Category Archives: In concert

In concert – Llŷr Williams plays Schumann @ Wigmore Hall

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Llŷr Williams (piano)

Schumann
Papillons Op.2 (1830-1)
Nachtstücke Op.23 (1839-40)
Faschingsschwank aus Wien Op.26 (1839-40)

Wigmore Hall, London
Friday 12 January 2024 (1pm)

by Ben Hogwood

After extensive examinations of the piano output of Beethoven and Schubert, Llŷr Williams has turned his attention to Robert Schumann. This lunchtime concert at the Wigmore Hall celebrated the release of a double album on Signum Classics starting a series devoted to the composer’s piano works. On this evidence there will be some revelations in store.

That Williams loves Schumann’s music was evident from with the languid introductory chords to Papillons. This early work from the 21-year-old composer is a masked ball, a chance not just to enjoy his love of butterflies but to present a closely connected set of miniature portraits for piano. In a good performance they capture the listener’s imagination, and under Williams’ fingers the music took flight. The clarity of his phrasing was immediately notable, revealing the exquisite details of Schumann’s melodic creations and taking time to let them breathe. With the improvisatory seventh piece (marked Semplice) the ink felt barely dry on the page, while the mood ranged from a relatively stern third piece to a playful eleventh, enjoying the brisk fanfares. Best of all was the Finale, where clever use of the sustain pedal left us with a marching band whose bright melodies hung on the air, the drone of the horns left for the listener to savour.

The Nachtstücke are lesser-known pieces, but Williams revealed just why they should be heard more often. He also revealed something of the turbulent period in which they were composed, with Schumann aware of the imminent death of his brother Eduard and travelling to Vienna in an attempt to alleviate his family’s precarious financial position. Because of this, the nocturnal dreams we might expect from other composers is trumped by active and often troubled thoughts, flitting quickly between moods and contrasting emotions. Williams, though, untangled the knots of Schumann’s musical thoughts. The solemn tread of the first piece, a funeral march, had forward purpose, while the second was a flurry of activity, thoughts running almost out of control until checked by a relatively dreamy central section. At all times Williams was in control of his characterisations, so much so that it was easy to forget the technical demands of this music. This was certainly the case in the outpouring of the third piece, before the chorale and related solos of the fourth were beautifully judged and complemented.

Finally we heard Faschingsschwank aus Wien, companion pieces to the Nachtstücke also written during the ultimately unsuccessful visit to the Austrian capital. These present a different side to Schumann, with Williams enjoying the humour of the first piece, with its catchy motif and cheeky reference to La Marseillaise.  This vigorous start contrasted with a heartfelt Romance and a deeper, flowing Intermezzo – between which the Scherzino reasserted the prevailing mischievous mood. So too, did the Finale, where the virtuosity was again beyond question, the helter-skelter figures once again used for poetic purpose rather than display. Williams proved a revelation in Schumann, bringing even his most complex character pieces to life – and maintaining a remarkable clarity of line as he did so. If he keeps this up, there are many treats in store as he journeys further into Schumann’s poetic and deeply personal world.

You can hear Llŷr Williams’ new recording on Spotify below:

Published post no.2,056 – Sunday 14 January 2024

In concert – Sebastian Rochford & Kit Downes @ Kings Place

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Sebastian Rochford (drums), Kit Downes (piano)

Kings Place, London, 11 January 2024

by John Earls. Photo credit (c) John Earls

In January 2023 Sebastian Rochford (drums) and Kit Downes (piano) released A Short Diary, a profound and moving musical expression of loss for Rochford’s father, the poet and academic Gerard Rochford.

A year on, this concert consisted mainly of a performance of that album and was equally touching, not least because Rochford gave a little commentary between tunes, his voice as soft as his brush strokes and no less affecting.

