Category Archives: In concert

In concert – Quatuor Danel: Shostakovich & Weinberg #6 @ Wigmore Hall

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Quatuor Danel [Marc Danel & Gilles Millet (violins), Vlad Bogdanas (viola), Yovan Markovitch (cello)]

Weinberg String Quartet no.9 in F# minor Op.80 (1963)
Weinberg String Quartet no.10 in A minor Op.85 (1964)
Shostakovich String Quartet no.9 in E flat major Op.117 (1964)

Wigmore Hall, London
Wednesday 16 October 2024

by Richard Whitehouse Photo (c) Marco Borggreve

Quatuor Danel reached the effective mid-point of its Shostakovich and Weinberg cycle with this programme featuring two of the latter composer’s lesser if still absorbing string quartets alongside one from the former that has come belatedly to be held among his most revealing.

Coming soon after his Fifth Symphony (arguably the finest of this cycle), the Ninth Quartet finds Weinberg at something of a stylistic crossroads with those essentials of his subsequent phase almost within reach. It opens with an Allegro which is among his most visceral in any medium – the Danel (rightly) giving full rein to a seething energy, barely held in check, then to which the Allegretto functions as a shock absorber given its intermezzo-like speculations. The ensuing Andante ventures further towards that secretive and often confessional intimacy central to its composer’s thinking henceforth, though here its introspection is mitigated by a finale which unfolds almost as a synthesis of what went before – the Danel duly mindful of a gradual momentum that does not bring resolution as evade the issue with a nonchalant shrug.

Barely a year on, the Tenth Quartet has the same four-movement and 25-minute dimensions but is otherwise a very different proposition. Here the initial movement is an Adagio whose rhetorical fervency has turned in on itself well before the end, leaving an Allegro to provide oblique continuity with its simmering intensity that never quite risks outright confrontation. If the Adagio that follows promises such, its gestures prove too brittle and short-winded to sustain a more expansive movement – the intensity soon making way for a final Allegretto that sounds intent on avoiding closure with its succession of fugitive interactions, elegantly articulated here, whose lilting gait ultimately alights on the tardiest of cadences. As with its predecessor, any bringing of the work emotionally full circle is conspicuous by its absence.

Now that a first movement has been realized and performed, it is clear what Shostakovich had intended as his Ninth Quartet would have been very different from what emerged – the trenchant while slightly foursquare manner of that earlier effort replaced by the undulating lyricism of a Moderato as methodically sets out all those salient motifs for what follows. Its equivocation was ideally conveyed here – no less than the elegiac character of its successor, then a central movement of a liveliness increasingly waylaid by questioning and self-doubt.

From here, a second Adagio veers between inward musing and explosive pizzicato outbursts as provoked impassioned responses. The emotional ante duly upped, the final Allegro surges forth with new-found energy and purpose – taking in a truculent, folk-tinged episode before breaking off for a return to those pizzicato exchanges. Performances of this work often lose focus at this juncture, but the Danel brooked no compromise as the movement fairly hurtled to a close of manic defiance in what was a notable instance of music ‘playing’ its musicians.

Quite a performance with which to end this latest instalment of the Danel’s dual odyssey but, as has become usual, an encore was forthcoming: the Polka from the ballet The Golden Age affording a sardonic postlude with the insouciance of an earlier, not necessarily ‘golden’ age.

You can hear the music from the concert below, in recordings made by Quatuor Danel -including their most recent cycle of the Shostakovich quartets on Accentus:

For more information on the next concert in the series, visit the Wigmore Hall website. You can click on the names for more on composer Mieczysław Weinberg and Quatuor Danel themselves.

