughly enjoyable dialogue between the hands spoke of two people enjoying a one-on-one rapport, before the first movement ended with a flourish and an exclamation mark. The second movement had a lovely disposition to its main theme but then a darker tint to the central section, moving to such ‘un-classical’ keys as B flat minor. The finale also stressed the importance of the silences between the notes, Bavouzet observing these just as closely in the overall phrasing.

This was a wonderful recital, a reminder that Haydn’s importance and influence within the piano sonata medium should not be overlooked. The music had an endearing freshness throughout, communicated with persuasion by a pianist on top of his game.

As an encore, Bavouzet switched styles to Massenet, dedicating his performance of the French composer’s whirlwind Toccata to his dear friend Paul Westcott, a much-missed presence with whom he worked in the beginnings of his career with Chandos, and through to the Haydn itself. Paul would have loved the pizzazz of this version, and Bavouzet’s virtuosity and brilliance would have been appreciated from afar – of that there is no doubt!.

For more livestreamed concerts from the Wigmore Hall, click here. Meanwhile the Spotify playlist below contains recordings made by Jean-Efflam Bavouzet of all the repertoire in this concert: