Category Archives: In concert

Wigmore Mondays – Elizabeth Watts and Julius Drake

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Elizabeth Watts, Photo : Marco Borggreve

Elizabeth Watts, Photo : Marco Borggreve

Elizabeth Watts (soprano), Julius Drake (piano) – Wigmore Hall, London, live on BBC Radio 3, 26 October 2015

Listening link (open in a new window):

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b06kb0f0

on the iPlayer until 25 November

Spotify

In case you cannot hear the broadcast, here is a Spotify playlist of the music in this concert, from available versions on Spotify (which do not include the Liszt song Quand tu chantes bercée).

What’s the music?

Liszt: 6 settings of poetry by Victor Hugo (dates are for first versions only): Enfant, si j’étais roi (1849); S’il est un charmant gazon (1844); Comment, disaient-ils (1842); La tombe et la rose (1844); Quand tu chantes bercée (c1844-45); Oh! quand je dors (1842) (21 minutes)

Debussy: Ariettes oubliées (1885-1887) (17 minutes)

Hahn: 4 Hugo settings: Rêverie (1888); Si mes vers avaient des ailes (1888); L’Incrédule (1893); Fêtes galantes (1892) (9 minutes)

What about the music?

A recital bringing together some richly varied settings of two French poets, Victor Hugo and Paul Verlaine.

It also gives us the opportunity to listen to some of the large output of Franz Liszt, who is best known for his piano music but whose songs have enjoyed greater prominence in recent years. He and the poet Victor Hugo were friends, meeting in Paris in the 1830s, and Liszt went on to set a number of his poems to music.

Debussy’s Ariettes oubliées (Forgotten Songs) is a cycle of six songs for voice and piano, based on a poem written by Paul Verlaine, who the composer knew and whose verse was a profound influence throughout the composer’s career.

We return to Victor Hugo for several settings by the Venezuelan-born French composer Reynaldo Hahn, who is best known for his song settings. This group of four includes Si mes vers avaient des ailes, the song that really brought Hahn to public attention and which, in the words of Graham Johnson, ‘has become his motto song’.

Performance verdict

A note first of all to say Arcana did not attend this concert, so the review is directly from the radio performance.

What is abundantly clear is that Elizabeth Watts is becoming a soloist of real repute, and one who has a very impressive and diverse repertoire. It was especially gratifying to hear her accounts of the Hugo settings by Liszt, not heard much in the concert hall but invested with real passion here, Watts floating effortlessly through the high notes as Julius Drake set the scene. Drake is an experienced pianist in Liszt songs, and is in the process of recording his output for Hyperion – and his ability to find the detail to point up alongside the vocal line was a real asset.

The Debussy had an essential mystique that Drake was quick to create in his piano part, Watts controlling her voice wonderfully well in the tricky melodic intervals. Meanwhile the Hahn selection sparkled, showing off this composer’s flair for word setting as well as the natural chemistry between Watts and Drake.

What should I listen out for?

Liszt

1:57 Enfant, si j’étais roi (Child, if I were king) translation here – a typically grand setting from Liszt, with a big piano part, while the soprano sings boldly above. A brave piece with which to start a recital! In the second verse the piano adopts a more threatening bass line as the soprano extols the virtue of a kiss from her lover.

5:13 S’il est un charmant gazon (If there’s a lovely grassy plot) translation here – a more gentle and loving song, this, with a similar mood to the opening of Brahms’ Violin Sonata no.2. The music flows with a mood of relative contentment.

7:41 Comment, disaient-ils (How then, asked he) translation here a nervy piano accompaniment immediately puts this song on each, though the floated higher vocal counters that somewhat. This is a short song but the high note at the end from the soprano carries a lasting impact.

9:49 La tombe et la rose (The tomb says to the rose) translation here This time we hear the soprano in a much lower range and with a fuller voice as Liszt takes on the much heavier text. There is weight in the piano part, too, though here as with a couple of the other songs it feels like Liszt has a short attention span.

13:44 Quand tu chantes bercée (When you sing in the evening) translation here This song has much softer contours, with a restful piano part and a relatively smooth vocal line for the soprano. That is not to say passion is lacking though, especially when the soprano sings ‘Chantez, ma belle’ (‘Sing, my pretty one’)

16:17 Oh! quand je dors (Oh! When I sleep) translation here As the title suggests here is a lullaby, though this one doubles as a love song. Again the soprano has to sing high, especially given the passion of Hugo’s text. The piano immediately sets the scene of rapture.

Debussy

The words for Ariettes oubliées are here

24:12 – C’est l’extase langoureuse (It is ecstasy) A heady song as you might expect from the title, which hangs on the air heavily. This whole impression is helped by Debussy’s chromatic writing, with soprano and piano right hand often in unison. The rich harmonies and melodies might sound awkward in isolation but, in a performance such as this, they are totally natural.

27:28 – Il pleure dans mon cœur…(It weeps in my heart) One of Debussy’s most celebrated early songs, delighting – or finding sorrow, rather – in the sound of the rain ‘on the ground and on the roofs’. A wide range is called for on the part of the soprano, not to mention the restless yet easily flowing piano part.

30:28 – L’ombre de arbres (The shadow of the trees) ‘The shadow of the trees, in the mist-covered river’ find the soprano beginning in a lower range, the air thick with humidity. This is a more sorrowful lament, the piano essentially standing by while the singer emotes – nowhere more so than the high note of 32:06.

33:14 – Chevaux de bois (Merry-go-round) A brilliant evocation of the fairground, the merry-go-round burling around dizzily on the piano, over which the soprano sings of the hurrying horses. Debussy’s quick moving harmonies are ideally suited to this sort of setting. The song ends quietly.

36:31 – Green A love song. The soprano has to travel quite a way in the course of this song, from low asides to higher outpourings of intense feeling. The twinkling of the piano’s right hand provides an effective counterpoint.

38:36 – Spleen A downcast song, reflecting on how ‘all my despair is reborn’. This does still take place over some exotic harmony on the part of the composer, the song moving far and wide in its melodic and harmonic reach.

Hahn

43:09 – Rêverie – translation here A halting figure on the piano feels like an offbeat waltz, accompanying the soprano as she sings, lingering on the word ‘kiss’. The song is relatively conventional in its structure.

45:11 – Si mes vers avaient des ailes (If my verses had wings) – translation here – a bright and positive love song, the singer clearly lost in thoughts of her beloved – and reaching some beautifully spun high notes along the way, with twinkling piano account. The last notes need particularly impressive control as the music slows.

47:52 L’Incrédule (The Sceptic) – translation here – a softly coloured but rather moving song, which has its conviction in the last lines, where the singer declares ‘And my faith is so deep in all that I believe in that I live for you alone’

50:11 Fêtes galantes – translation here – one of Hahn’s most endearing songs to close, the sparkling piano introduction keeping a detached feel as the singer spins higher notes above. The ‘shivering breeze’ is brilliantly evoked in the piano.

Encores

53:32 An encore of a Victor Hugo setting, L’Attente, (1840) from Richard Wagner. As Elizabeth Watts says to the audience, it’s not exactly easy – whether it’s the full bodied, high register vocal or the heavily congested piano part!

 

Further listening

Something completely different to complement Elizabeth Watts’ artistry, and also to show just how versatile she is. This is a recently released album of vocal works by the Baroque composer Alessandro Scarlatti, given with The English Concert and Laurence Cummings:

https://open.spotify.com/album/1Crx7DHWHCAqV7za0K80oX

 

 

Stephen Kovacevich 75th birthday concert with Martha Argerich

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Stephen Kovacevich 75th birthday concert, Wigmore Hall, London Monday 2 November

How to review a concert where two genuine piano legends quite literally collide on stage? Well since this was a celebration, it seems only right to celebrate the main protagonist first.

Stephen Kovacevich, who has recently celebrated his 75th birthday, was honoured with this concert by the Wigmore Hall, where he made his debut over fifty years ago. He chose to include two-piano works with Martha Argerich, herself a celebrated pianist whose public appearances, if on occasion irregular, are as greatly revered as ever – and with whom he has a daughter. For the two to be together in a musical sense, performing relatively unfamiliar repertoire – for the birthday boy at least – made an opportunity too good to miss.

It was perhaps just a bridge too far in the case of Debussy’s En blanc et noir, however. Not because the performance was bad, but because the necessarily short rehearsal time meant the use of two page turners. This unfortunately relegated the modest Kovacevich to the back of the stage, rendering him only partly visible. The musical chemistry was pronounced between the two, especially in the second movement where Debussy hauntingly evokes the sounds of First World War bugle calls and gunfire against the slow, stately movement of a Bach chorale, which Argerich solemnly intoned. Yet the outer movements were tense, partly because of page turning quirks (no fault of the turners themselves) and the sense of two players not yet fully in gear.

They were emphatically in the zone for Rachmaninov’s Symphonic Dances, a terrific performance of the two-piano arrangement by the composer who is currently Kovacevich’s first love. The first movement punched at a considerable weight, with sharp ensemble and crisp rhythms, the speed a little slower than orchestras tend to take. Kovacevich himself clearly enjoyed the great second theme, usually assigned to the saxophone but beautifully phrased here.

The second movement was similarly fine, Argerich closely watching her partner, who was now nearest to the audience. This was his first public performance of a piece she has been performing for decades with friends, so it was natural she would want to ‘drive’ – but Kovacevich was very much her equal here and in the last dance, where rhythmic precision was key, they cut through the complexity of Rachmaninov’s writing to secure a powerful finish.

The second half of the concert immediately felt more relaxed, without the tension of page turning or multiple pianos to worry about. Instead Kovacevich gave from memory a lovely performance of Schubert’s final Piano Sonata in B flat, D960, one that flew in the face of the approach many pianists bring to this work. Rather than make it a final dying breath, he seemed to be saying this was music with plenty of life still to give. He made it so with faster tempo choices, a lack of repeats and phrasing that was at times unfussy but always affectionate.

Because of this the fabled slow movement was lovely, like a slow motion dance of contentment, coming after the first movement and its serenity – compromised by the rumblings of the lower left hand, though here they did not present too much threat. Kovacevich was keen to press on, each movement running into the next, and while there were a couple of choppy moments in the third movement, the intensity never let up. The feeling was of each of us being allowed into his own private recital room.

For an encore there was more Rachmaninov, Kovacevich beckoning the violinist Alina Ibragimova to join him from the audience for the Vocalise. This was a special moment, the pianist still discovering new music to perform even in his 76th year. He has made an incredibly good recovery from the stroke that threatened to end his career a few years back, and his disposition on stage is inspiring – modest but also affectionate. He is a musical treasure we should continue to nurture.

Wigmore Mondays – Alexei Ogrintchouk and friends play music for oboe and string trio

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Picture used courtesy of the BBC

Alexei Ogrintchouk (oboe), Boris Brovtsyn (violin), Maxim Rysanov (viola) and Kristina Blaumane (cello) – Wigmore Hall, London, live on BBC Radio 3, 12 October 2015

Listening link (open in a new window):

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b06hjxlv

on the iPlayer until 18 November

Spotify

In case you cannot hear the broadcast, here is a Spotify playlist of the music in this concert, from available versions on Spotify. Alexei Ogrintchouk has recorded the Mozart, while available versions of the Haydn, Britten and Schubert pieces are also included.

What’s the music?

Attributed to Haydn: Divertissement in B flat, HII:B4 (not known) (10 minutes)

Britten: Phantasy Quartet, Op 2 (1932) (13 minutes)

Schubert: String Trio in B flat, D471 (1816) (8 minutes)

Mozart: Oboe Quartet in F, K370 (1781) (14 minutes)

What about the music?

Often in chamber music the strings get a lot of the glory, so it is good to report on a concert where the oboe is invited to take centre stage. The instrument is on occasion associated with sad music (Midsomer Murders use it a lot!) and it is perfect for autumnal listening, but it should be remembered that the oboe is also responsible for a lot of happy music too, as Mozart’s Oboe Quartet testifies.

This piece is a beauty, seemingly free of any constraints in its outer fast movements, while the inner slow movement is short yet poignant, set in the minor key. Mozart wrote it for the virtuoso Friedrich Ramm, and composed the oboe line to sit above that of the violin, thus using the higher register of the instrument a lot.

Britten uses a wider range of colour in his Phantasy, written as a competition piece when he was at the Royal College of Music. Thanks partly to the advocacy of the legendary oboist Leon Goossens, but also to his musical craft, the piece won its competition in Paris. Set over nearly 15 minutes, it has a dramatic profile, beginning as a march that seems to process in from nothing – started by the cello – until the sweep of lyrical oboe and punchy strings together is striking.

The first piece in the concert is a two movement Divertissement attributed to Haydn but, it is not wholly certain who actually wrote it. To my slightly untrained ears it sounds like it could be earlier than Haydn, but regardless of who the composer is the music is polite and attractive, the four instruments set in close dialogue.

Schubert’s single movement for String Trio is in the same key – B flat major – and has a similar profile, though does make the most of a striking descending motif throughout. Originally Schubert wanted this to be the first movement of a bigger piece, but after sketching some bars of the slow movement he stopped writing.

Performance verdict

Over the last few years Alexei Ogrintchouk has developed from a very promising musician to an oboist right at the top of his game – and that was evident throughout a highly enjoyable concert.

The peak was undoubtedly reached in the Mozart, where he met the virtuosic demands of the piece head on but without losing the airy, lyrical approach that makes the Oboe Quartet such a charmer. The performance of the Britten dug in much more firmly, the strings encouraged to project outwards, and this they did with impressive power when the march took hold. Britten’s genius in working with small forms was evident even at this point, and not a note was wasted in the performance.

Both the Haydn and Schubert performances charmed, the Schubert nicely placed so that the strings had a brief moment in the sun – which they enjoyed, with lightness and dexterity, clearly listening to each other.

What should I listen out for?

Attrib.Haydn

2:01 – this light hearted piece begins with an oboe-led melody, while the cello supplies a chugging pulse. The music is polite and attractive. At 5:13 a central section begins, based on the melody from the start.

7:50 – a slightly slower second movement, a courtly dance – in the form of a rondo, which essentially means the same theme recurs at regular intervals. The violin and viola assume greater importance in this movement. The theme itself makes a final appearance at 11:02.

Britten

14:25 – the beginning is almost imperceptible, a little phrase from the cello which is gradually joined by the other two stringed instruments. When the oboe joins at 15:07 the tone is songful, though the spiky accompaniment continues, leaving some tension until a firm statement of the main tune at 16:12. Then a different section takes over, with heavier string writing.

20:25 – the writing now has a softer, hazy hue, as the strings enjoy a slower and more obviously lyrical section. At 22:30 a higher melody from the oboe floats above the texture.

24:52 – the main march idea makes a reappearance, striding forward purposefully – until the music fades, as though it were walking over the horizon and out of earshot.

You can read more about the Britten Phantasy on a blog entry I made two years ago here

Schubert

29:52 – the Schubert String Trio, set in one movement, begins with an attractive melody led by the violin. There is a distinctive downward sweep that is heard from 30:40, and which becomes an important part of the piece. The three instruments stay closely aligned throughout. After developing his main tune, Schubert restates it at 35:22.

Mozart

40:04 – the oboe is already high in its register when the distinctive tune of the first movement is heard, top of an extremely light texture. The strings are busy in their accompaniment. Mozart then proceeds to manipulate his memorable tune through different methods of presentation, until a slight lull at 43:53 – and the return of the main tune at 44:57.

46:44 – A slight shadow falls over the music for the second movement Adagio, where the strings are softer and the oboe a little mournful if still beautiful in its first melody. At around 48:57 the oboe is left exposed in a kind of cadenza, leading up to the thoughtful end.

49:57 – once again the brightness in this music is evident as a light hearted theme sways between oboe and strings. The oboe enjoys the recurrences of its tune, with Mozart subtly varying the accompaniment each time before finishing on the high ‘F’ of the oboe at 54:00.

Further listening

If you enjoyed the sound of the oboe, then a logical next step is a couple of orchestral pieces, added to the bottom of the playlist, that use the instrument to its fullest capabilities:

First of all is Ravel’s subtle but gorgeous Le tombeau de Couperin, the oboe taking up the first theme in the Prélude and also enjoying prominence in the slow Menuet.

Then we have Vaughan Williams’ beautiful, autumnal Oboe Concerto, heard here in a new recording from the oboist Nicholas Daniel. The wistful quality perhaps gives away the fact this piece was written in the Second World War. Daniel’s disc is reviewed on Arcana here

GrauSchumacher Piano Duo at the Wigmore Hall

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GrauSchumacher Piano Duo

Richard Whitehouse on the UK premiere of a substantial new work from Philippe Manoury, along with homages to J.S. Bach from Busoni and Kurtág
Wigmore Hall, London Monday 19 October

J.S. Bach (arr. Kurtág): Gottes Zeit ist die allerbeste Zeit, BWV106 – Sonatina; Alle Menschen müssen sterben, BWV643; Aus tiefer Not schrei ich zu dir, BWV687 (various)

Busoni: Fantasia contrappuntistica, BWV256b (1920, arranged for two pianos in 1921)

Manoury: Le Temps, mode d’emploi (2014) [UK premiere]

Andreas Grau and Götz Schumacher (piano duo)

The GrauSchumacher Duo – comprising pianists Andreas Grau and Götz Schumacher – follows in a distinguished lineage of such partnerships (among them Alphons and Aloys Kontarsky, or Bracha Eden and Alexander Tamir), but at least in the UK is known primarily through its substantial discography (notably for the enterprising NEOS label) than for its live performances. All credit, then, to Wigmore Hall for scheduling this recital as part of its focus on contemporary music, and which featured the first British hearing for a major new work.

Now in his early sixties, Philippe Manoury is well established among his peers in Western Europe while enjoying occasional UK performances (his large-scale orchestral and choral piece Zeitlauf caused something of a stir in London three decades ago). Live electronics has been a constant presence in his music, and Le Temps, mode d’emploi is no exception. Lasting around 50 minutes, this falls into eight continuous sections in which the consciously-applied virtuosity of the pianists is underpinned by electronics in terms of spatial diffusion and textural stratification. At the same time, the music audibly evolves in terms of its salient motifs dispersed across the sound spectrum and that merge into an accumulation of activity exceeded only by the plethora of echoes heard towards the close. Cohesive, then, while also overly uniform in sonic profile (is it surprising that electronically treated piano timbre seems to have moved on only incrementally since Stockhausen’s Mantra half a century ago?), with the actual material rather less memorable than those processes to which it is being subjected.

What was undeniable was the alacrity with which GrauSchumacher tackled this epic among piano duos, or the clarity with which those from Experimental Studio of South-West German Radio projected the complex sound transformations throughout the fabled Wigmore acoustic.

Before the interval came a welcome hearing for Busoni’s Fantasia contrappuntistica – a half-hour fantasy on, around and about Bach that began as a completion of his 14th contrapunctus from The Art of Fugue in 1910, soon to assume its definitive guise before being arranged for two pianos in 1921. This account pointed up the interplay of stark declamation and limpid passagework characterizing the initial chorale-variations, the increasing textural intricacy of the initial three fugues, then the tensile unfolding of the intermezzo with its three variations – leading, via a terse cadenza, to a climactic fourth fugue which was slightly underwhelming here, but the performance quickly regained focus for a haunting recollection of the chorale followed by the stretta (a concluding passage played at a faster tempo) that steers this piece through to its brief though magisterial conclusion.