Published post no.2,236 – Saturday 19 October 2024

In concert – Sheku Kanneh-Mason, Sinfonia of London / John Wilson: Hesketh, Shostakovich & Rachmaninov @ Barbican Hall

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Sheku Kanneh-Mason (cello), Sinfonia of London / John Wilson

Hesketh PatterSongs (2008)
Shostakovich Cello Concerto no.2 in G major Op.126 (1966)
Rachmaninov Symphony no.1 in D minor Op.13 (1895-7)

Barbican Hall, London
Tuesday 15 October 2024

Reviewed by Ben Hogwood Picture (c) Mark Allan

This memorable concert enhanced the Sinfonia of London’s status as orchestral game changers. Conductor John Wilson re-established the ensemble in 2018 as a group taking on special projects, both in the studio for Chandos and in the concert hall. To date these have included early musicals, with Oklahoma! and Carousel in the bag, alongside top drawer recordings of orchestral works by Korngold, Ravel and Rachmaninov. The latter’s Symphony no.1, set down the previous week, completes a cycle of his symphonies.

Before that, we heard an orchestral tour de force from Kenneth Hesketh, fully established as a striking voice in British contemporary music. PatterSongs is a dense orchestral collage of music drawn from his opera The Overcoat, after Gogol. Its colourful score is decorated and ultimately dominated by the woodblock, part of a vibrant percussion section whose contributions bring the piece to theatrical life. They were brilliantly played here, as Wilson kept a tight grip on proceedings. With moods ranging from exuberant to grotesque, the sonics panned between slithering trombones, luscious strings and smoky, jazzy interludes with a slow drumkit. All contributed to the spirit of the dance in an ideal modern concert opener.

The Cello Concerto no.2 by Shostakovich offered a marked contrast. Sheku Kanneh-Mason has a special affinity with the composer’s music, having won the BBC Young Musician of the Year in 2016 with a performance of his first cello concerto. Since then he has also played the scarcely heard Cello Concerto by his contemporary and close friend Weinberg. The second concerto is a very different animal to the first, a private and often worrisome affair whose attempts at jollity and light-heartedness are compromised by music of latent menace. The personality of the concerto’s dedicatee, Mstislav Rostropovich, is never far from the music’s mind.

Kanneh-Mason and Wilson found the work’s qualities, if not its beating heart. This was down to a desire to push for faster tempi, their account not always pausing for breath where it might, as though the silence between notes might give something away. The first movement Largo was ideally pitched, questioning and with the occasional hint of a smile. Ultimately it succumbed to the brooding, omnipresent lower strings, who often finished the soloist’s sentences. The Allegro released this tension with impressive solo cadenzas from Kanneh-Mason, who inhabited the outbursts of energy but received the ideal complement in similar phrases from the outstanding horns (Chris Parkes and Jonathan Quaintrell-Evans), bassoons (Todd Gibson-Cornish and Angharad Thomas), timpani (Antoine Bedewi) and percussion (the superb quintet of Alex Neal, Owen Gunnell, Paul Stoneman, Fiona Ritchie and Elsa Bradley).

The transfer to the finale, while Allegretto as marked, felt breathless, the cello’s recurring sweep up to a top ‘B’ robbed of the room it needed for maximum impact. Similarly the macabre ticking of the percussion was clipped. In spite of this, however, Shostakovich’s feverish statement – direct from the sanatorium where he spent his sixtieth birthday – still made a profound impact. As a side note, how gratifying it was to see Kanneh-Mason, a gracious soloist, acknowledge the orchestral contributions mentioned above, before a well-chosen encore of Weinberg, the 18th of his 24 Preludes for solo cello.

Rachmaninov’s Symphony no.1 received a famously disastrous premiere in 1897, one that would affect its composer’s mental health for many years. Indeed he did not hear the work again in his life, the memory of its ragged and disrupted performance under an intoxicated Glazunov fuelling monumental bouts of self doubt. This account could hardly have been more different, John Wilson presiding over a performance of feverish intensity and white hot rhythmic precision. The Sinfonia of London were simply outstanding, led by a first violin section so fully invested in the music they were practically burning a hole in their musical scores!

Wilson clearly loves this piece, and as they set out the immediate drama of the first movement fugue the Sinfonia added clarity to their list of qualities. The silvery strings and rolling timpani of the Intermezzo were beautifully turned, Wilson heightening the connections with Tchaikovsky, whose Pathétique symphony predated this piece by just one year. It was possible to sense a passing of the baton between the two, such was the strength of feeling generated in this performance.

