Category Archives: In concert

Wigmore Mondays – Roderick Williams & Roger Vignoles in French art-song

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Roderick Williams & Roger Vignoles – French Art Song

Fauré Mirages, Op 113 (1919)

Caplet Cinq ballades françaises de Paul Fort (1919-20)

Honegger Petits cours de morale (1941)

Poulenc Deux poèmes de Guillaume Apollinaire (1938); Parisiana (1954)

Listen to the BBC broadcast here

Written by Ben Hogwood

How heartening to have such an inventive hour-long recital of French art-song for a Monday lunchtime. In choosing a programme mostly comprising rarely performed works Roderick Williams and Roger Vignoles demonstrated both the depth of the genre and the rich variety of source texts on which the composers drew.

For this concert we had the intriguing combination of late Fauré, bright Caplet, silly Honegger and typically heart-on-sleeve Poulenc, and both baritone and pianist applied themselves to each with great enthusiasm and character. No stone was left unturned as they strove to bring the texts to life, helped as they were by some wildly differing moods of interpretation.

Late Fauré has a uniquely timeless approach, and the essentially slow Mirages are no exception. The composer’s last song cycle, it is a quartet of settings from the collection of the same name by Renée de Brimont. Williams and Vignoles inhabited a still world, especially in the remarkable passage in Reflets dans l’eau (Reflections in the water) (beginning 4:44 on the radio broadcast), the song almost stopping completely, seemingly in the middle of the lake, for sustained contemplation (from 8:08)

Still more affecting was Danseuse (Dancer), a haunting closing song that vividly portrays the languid movements of the dancer. With his single melodic line in the right hand Vignoles had the lilt just right, as did Williams in his controlled singing.

The Caplet cycle of Paul Fort setting was an altogether different story. André Caplet was a close friend of Debussy, and did a lot of work for him on editions and such. Debussy comes through to some of the harmonies and sleights of hand, but Caplet’s own style makes itself known and is fascinating. Here Vignoles was exceptional in his setting of the five scenes, with some incredibly tricky piano parts made to sound comparatively easy. The start of Cloche d’aube (Tolling dawn) (from 18:09) was a sparkling, brightly lit piano part, complemented by Williams’ sonorous tones.

Notre chaumière en Yveline (Our cottage in Yveline), the third song (from 23:38), was even more striking, falling over itself in rapture, while the glissando of the piano and soaring vocal of Songe d’une nuit d’été (A Midsummer Night’s Dream) (from 26:07) continued the rapt mood of the recently married composer and his domestic bliss. Only the final song, L’adieu en barque (Farewell from a boat) struck a note of caution with the refracted bell ringing conveyed so vividly by Vignoles.

The Honegger songs (from 34:46) were little picture postcards, lasting just over four minutes in total. Described as ‘a short course in morality’, they were written with some striking if rather odd observations by Jean Giraudoux, four of which centred on locations in the UK. Each one, given a woman’s name, had a certain charm – the wandering Jeanne, a rather brusque Adèle (35:25), the heady scents of Cècile (36:11), a strident Irène (37:03) and finally Rosemonde (37:48). Williams and Vignoles clearly enjoyed them, and were on sparkling form throughout.

Finally music by Poulenc, one of the great French songwriters, was given exemplary performances. We heard 2 poems by Guillaume Apollinaire, the colourful Dans le jardin d’Anna (In Anna’s Garden) (40:16), the increasingly bothered Allons plus vite (Move Along) (43:35) and the two Max Jacob poems making up Parisiana (Jouer du bugle (Playing the cornet)) from 46:44 and the short but riotous Vous n’écrivez plus? (You do not write any longer?) (48:15). Both performers were again wreathed in smiles as they enjoyed Poulenc’s direct emotional approach, and then, as a bonus, we had a reflective encore in the form of La Grenouillère (The Froggery).

Even Vignoles was silently singing along at this point, the two finding a strong bond in this little known but richly rewarding box of treats.