An impressive reading overall, that gained from its having been placed in context with three Bach transcriptions by György Kurtág. Anyone present at one of the latter’s intimate recitals of these pieces with his wife may have found GrauSchumacher a touch too literal in overall execution, yet the sonatina from Bach’s Actus tragicus and the two chorale-preludes which followed evinced no lack of poise or elegance. Easy to overlook given what was to come, perhaps, while at the same time being telling instances of the maxim that ‘less is more’.

The Oberon Symphony Orchestra play Beethoven and Shostakovich

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Picture (c) Alexander Robinson

Richard Whitehouse on the young, thriving Oberon Symphony Orchestra‘s latest concert, pairing Beethoven with Shostakovich at their home of St James’s, Sussex Gardens, London on Saturday 26 September

Beethoven: Piano Concerto no.4 (1806)

Shostakovich: Symphony no.5 (1937)

Jean Paul Ekins (piano), Oberon Symphony Orchestra / Samuel Draper

This evening’s concert given by the Oberon Symphony, the orchestra’s tenth such event since its inception, brought together a concerto which is poised expressively between Classical and Romantic eras, then a symphony bridging the divide between personal and public expression.

For all its popularity, Beethoven’s Piano Concerto no.4 remains a tough challenge in terms of its emotional understatement and often elusive interplay of soloist and orchestra. There was no denying Jean Paul Ekins’ technical adroitness, his crystalline tone and limpid passage work being rarely in doubt, but equally a lack of expressive variety and a degree of preciousness in terms of phrasing that gave the opening movement – steady if by no means stolid in its underlying tempo – a uniform and even unyielding profile; the highlight being a cadenza that dovetailed ideally into the surging coda. Not so a rather prosaic transition from slow movement into finale, yet the dialogue of the former was (rightly) one of stark contrast and the latter exuded ample impetus through to its rather awkwardly negotiated final chords.

Throughout this reading, Samuel Draper proved an astute and attentive accompanist – before he and the orchestra came into their own with Shostakovich’s Symphony no.5. Still the most often heard of what is now among the most familiar of symphonic cycles, its performance has grown more difficult over time given those extra-musical ‘interpretations’ to have been foisted on its musical content. Having steered an involving course between its yearning and plaintive main themes, Draper infused the first movement’s development with a purposeful momentum so that the climactic reprise unfolded as an arc of decreasing intensity towards a coda of aching suspense. Trenchant in forward motion, the scherzo was dispatched with a keen irony and, in its trio, appealingly deadpan playing from leader Richard Gratwick.

A degree of thinness in string tone was by no means to the disadvantage of a slow movement which eschewed widescreen emotional expression for intense inwardness, not least with the chorale-like transformation of its initial theme in a central passage of real eloquence. Nor was the ensuing climax found wanting, as Draper secured a searing clarity across the strings prior to a wistfully resigned close. Even finer was the finale: the hardest movement to bring off, its tempo changes worked ably in terms of a cumulative overall structure – making nonsense of any claim it lacks formal focus; with a palpable emergence from the restless searching at its centre towards an apotheosis which evinced the fraught inevitability that was surely intended. The closing bars then drove home the work’s defiantly individual stance with bracing resolve.

A gripping account of a piece which should never be taken for granted, not least in its knife-edge ambivalence, and that found the Oberon SO at its most committed. Draper had begun by noting the 75th anniversary on this day of the suicide of philosopher Walter Benjamin – the victim of a political and cultural intolerance that has by no means abated, and to whose memory this performance was dedicated. Such a procedure can risk indulgence, though here the sincerity of his remarks was more than matched by the conviction of the music-making.

The next Oberon concert takes place on 5th December 2015, where the orchestra will play Tchaikovsky’s Pathetique Symphony. Here they are in the composer’s Fifth:

Further information can be found at the orchestra’s website