Both Rochford and Downes have been involved in many different collaborations, but this is a particularly satisfying partnership. It is articulate, sensitive and compelling. It is also beautifully expressive, Downes through the keyboard and Rochford with drums and a mix of drumsticks, brushes, mallets, pedal, hands and fingers. The engagement between them and their listening to each other was something to behold.

The set opened, as does the album, with This Tune Your Ears Will Never Hear where the portentous music and heart-rending title set the tone. Communal Decisions is an astute musical illustration of competing demands with Rochford referring to the experience of balancing familial dynamics at the time of his father’s death (he has two brothers and seven sisters).

The more whimsical Love You Grampa was inspired by the notes Rochford’s niece used to leave for his father around the house. The melodic Silver Light was delicate and wistful. In a slight change of tone, the latter part of Ten of Us (remember all those brothers and sisters?) was played with an energy and passion which saw Rochford and Downes at their most animated.

The final number of the set was the only tune not composed by Rochford. Even Now I Think of Her was composed by his father, who sung it into his phone and sent it to Rochford, who passed it on to Downes’ phone for him to transcribe. It’s as endearing as the story behind it.

There were two new pieces performed. The Energy of Light, played midway in the set, is a rhythmic affair with Rochford and Downes both getting into the tempo. To the Country I Was Born was played as an encore and is a tribute to Rochford’s birthplace of Scotland – a fitting choice as this was the opening concert of Kings Place’s Scotland Unwrapped series which runs throughout the year. It was a tuneful and fitting end to this most personal of musical evenings.

John Earls is Director of Research at Unite the Union and tweets / updates his ‘X’ content at @john_earls

For more information on the album head to the ECM website – and click on the names for websites devoted to the music of Seb Rochford and Kit Downes

In concert – Paul Lewis, CBSO / Tabita Berglund: Sibelius, Grieg & Tchaikovsky

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Paul Lewis (piano), City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra / Tabita Berglund

Sibelius Pohjola’s Daughter Op.49 (1906)
Grieg Piano Concerto in A minor Op.16 (1868)
Tchaikovsky Symphony no.5 in E minor Op.64 (1888)

Symphony Hall, Birmingham
Thursday 11th January 2024 [2.15pm]

Reviewed by Richard Whitehouse

Entering 2024 with this attractive programme, the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra was conducted by Tabita Berglund – the Norwegian who, though unrelated to the late, great Paavo, seems certain to become one of the most significant conductors from her generation.

It was with Sibelius that the programme commenced, Pohjola’s Daughter lying on the cusp between its composer’s nationalistically inclined Romanticism and the relative Classicism that ensued. Pointedly so given the composer derived his inspiration from the Kalevala, in which its totemic figure Väinämöinen is outwitted by the ‘daughter of the North’, as the basis for a symphonic fantasia which critiques as surely as it remodels its underlying sonata design. Other interpreters have ensured a more seamless cohesion, but the acute characterization that Berglund brought to each episode, then the emotional frisson when those main motifs come together for a powerful apotheosis, compelled admiration – as did the closing pages in which Sibelius cannily fragments form and texture so all that remains is an all-enveloping silence.

Its ubiquity across 150 years should not distract attention from the innovative qualities found in Grieg’s Piano Concerto, and if his was not a consciously recreative approach, Paul Lewis gave a performance as appealing as it was insightful. Not least in an opening Allegro whose melodic directness was always balanced by a tangible sense of where this music was headed, and culminating in a take on the lengthy cadenza that infused its rhetoric with an inevitability worthy of Beethoven. There was expressive light and shade aplenty in the central Adagio, as too an unforced progress to the heartfelt restatement of its main theme. The outer sections of the final Allegro had no lack of impetus, as if to emphasize contrast with its rapt flute melody that closes the work in a thrilling peroration where soloist and conductor were rightly as one.

After the interval, Tchaikovsky’s Fifth Symphony emerged as a forceful and combative piece with its occasional longueurs convincingly held in check. Not least in an opening movement, the simmering expectancy of whose introduction intensified throughout what followed. Any short-windedness of phrasing was absent in the Andante cantabile, its indelible horn melody serenely intoned by Elspeth Dutch then its interplay between slow-burning eloquence and violent interjections of the ‘fate’ theme astutely judged on route to a warmly resigned coda.

Ostensibly an interlude, the Valse has a charm and, in its central trio, insouciance as belies its formal ingenuity that Berglund conveyed in full measure. Nor was there any sense of overkill as the Finale pursued a purposeful but never headlong course – its initial restatement of the main theme exuding an expressive focus matched by that of its climactic reappearance, here without risk of bathos in what brought the performance to a decisive and affirmative close. Certainly, the composer’s doubts as to any ‘insincerity’ proved unfounded on this occasion. It also confirmed a rapport between Berglund and the CBSO which will hopefully continue. Next week, however, brings the return of Kazuki Yamada for a wide-ranging programme of Berlioz, Walton and the world premiere of a newly commissioned work from Dai Fujikura.

Click on the link to read more on the current CBSO concert season, and on the artist names for more on Tabita Berglund and Paul Lewis

Published post no.2,054 – Friday 12 January 2024

In concert – Janine Jansen and friends play Brahms @ Wigmore Hall

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Janine Jansen (violin), Timothy Ridout (viola), Daniel Blendulf (cello), Denis Kozhukhin (piano)

Brahms
Violin Sonata no.2 in A major Op.100 (1886)
Viola Sonata no.2 in E flat major Op.120/2 (1894)
Piano Quartet no.3 in C minor Op.60 (1855-75)

Wigmore Hall, London
Thursday 21 December 2023

Reviewed by Ben Hogwood. Photos of Janine Jansen & Timothy Ridout (c) Marco Borggreve

After the unfortunate cancellation of a concert in her series the previous week, violinist Janine Jansen and friends returned to health and to a Christmassy Wigmore Hall for another all-Brahms programme.

Jansen (above) and pianist Denis Kozhukhin (below) began with the Violin Sonata no.2, a late substitution for the first sonata but a breath of fresh air on a winter evening. One of Brahms’s best-loved chamber piece, its charming first theme has enough to weaken the hardest heart. So it was here, with Jansen’s affectionate playing. Her creamy tone was complemented by the incisive piano playing of Kozhukhin, who was deceptively relaxed in his body language but very much in tune with Brahms’s intricate rhythms and phrasing. The two excelled in the central section of the second movement, which tripped along with admirable definition of those rhythms, and in the finale, where the two enjoyed a more assertive musical dialogue.

Brahms’s last completed chamber work followed, Kozhukhin joined by violist Timothy Ridout (below) for a performance of the Viola Sonata no.2, arranged by Brahms from the clarinet original. This account exhibited elegance, poise and no little power. Ridout’s burnished tone was ideal for the music, capturing the shadowy outlines of music from a composer in his twilight years, but putting down suitably firm markers in the second movement. Ridout’s high register playing was a treat throughout, his tuning exemplary, and as the two players navigated the theme and five variations of the finale there was an ideal give and take between the part-writing. Particularly memorable was the plaintive stillness of the fourth variation, its mystery dispelled by the affirmative ending.

After the interval we heard the Piano Quartet no.3, competed in 1875 when Brahms was working on the completion of his first symphony. The two works have a good deal in common, beyond sharing the same tonality, for Brahms brings an orchestral dimension to his writing for the four instruments. This grouping needed no invitation to take up the mantle, powering through the first movement with relish, their dramatic account notable for strength of tone and unity of ensemble playing. Jansen and Ridout in particular stood out, their unisons absolutely as one, yet the real hero of the performance was Kozhukhin, elevating the heroic elements of a score closely associated with Goethe’s Werther while keeping the nervousness emanating from Brahms’s syncopated rhythms.

Lest he be forgotten, cellist Daniel Blendulf (above) delivered an understated solo of considerable beauty to begin the Andante, providing respite from the high voltage drama elsewhere but getting to the heart of Brahms’s soulful writing for the instrument. The quartet regrouped for the finale, another show of breathtaking power but with room for reverence in the chorale themes and their development. For all the bravura the air of uneasiness remained as an undercurrent, Brahms never quite at rest even when the quartet reached its emphatic conclusion. This was a truly memorable performance, capping an outstanding evening of music making for which all involved should be immensely proud.

Published post no.2,047 – Friday 22 December 2023

In Concert – Gavin Bryars at 80 @ Barbican Hall & St. Martin-in-the-Fields

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Gavin Bryars Ensemble; David Wordsworth (conductor); Sarah Gabriel (soprano); David James (countertenor); Mahan Esfahani (harpsichord); The Addison Chamber Choir

Barbican Hall, London, 19 December 2023

Gavin Bryars Ensemble; The Choir with No Name; Streetwise Opera

St Martin-in-the-Fields, London, 9 November 2023

by John Earls. Photo credit (c) John Earls

To see Gavin Bryars’ classic Jesus’ Blood Never Failed Me Yet performed twice in the space of six weeks is quite special. But this is the composer and double bassist’s 80th birthday year, and both concerts were celebrations of that milestone.

Jesus’ Blood Never Failed Me Yet is something of a signature composition for Bryars. Many will be familiar with the story of how he was working on a film documentary about people living rough in London in 1971 and was left with an unused tape of a homeless man singing this religious song. He put the 26-second clip on a loop and composed a slowly evolving and haunting orchestral accompaniment that respected the man’s – to use Bryars’ own words – ‘nobility and faith’.

So it was particularly touching to be at a performance on 9th November at London’s St Martin-in-the-Fields church where the Gavin Bryars Ensemble were accompanied by the Choir With No Name, the choir charity for homeless and marginalised people. Starting with the tape of the unnamed man, the ensemble slowly built its accompaniment around it and the choir joined in the refrain to powerful and moving effect.

I should confess that my 1975 Obscure Records version of Jesus’ Blood Never Failed Me Yet has been a long-cherished part of my record collection. It is coupled with The Sinking of the Titanic, a work inspired by the story that the band on the ‘unsinkable’ liner continued to play as it sank in 1912, and was given an absorbing performance in the first half of this concert along with The Open Road, where the ensemble was joined by Streetwise Opera who work with people who have experienced homelessness.

Jesus’ Blood Never Failed Me Yet was also at the centre of another concert by a larger GB Ensemble (extra cello and violas plus piano and percussion) at London’s Barbican Hall on 19th December, where they were joined by the Addison Chamber Choir. Here, the choir were somewhat more refined and restrained in harmonic accompaniment but no less affecting. It was a truly beautiful performance which received a deserved standing ovation.

The Barbican concert also featured Duets from Doctor Ox’s Experiment, five revised duets from Bryars’ 1998 opera sung by soprano Sarah Gabriel and countertenor David James. Whilst musically engaging (particularly the fifth duet) it suffered from the all too familiar issue of not being able to hear Blake Morrison’s libretto clearly enough (the words were printed in the digital programme). There was also a lovely Ramble on Cortona and a dramatic After Handel’s Vesper, a solo harpsichord piece played by Mahan Esfahani. Special mention should be made of James Woodrow on electric guitar whose playing throughout was atmospheric and never obtrusive. Both the concerts concluded joyously with Epilogue from Wonderlawn.

In introducing Jesus’ Blood Never Failed Me Yet at the St Martin-in-the-Fields concert Bryars spoke sincerely about how much the piece still means to him after all these years. These two performances amply demonstrated not only how that unknown man’s voice can still touch one’s heart, but why the piece of music that came from it remains so relevant and powerful today.

John Earls is Director of Research at Unite the Union and tweets / updates his ‘X’ content at @john_earls

For more information click on the names for more on the St Martin-in-the-Fields Charity, Choir With No Name and Streetwise Opera