Further listening

One of my favourite discs of French song is from the baritone François le Roux, joined by a crack team of French soloists under Charles Dutoit. It includes Poulenc’s Le bal masqué and Le Bestiare cycles, along with the Rapsodie nègre:

Oberon Symphony Orchestra : Mahler Symphony 4 with Anousheh Bromfield

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Anousheh Bromfield (soprano), Oberon Symphony Orchestra / Samuel Draper (above)

St James’s, Sussex Gardens, London. Saturday 21st January, 2017

Mozart Vorrei spiegarvi, oh Dio!, K418 (1783); Ah sie in ciel, benigne stele, K538 (1788); Nehmt meinen Dank, K383 (1782)

Mahler Symphony No.4 in G (1892; 1899-1900)

L-R Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791); Gustav Mahler (1860-1911)

Written by Richard Whitehouse

The Oberon Symphony Orchestra continued its season with this pertinent juxtaposition of Mozart and Mahler. The second half was devoted to the latter composer’s Fourth Symphony, in a performance that brought out a great deal of its ethereal rapture as also its oblique irony.

Opting for a steady though never sluggish underlying tempo for the first movement, Samuel Draper (below) made much of this music’s constant eliding between affection and agitation; the latter quality to the fore during a development that built stealthily and incrementally toward its (in context) visceral climax, with the ensuing textural fragmentation then resumption of the main theme in media res tellingly done. Nor was there any lack of eloquence in the Oberon strings’ response to the blissful final pages, before a heady accelerando into the resolute closing bars.

The second movement upped the ironic ante accordingly. Draper knitted together its sardonic scherzo and ruminative trio sections with no mean subtlety, while also emphasizing the aura of malevolence – this latter abetted by leader Matt Bain’s adept switching between violins as tuned normally as well as a tone higher. No less pleasing was Draper’s unaffected approach to portamento – an expressive device only belatedly reintroduced but that, when handled so unobtrusively, adds greatly to the cohesion of this music whatever its emotional disjuncture.

If the adagio was marginally less well integrated in terms of its overall follow-through, there was little doubt as to the poise of Draper’s conception across these variations on contrasted themes in what is arguably Mahler’s most Beethovenian movement. If the slowly emerging angst seemed overtly reined-in, moreover, the breath-taking sense of the coda opening-out onto new expressive vistas was palpably conveyed; the music that follows evincing a highly personal take on the essence of serenity which was – and has remained – unique to Mahler.

Following on (rightly) attacca, the finale needs to lighten the prevailing mood without that unworldliness seeming trivial. In which respect this account succeeded admirably, whatever the occasional failings in ensemble. It helped to have a soloist who, in Anousheh Bromfield, had the measure of the vocal writing’s pert insouciance and often edgy naivete. The lengthy orchestral introduction into the final verse had an ideal lilting motion, with the closing bars not so much tapering-off into nothingness as making toward a point of unwavering stillness.

samuel-draperBefore the interval, Bromfield joined the orchestra for a selection of Mozart concert arias     as complementary as it was unexpected. There was no want of technical finesse in Vorrei spiegarvi, oh Dio! or Ah sie in ciel, benigne stele, though the greatest delights came with a rare outing for Nehmt meinen Dank which incidentally pointed up the unfettered melodic appeal common to Mozart’s settings in German. In each of these pieces, moreover, Draper and his players provided accompaniment of a poise and elegance necessary for this music.

Overall, another fine showing for the Oberon Symphony Orchestra – which returns on April 29th with a further notable first: the UK premiere of Enescu’s Fourth Symphony as realized by the late Pascal Bentoiu, together with shorter orchestral pieces from Bartók and Schubert.

Further information at the Oberon Symphony Orchestra website

Wigmore Mondays – Beatrice Rana: Bach Goldberg Variations

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beatrice-rana

Beatrice Rana (photo Marie Staggat)

J.S. Bach Goldberg Variations, BWV988

johann_sebastian_bach
J.S. Bach (1658-1750)

Listen to the BBC broadcast here

Written by Ben Hogwood

The famous Canadian pianist Glenn Gould made his first, famed recording of J.S. Bach’s Goldberg Variations at the age of 23. Beatrice Rana has just completed hers at the very same age, as BBC Radio 3 presenter Sara Mohr-Pietsch informed us just before this Wigmore Hall lunchtime concert began. Of course the interpretations would be wildly different, but there was plenty here to suggest Rana is going to be a wonderful pianist for many years to come.