The slow movement had heavenly strings, its central section with increasingly fractious brass that dissolved with the return of the main theme, Wilson crouching towards the floor as he cajoled the strings to greater heights, with hints again of Tchaikovsky’s Romeo and Juliet.

Everything cut loose in the finale, a thrilling drive to the finish from the jubilant main theme to the crash of the gong at the end – where the percussion section were once again on top form, the full force of Rachmaninov’s orchestra laid bare. In these hands it was difficult to see how the first symphony could be perceived as anything other than a masterpiece, its lean structure supporting powerful emotions and meaningful tunes. Wilson and the Sinfonia of London had them all in spades, finishing a concert that will live long in the memory. My ears are still ringing!

You can find more information on further 2024 concerts of this program at the Sinfonia of London website

Published post no.2,333 – Wednesday 16 October 2024

In concert – Leila Josefowicz, CBSO / Thomas Søndergård: Richard Strauss, Adès & Brahms

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Leila Josefowicz (violin, above), City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra / Thomas Søndergård (below)

Richard Strauss Don Juan Op.20 (1888)
Adès Violin Concerto, Op.24 ‘Concentric Paths’ (2004)
Brahms Symphony no.2 in D major Op.73 (1877)

Symphony Hall, Birmingham
Thursday 10 October 2024

Reviewed by Richard Whitehouse Pictures (c) Tom Zimberoff (Leila Josefowicz), Chris McDuffie (Thomas Søndergård)

He may be spending more time in the US than in the UK these days, but Thomas Søndergård tonight made a timely reappearance with the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra in a programme such as placed a highpoint among recent concertos between two established German classics.

Richard Strauss‘s Don Juan poses few technical issues for an orchestra these days – the only proviso about this performance being its almost too easy unfolding, the initial stages seeming suave rather than impetuous and emotional contrasts following on almost too seamlessly. Yet the central ‘love’ episode featured a melting contribution from oboist Lucie Sprague, with horns duly firing on all cylinders in a unison theme ultimately capped by a silence of tangible anticipation then a postlude of hushed resignation – heroic aspiration submerged in an aura of starkest fatalism.

If much of Thomas Adès’ music the past two decades has been of a conceptual brilliance that outweighs its intrinsic content, the Violin Concerto is destined to endure and rightly so given these Concentric Paths complement each other in a finely balanced totality. One, moreover, with which Leila Josefowicz identifies wholeheartedly: despatching its brief outer movements with an energy and a panache so that Rings conveyed a volatility channelled towards greater affirmation in Rounds; between them, the relatively expansive Paths proved a chaconne as methodical in evolution as it was affecting in its suffused intensity. Assured in her handling of the solo part, Josefowicz dovetailed it unerringly into orchestral writing as resourceful as any the composer has written. Those in the audience unfamiliar with it were most likely won over.

Many of those present were no doubt looking forward to Brahms’ Second Symphony after the interval, where Søndergård (above) and the CBSO did not disappoint. Outwardly its composer’s most equable such piece, this yields more than its share of ambiguities and equivocations that were rarely absent here. Not least in the opening movement, its unforced progress duly taking in an eventful development whose granitic culmination set its easeful themes at a notably uncertain remove, then with a coda whose restive horn solo was eloquently rendered by Elspeth Dutch. Søndergård was no less probing in the Adagio, flexibly paced so its autumnal main theme did not override the more whimsical and anxious elements which inform its longer-term progress. Certainly, the closing reflection on that theme cast a potent shadow on what had gone before.

The other two movements are usually thought to present few if any interpretative problems, so credit to Søndergård for finding no mean pathos in those reiterations of the Intermezzo’s main theme – not least when it returns as a winsome coda. Nor was the final Allegro lacking in incident, such as that spellbinding transition into the reprise whose epiphanic aspect was not lost on Mahler. Given its head without sounding at all rushed, the coda then emerged as the ebullient though never grandstanding peroration which Brahms himself surely intended.

A resounding close to an impressive performance, and there should be more music-making on this level next week when the CBSO is joined for the first time in many years by former chief guest conductor Mark Elder for an enticing programme of Brahms, Janáček and Shostakovich.

For details on the 2024-25 season A Season of Joy, head to the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra website. Click on the names to read more about violinist Leila Josefowicz, conductor Thomas Søndergård and composer Thomas Adès.

Published post no.2,331 – Monday 14 October 2024

In concert – Piotr Anderszewski @ The Barbican: Beethoven, Brahms, Bartók & J.S. Bach

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Piotr Anderszewski (piano, above)

Beethoven 6 Bagatelles, Op.126 (1823)
Brahms Intermezzos (1892-93) – Opp.119/1 & 3; Op.118/1 & 2; Op.117/2; 118/6
Bartók 14 Bagatelles BB50 (1908)
J.S. Bach Partita no.1 in B flat major BWV825 (1726)

Barbican Hall, London
Thursday 3 October 2024

Reviewed by Richard Whitehouse. Photo © MG de Saint Venant licenced to Virgin Classics

Expecting the unexpected is the most predictable aspect of a recital from Piotr Anderszewski, tonight’s programme no exception in its juxtaposing collection by Beethoven and Bartók with a selection from Brahms and music by Bach that has long been a cornerstone of his repertoire.

Alive to their iconoclastic flourishes and improvisatory asides, Beethoven’s last bagatelles yet emerged as a cohesive and integrated unity as it ventured through limpid musing and angular playfulness then disarming elegance before arriving at a propulsive take on the B minor Presto muscular or energetic by turns. The final two numbers were of a piece with what went before – the one understated and the other’s ingratiation bookended by outbursts of grating humour. Nothing to be taken for granted in this music, then, as Anderszewski intimated only too well.

Although published as four separate collections, there is no reason why Brahms’s late piano pieces cannot be given separately or in autonomous groupings as here. Starting with Op. 119, Anderszewski brought a confiding touch to the plaintive B minor Intermezzo and rendered the lilting syncopation of that in C with real playfulness. Turning next to Op. 118 and the forlorn quality of its A minor Intermezzo complemented ably that in A, whose new-found popularity need not detract from its harmonic subtlety or soulful poise. From Op. 117, the B flat minor Intermezzo struck note of ingrained fatalism intensified by that in E flat minor from Op. 118 – its ‘mesto’ marking here underlined as the music unfolded toward an endpoint of unforced resignation. Anderszewski looked regretful it should end so before duly leaving the platform.

As his recent recording confirms, Anderszewski has forged unerring identity with the Op. 6 Bagatelles where Bartók gave notice of his fast-emerging individuality. Played with minimal pauses (albeit with a 3-3-2-2-2-2 grouping such as brought these into line with the six pieces in each of those other sets), they offer a conspectus of possibilities over his ensuing creative decade that was to the fore here, alongside a cumulative focus evident less in any increasing technical demands as in a gradual opening-out of their emotional world made explicit in the final two numbers as doubtless stems from Bartók’s unrequited love for violinist Stefi Geyer. Thus, the sombre restlessness of Elle est morte merged directly into the valse Ma mie qui danse – this latter’s vicious irony maintained right through to its almost dismissive pay-off.

Had Bach ever entertained any such feelings, they were certainly far removed from the keen objectivity of his First Partita. A little restive in its Praeludium, Anderszewski hit his stride in its gently eddying Allemande then animated Courante. There was no lack of gravitas in its Sarabande, but this was as deftly inflected as was the elegance of its contrasted Menuet dances, then the Gigue made a dextrous yet assertive conclusion to a sequence where (as in everything heard tonight) what was made possible outweighs what had already been achieved.