She decided to use Bach’s marked repeats, a move that stretched the piece to 75 minutes and caused the BBC to extend their traditional hour – a move in favour of their Radio 3 New Generation Artists that suggests they too know exactly what she’s about.

Rana took her time with the opening Aria, setting the scene perfectly (from 1:49 on the broadcast link above). Bach’s timeless writing made the greatest possible impact because of this, in music of great, profound meaning, and whenever textures filled up later on there was always the knowledge this sublime music would return to wrap things up at the end.

Not that Rana gave us anything other than clarity, definition and musicality. Only once was her rhythmic profile noticeably challenged, as she took a while to get a definitive pulse for the seventh variation, a gigue, but elsewhere she was white hot, fingers skating over the keyboard in the toccata variations. In the slow variations she gave the music plenty of time to breathe, investing deep emotion into the minor-key sarabande (from 32:57) and similarly pained variation 25 (from 55:07) She also used helpful silences to signpost the music and give both her and the audience chance to take a breath and digest the music a bit, wondering at this great music.

On this evidence, her forthcoming disc of the Goldberg Variations for Warner Classics should be snapped up, and future concerts followed closely. She certainly did Bach full justice here.

Further listening

You can watch Beatrice in the opening bars of the Goldberg Variations, recorded last year:

…or you can take in Gould’s 1955 recording of the Goldbergs below:

Meanwhile if it’s more Bach that you fancy, this Glenn Gould album gives you access to the amazing world of the Italian Concerto, the Chromatic Fantasy and Fugue in D minor and the Partitas for keyboard:

Tasmin Little, BBC Symphony Orchestra & Edward Gardner at the Barbican – Janáček, Smetana, Szymanowski & Eötvös

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Ed Gardner
BBC Symphony Orchestra / Edward Gardner (above) (photo © Benjamin Ealovega)

Barbican Hall, Saturday January 7, 2017

Janáček Jealousy

Smetana Ma vlast: Vltava; Šarka

Szymanowski Violin Concerto No.2 (soloist – Tasmin Little)

Eötvös The Gliding of the Eagle in the Skies [UK premiere]

Janáček Taras Bulba

L-R Leoš Janáček (1854-1928); Bedřich Smetana (1824-1884); Karol Szymanowski (1882-1937); Péter Eötvös (b1944)

Listen to the BBC broadcast here

Written by Richard Whitehouse

Edward Gardner returned to the BBC Symphony for this diverse if not wholly successful programme, which opened with the ultimate in terse curtain-raisers. Intended then abandoned as the overture to his opera Jenůfa, Janáček’s Jealousy (1895) has latterly enjoyed a peripheral place in the repertoire. Heard here in the late Charles Mackerras’s realization of the original version, it made for a vivid impression – not least when its alternation between strident brass gestures and eloquent string writing unerringly evokes Sibelius during much the same period.

Next came the second and third instalments from Smetana’s cycle of symphonic portraits, Ma vlast. The performance of Vltava (1874) was a disappointment – its constituent sections rather failing to cohere, with Gardner making little of the visceral ‘St John’s Rapids’ episode and the apotheosis doddering along at a jog-trot.

Šarka (1875) fared better – Gardner exerting a tight grip over its scenario of female retribution, with felicitous playing from solo clarinet and horn prior to the fateful close. In context, these pieces sounded curiously adrift, suggesting that a different selection (Šarka, then From Bohemia’s Woods and Fields maybe?) might have proved more effective. Even better to opt for one of those early ‘Gothenburg’ symphonic poems that are rarely revived, of which Wallenstein’s Camp would ideally have complemented the Janáček in the second half.