It would have been possible to combine these works with other pieces – maybe some or even all of Ligeti’s Musica ricercata that Anderszewski will hopefully play at a future recital. For now, a limpid reading of Chopin’s Mazurka in A flat major (Op.58/2) made for an ideal envoi.

To read more on Piotr Anderszewski, visit his website

Published post no.2,321 – Friday 4 October 2024

In Concert – Alina Ibragimova & Cédric Tiberghien @ Wigmore Hall: Janáček, Enescu, Barry & Beethoven

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Alina Ibragimova (violin), Cédric Tiberghien (piano)

Janáček Violin Sonata in G sharp minor JW VII/7 (1913-15, rev. 1916-22)
Enescu Violin Sonata no.3 in A minor Op.25 ‘Dans le caractère populaire roumain’ (1926)
Barry Triorchic Blues (1990, rev. 1992)
Beethoven Violin Sonata no.9 in A major Op.47 ‘Kreutzer’ (1802-03)

Wigmore Hall, London
Saturday 28 September 2024

Reviewed by Richard Whitehouse

The duo of Alina Ibragimova and Cédric Tiberghien has offered some memorable recitals at Wigmore Hall during the past few seasons, with this evening’s typically diverse programme ranging over almost two centuries of compositions for the combination of violin and piano.

A first half of complementary opposites began with the Violin Sonata by Janáček. Ensuring cohesion across its four highly contrasted movements is no easy task, but the present artists succeeded admirably in this respect. Thus, the opening Con moto had an edgy ambivalence which was allayed in the Ballada – its relative repose and expressive warmth infused with a nostalgia as likely reflects the composer’s youth (and may indeed derive from one of those long-lost sonatas written while studying in Leipzig and Vienna 35 years earlier). Despite its marking, the Allegretto is a tensile scherzo whose frequently combative interplay was much in evidence here; the final Adagio then pivoting between stark plangency and a heightened eloquence which subsided into an ending whose muted regret was unmistakably to the fore.

Whatever the conceptual or aesthetic gulf between them, Enescu’s Third Sonata followed on with some inevitability. This was inspired by and recreates without quoting traditional music, as its subtitle duly indicates, and Ibragimova was alive to the musing inwardness of an initial Moderato whose ‘malinconico’ consistently undercuts any formal or expressive resolution up to a close where the songful and dance-like themes disperse into silence. The highlight was a central Andante of sustained though unforced intensity, its improvisatory aspect a stern test of coordination violinist and pianist met head-on. Almost as compelling, the final Allegro lacked a degree of inevitability in its unfolding – Tiberghien’s superbly articulated pianism less than implacable at the close, for all that Ibragimova conveyed its ominous ecstasy in full measure.

Beginning life as a test-piece for solo piano and adapted for numerous media, Triorchic Blues is Gerald Barry at his most uninhibited and would have made an ideal encore in this context – but its ever more scintillating opposition of instruments was not out of place after the interval.

This second half ended with the grandest of Beethoven’s violin sonatas, its ‘Kreutzer’ subtitle misleading yet indicative of this music’s inherent virtuosity. Ibragimova and Tiberghien made an impressive cycle of these works for the Wigmore’s own label, so it was surprising to find them at slightly below their best here. Not in the central Andante con variazioni, its judicious fusion of slow movement and scherzo rendered with unfailing poise and an acute sense of the profundity drawn out of so unassuming a theme. Yet, after its suitably arresting introduction, the first movement lacked drama – the duo playing down its rhetoric not least in a less than impulsive coda. The relentless tarantella-rhythm that underpins the finale felt similarly reined in with, again, too little of an emotional frisson as this music vividly reinforces the home-key.

What was never in doubt was their quality of playing individually and collectively, making one anticipate future recitals by these artists which will hopefully find them exploring more of that extraordinary corpus of music for violin and piano of the early and mid-20th century.

For more on the Autumn season visit the Wigmore Hall website. For more on the artists, click on the names Alina Ibragimova (violin), Cédric Tiberghien (piano), and click here for more on composer Gerald Barry

Published post no.2,316 – Sunday 22 September 2024