Tasmin Little

Tasmin Little

Time was when Szymanowski’s Second Violin Concerto (1933) existed in the shadow of its predecessor, but this last major work by the composer enjoys increasingly regular revival – its amalgam of luscious textures and folk-inflected harmonies underpinned by a formal cohesion where elements of sonata and rondo forms link hands over a powerful cadenza (by the initial soloist Paweł Kochánski) that Tasmin Little rendered with aplomb.Elsewhere her intonation occasionally faltered as she strove for parity against often dense orchestral writing, though a cumulative impact was rarely less than evident on the way to the affirmative closing pages.

After the interval, a welcome first hearing in the UK for a recent orchestral piece by Peter Eötvös. Written for the Basque National Orchestra, The Gliding of the Eagle in the Skies (2012) utilizes not only the quirky rhythmical profile of that region’s traditional music but also its indigenous percussion – two cajóns situated near the front of the orchestra goading the music on with their distinctive timbre. The piece follows an eventful (and suspenseful) trajectory in which the imagery conveyed by the title is amply though subtly conveyed; the typically stratified textures making possible the luminous final stages then an ending which, not for the first time with this composer, suggests a possible continuation just out of reach.

Later Janáček fairly specializes in such oblique endings, and if Taras Bulba (1918) is not one of these, this rhapsody’s graphic yet by no means literal depiction of events related by Gogol leaves no doubt as to its composer’s identification with his subject. Gardner brought fervency then starkness to the respective deaths of Andriy and Ostap, and while the opening stages of the final section were a little temperate, the apotheosis had a glowing inevitability – though some fallible playing was a reminder of this music’s demands for all its relative familiarity.

Wigmore Mondays – Richard Egarr: Keyboard music of the Tudors and Stuarts

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Richard Egarr

Richard Egarr (photo Marco Borggreve)

Byrd Fantasia in A minor; Pavan and Galliard; The Bells

Purcell Suite in G major; Ground in C minor

Blow Chaconne in FaUt

Purcell Suite in G minor; Suite in D major; Ground in D minor

L-R William Byrd (c.1540-1623);   Henry Purcell (c.1659-1695); John Blow (1648-1708)

Listen to the BBC broadcast here

Written by Ben Hogwood

The harpsichord enjoys a rather chequered reputation in concert, and from personal experience at least among friends I can say it is one of those ‘marmite’ instruments.

Certainly it is unusual for it to have a place alone in a BBC Radio 3 Lunchtime Concert, yet here it was, with Richard Egarr beginning the 2017 part of the Wigmore Hall Monday lunchtime concert season.

In the event the BBC had chosen well, Egarr compiling a fascinating program of keyboard music from the Tudors (Byrd) and Stuarts (Purcell and Blow).

The music of Byrd, a composer for Queen Elizabeth, flows with obvious inspiration. Egarr’s selection here began with the free and at times elaborate Prelude and Fantasia (from 1:43 in the broadcast), moved on to a more stately Pavan and Galliard (from 10:54 and 14:39) from the impressive collection My Lady Neville’s Book and concluded with the descriptive The Bells (16:19), a remarkable piece of writing beginning with a single toll and working its way intricately through thrilling peals of bells.

Purcell, even now one of the greatest composers England has ever produced, appears to have written his harpsichord suites as a tuition aid, yet they are all characterised with dances fast and slow. Egarr played three suites here, the G major work (from 23:55 on the broadcast) the simplest and the G minor (from 37:07), with its brisk Corant dance, seemingly the most challenging. Most engaging, however, was the three-part D major suite (from 45:45), with its thoughtful Prelude and brief but vigorous Hornpipe.

Egarr also included two brief Grounds (pieces with a short, recurring bass line) by Purcell (27:24 and 49:31), with a third, A New Ground, as an encore (52:50). We also heard a Chaconne by Purcell’s teacher John Blow (30:18), a chirpy piece that became increasingly busy and eventful, leading to a series of grand, block chords near the end.

Egarr’s performance manner was conversational. He turned his own pages, and even gave the harpsichord itself a clap at the end, as though thanking it for staying well-tuned! His demeanour encouraged the audience to feel part of an intimate concert, and lightened some of the heavy cloud around London for the first Monday proper of 2017.

Further listening

You can listen to the music in this concert on Spotify below, with recordings from Egarr himself: