In concert – Laura van der Heijden & Jâms Coleman @ Wigmore Hall – Pohádka: Tales from Prague to Budapest

Posted on by
Reply

Laura van der Heijden (cello), Jâms Coleman (piano)

Janáček Pohádka (1910, rev. 1912-23)
Dvořák Gypsy Songs Op. 55: Songs my mother taught me (1880)
Kaprálová Navždy from Navždy Op. 12 (1936-7)
Mihály Movement for cello and piano (1962)
Kodály 3 Songs to Poems by Bela Balazs Op. posth.: Why are you saying that you do not love me (1907-9); Énekszó Op. 1: Slender is a silk thread (1907-9)
Sonatina for cello and piano (1909)
Janáček Violin Sonata (1914-15, rev.1916-22)

Wigmore Hall, London, 9 March 2022

reviewed by Ben Hogwood Pictures (c) Olivia Da Costa (Laura van der Heijden), Sim Canetty-Clarke (Jâms Coleman)

It bears repeating that times are tough for new artists in music. Competition is fierce, while opportunities for live performance and recording have been severely hampered over the last two years of lockdown and pandemic restrictions. How refreshing, then, to talk about two new artists, a long term agreement with Chandos and a chamber music album notable for its originality and depth of expression.

The new artists, cellist Laura van der Heijden and her musical partner, pianist Jâms Coleman, have been performing together since 2017. Their debut album, for which this concert was an official launch, looks at music from Central and Eastern Europe with its roots in folk, either written directly for cello and piano or falling naturally into a vocal range.

The album shares its title, Pohádka, with a three-part fairy tale for cello and piano by Janáček, based on a Russian tale. This began the concert, a picture book performance bringing the story to life with sharp characterisation and flair. Janacek used a good deal of his music to explore macabre storylines and this was no exception, though the lighter, more lyrical moments were good fun. van der Heijden’s tone was sonorous and projected easily to the back of the hall, while Coleman’s stylish playing was capped with limpid work in the second section.

We then heard arrangements of two songs from Dvořák and Vítězslava Kaprálová as an idea complement, the former transcribing beautifully from voice to cello, with tasteful ornamentation from the cello. It was good to hear more of Kaprálová, a talented Czech composer who tragically died from tuberculosis when she was just 25. Her music immediately cast a spell, Coleman’s mysterious chords matched by a remote but moving line from the cello in its higher register.

Different qualities were required for the music of Hungarian composer and conductor András Mihály. His Movement for cello and piano was a dramatic rollercoaster, and rather volatile at times – reflecting perhaps the differing styles at play in modern music when it was written in 1962. While there were undoubtedly elements of Bartók and even Webern in the music’s contours, which veered into atonality at times, there was a fierce expression suggesting Mihály’s music should be explored further. Both players responded with a terrific performance, mastering the technical demands.

Zoltán Kodály was also an influence on Mihály, and his music suits the cello hand in glove, whether in large-scale sonatas or shorter, folk-informed songs. We heard two songs here, the cello a doleful voice for Why are you saying that you do not love me, while Slender is a silk thread found Coleman beautifully spinning out the silvery tale. However the single-movement Sonatina for cello and piano, at just under 10 minutes, made a lasting impression with its passion, profound lyricism and subtle melancholy. The performers’ love for this piece was clear, and the high voltage account found them finishing each other’s musical sentences.

The same could be said for Janáček’s Violin Sonata, a pungent piece whose proximity to World War One is evident in the rapid fire of its phrases. The composer’s unusual musical language was once again wholly compelling, with broad lyrical statements countered by strange, abrupt full stops to his melodies. The parallels with the current situation in Ukraine were impossible to ignore, especially with the emotion both players brought to the second movement Ballada, its sweeping melodies reaching skyward. Ultimately the acidic third and fourth movements cast a cloud over the mood, the players vividly depicting the distant sound of gunfire alongside more thoughtful introspection. van der Heijden was commendably modest about her own arrangement of the Sonata, for cello and piano, an extremely successful version losing none of the intensity or fractious treble phrases. Both players were superb, their virtuosity and togetherness notable throughout.

This was an extremely rewarding concert, energetic and romantic in turn but also thought-provoking through its wartime undercurrents. Laura van der Heijden and Jâms Coleman deserve great credit for their refreshing take on a chamber music album, which bodes well for their ongoing relationship with one of Britain’s best classical independents. Theirs is a partnership to watch closely.

Watch and listen

Switched On – Charlotte Harding: III (TRI Remix)

Posted on by
Reply

Composer Charlotte Harding returns with the intriguing track III, marking her debut as a solo artist.

Her new track, shown here in TRI Remix form, uses a string quintet and plays around with their sounds to make a musical language Harding calls ‘clectro’. Put simply, clectro = classical + electronic!

If you watch the video, directed by John Minton with artwork from Keaton Henson, you will see how the description is rather apt – and also get an idea for Harding’s powers of invention. She looks set to bring a fresh approach to the meeting point of the two styles – we will certainly keep our ears peeled for more!

You can read more about Charlotte Harding’s work at the Faber Alt. website, and also her own website here

In concert – Daniel Rowland, English Symphony Orchestra / Kenneth Woods: Poulenc, Philip Sawyers & Mozart

Posted on by
Reply

daniel-rowland

Poulenc Sinfonietta FP141 (1947)
Sawyers Viola Concerto (2020) [World Premiere]
Mozart Symphony No. 40 in G minor K550 (1788)

Daniel Rowland (violin), English Symphony Orchestra / Kenneth Woods

The Priory, Great Malvern
Saturday 5 March 2022

Written by Richard Whitehouse

Having relocated from Hereford to Great Malvern, the English Symphony Orchestra’s second concert this weekend followed a broadly similar format with, once again, a first public hearing for a recent concerto by its former Composer-in-Association and now its Composer Laureate.

First, though, a welcome revival for the Sinfonietta that Poulenc wrote for the founding of the BBC’s Third Programme (later Radio Three). The composer wrote little music for orchestra outside a concertante or theatrical context, making this piece from his maturity more valuable. Poulenc’s aesthetic may have been avowedly non-symphonic, but there is no lack of formal focus in an opening Allegro as was suitably impetuous here; nor of capering wit in a scherzo that only marginally outstays its welcome. Not so the Andante, whose fusion of ingratiating charm and restive pathos is almost a character portrait. A showcase, too, for woodwind such as the players seized upon gratefully – the orchestra entering into the spirit of the final Rondo with an abandon neatly offset by the introspective closing pages with their equivocal pay-off.

Not wishing to invoke the joke about buses, but Philip Sawyers had directly followed up the Double Concerto heard yesterday with a Viola Concerto for Daniel Rowland. The outward three-movement trajectory is retained, but the musical content is appreciably different – not least in the moderately paced Allegro whose substantial initial tutti outlines numerous ideas explored extensively if understatedly over what follows. Nor does the absence of a cadenza sell short a viola part whose plangent tones are enhanced with the translucent orchestration.

Almost inevitably less immediate than the corresponding movement of its predecessor, the central Andante is absorbing in its meditative soliloquy for the soloist – often in the company of solo wind and whose haunting demeanour is countered though never quite dispelled by the final Allegro. Here the lively refrain provides an outlet such as Rowlands, clearly as adept a violist as he is a violinist, despatched with no mean virtuosity. Once again, it was a sense of the whole work brought formally and expressively full circle as gave the coda its conviction.

Continuing their reverse traversal of Mozart’s final three symphonies, the ESO and Kenneth Woods (above) tonight gave the 40th – most dramatic of the trilogy and whose innovations are easy to take for granted, but whose opening Allegro is never less than compulsive when the trade-off between its indelible main theme and tensile accompaniment was so intently maintained through to the fatalistic coda. The Andante can often feel flaccid but not when directed with such attention to its lilting gait and expressive intensity, while the Menuetto had a rhythmic trenchancy and harmonic acerbity offset by its trio’s repose. The final Allegro unfolded at an ideal tempo – its second-half repeat vindicated by an altered emphasis on the development’s visceral opening sequence, with a heady ratcheting-up of emotion in those very closing bars.

Impressive music-making, and just what was needed in what are suddenly dangerous times. Reason enough, therefore, for having begun this concert (as on the previous night) with the Ukrainian national anthem: an opportunity, however brief, for some much-needed reflection.

For further information on the ESO’s 2021/22 season click here, and for more on composer Philip Sawyers click here Meanwhile for more information on the artists, click on the names to access the websites of Daniel Rowland and Kenneth Woods. Meanwhile for more on musical events at Great Malvern Priory, click here

In concert – Daniel Rowland, Maja Bogdanović, English Symphony Orchestra / Kenneth Woods: Philip Sawyers Double Concerto, Haydn & Mozart

Posted on by
Reply

rowland-bogdanovic

Haydn Symphony No. 96 in D major Hob.1/96 ‘The Miracle’ (1791)
Sawyers Concerto for Violin and Cello (2020) [World Premiere]
Mozart Symphony No. 41 in C major K551 ‘Jupiter’ (1788)

Daniel Rowland (violin), Maja Bogdanović (cello), English Symphony Orchestra / Kenneth Woods

St Peter’s Church, Hereford
Friday 4 March 2022

Written by Richard Whitehouse

The English Symphony Orchestra continued its season with this first in a pair of concerts that featured two recent concertos from its current Composer Laureate, heard alongside symphonic works which have long been – or, in one instance, should be – a part of the standard repertoire.

If not the most often heard of his ‘London Symphonies’, Haydn’s 96th is typical in its formal precision and expressive richness. Not least the opening movement, its ominous introduction the perfect foil to an energetic and often impetuous Allegro, then an Andante whose variations deftly alternate wit with pathos. The ESO’s playing was at its most felicitous both here and in a robust Menuetto, the piquant oboe melody of whose trio was elegantly rendered by Rebecca Wood. Nor was there any lack of incisiveness in the finale’s good-humoured dash to its finish.

Concertos for violin and cello have hardly been numerous, composers doubtless inhibited by Brahms’s example, so credit to Philip Sawyers for rising to the challenge in this piece for the compelling partnership of Daniel Rowland and Maja Bogdanović. As in Sawyers’s previous concertos (for cello, trumpet, and violin), there are three compact movements – the opening Allegro moderato conveying something of a preludial feel through its speculative progress and blurring of formal boundaries such that the music tails away uncertainly toward its close.

It is in the central Andante that this work came into its own, Sawyers’s own experience as a string player evident in the emotional raptness of the soloists’ dialogue and underpinned by eddying orchestral textures which did much to sustain the ongoing eloquence. If the Allegro Vivo, its main idea redolent of Poulenc (or, perhaps, Malcolm Arnold at his wittiest) risked seeming lightweight, the tensile interplay of the soloists along with a sense of the thematic elements coming audibly full circle made for an effervescent and ultimately decisive finale.

An impressive debut, then, for a piece which ought to find favour in this still limited medium. The soloists duly returned for Castillo Interior (2013) by Pēteris Vasks, inspired by the mystic St Teresa of Avila and creating a suitably fervent impression even when abbreviated as here.

Mozart’s final three symphonies will all be heard, in reverse order, over the remainder of the ESO’s current season. This evening brought the 41st whose Jupiter subtitle may have been a posthumous addition, but aptly evokes the work’s essence – not least with an initial Allegro both forthright and impulse as Kenneth Woods heard it. The ensuing Andante felt a little too swift for its ‘cantabile’ fully to register, but its confiding intimacy was fully in evidence – as was the lilting swing then pert elegance of the Menuetto. Woods favoured a rapid tempo for the final Allegro, and it was a tribute to these players that this music’s textural intricacy and underlying momentum were maintained across a lengthy traversal (with all repeats observed) through to a coda whose contrapuntal ingenuity and rhythmic elan were tangibly in evidence. Overall, a persuasive reading of a masterpiece which, as with its predecessor, is all too easily taken for granted. So, too, the assumption that peace will prevail in Europe – reason enough for this evening’s concert to have started with a rendition of the Ukrainian national anthem.

For further information on the ESO’s 2021/22 season click here, and for more on composer Philip Sawyers click here Meanwhile for more information on the artists, click on the names to access the websites of Maja Bogdanović, Daniel Rowland and Kenneth Woods. Meanwhile for more on musical events at St. Peter’s, Hereford, click here

Listening to Beethoven #206 – Christus am Ölberge (Christ on the Mount of Olives), Op.85

Posted on by
Reply

Jesus prays

Christ on the Mount of Olives by Giovanni (aka Josef Untersberger) Date unknown

Christus am Ölberge (Christ on the Mount of Olives) Op.85 for soprano, tenor, baritone, chorus and orchestra (1803, revised 1811, Beethoven aged 32)

Dedication not known
Text Franz Xaver Huber

Duration 45′

Listen

Background and Critical Reception

For the first time since the Joseph cantata of 1790, Beethoven was ready to write another large work for chorus and orchestra. This one was to be biblical, focusing in on a specific part of Christ’s Passion, where in the moment of greatest trial on the Mount of Olives, he begs God to relieve him of his suffering.

Lewis Lockwood tells how Beethoven wrote the work in two weeks, in close collaboration with Franz Xaver Huber, editor of the Wiener Zeitung and occasional librettist. He then writes how ‘Haste is evident in the inconsistent quality of the work, which ranges from routine recitatives and reasonably effective arias for Jesus and the Seraph, to bombastic choral writing for the warriors and youths. Revising it for publication at long last eight years later, he described it defensively and apologetically to Breitkopf & Härtel as ‘my first work of that kind’ (a sacred oratorio) and, moreover, an early work…written in a fortnight in all kinds of disturbances and other unpleasant and distressing events in my life (my brother happened to be suffering from a mortal disease).”

Jan Swafford writes engagingly on the premiere of Christus, the original form given on 5 April 1803 in Vienna, in the company of the first two symphonies and the Piano Concerto no.3. There were ‘tales of long rehearsals, players already fatigued by the other works in the program’…but ‘there was still a full house.’

Early reviews were relatively positive – but although the work ‘was good and contains a few first-rate passages…a number of ideas from Haydn’s Creation seem to have found their way into the final chorus’. Perhaps unexpectedly, Beethoven’s teacher Albrechtsberger was targeted by Gustav Nottebohm for Beethoven’s ‘failure to receive thorough training in the form of the fugue’  – a statement that flies in the face of the Eroica Variations.

Swafford notes the likelihood that ‘after his Heiligenstadt crisis of the precious Autumn, Beethoven felt a personal relationship to the suffering he was depicting. His final verdict, however, is damning. ‘Though Christus has its striking moments and is nothing but skillful, it was then and would remain one of the most misconceived, inauthentic, undigested large works Beethoven ever wrote.’

Thoughts

From the outset of Christus, Beethoven’s intentions are very clear. This is to be a serious and dramatic work, showing its composer’s abilities at writing for large forces and showing off his operatic credentials. Its impact, however, is a little more patchy. The solemn, slow introduction sets the scene and holds the tension, maintained with the arrival of the tenor, who pleads for the ‘cup of suffering’ to be taken from him in an extended solo detailing his pain in long notes.

The arrival of the seraph raises the stakes still higher, and the soprano role really hits the heights in its first aria. By this point Beethoven is in the key of A flat major, a familiar centre for profound solo movements such as that written for the Pathétique sonata, with prominent parts for the wind in counterpoint. The two duet, though the operatic style is relatively jaunty for music depicting intense suffering

The intervention of Christ’s faithful disciple Peter is a dramatic statement of allegiance, and the baritone role adds real gravitas to the piece. We lead to an exultant final chorus is especially Handelian, with strong parallels to Zadok the Priest in its hymn of praise.

Beethoven’s frame of mind when writing Christus would surely have been uneven, his illnesses and deafness at the forefront. The work is a powerful reaction, and feels like a composition Beethoven needed to get out of his system. In spite of its perceived imbalances and flaws it has some powerful music, the composer searching for – and increasingly pinpointing – his voice as a ‘big work’ composer.

Recordings used

Hanna-Leena Haapamäki, Jussi Myllys, Niklas Spångberg, Turku Philharmonic Orchestra, Chorus Cathedralis Aboensis, Leif Segerstam (Naxos)
Elsa Dreisig (soprano), Pavol Breslik (tenor), David Soar (bass-baritone), London Symphony Chorus and Orchestra / Sir Simon Rattle (LSO Live)
Luba Orgonasova (Seraph), Plácido Domingo (Jesus) & Andreas Schmidt (Petrus), Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin & Rundfunkchor Berlin, Kent Nagano (Harmonia Mundi)
James King (tenor), Elizabeth Harwood (soprano), Franz Crass (bass (vocal)), Helmut Froschauer (chorus master), Wiener Symphoniker, Wiener Singverein, Wiener Symphoniker / Bernhard Klee

Recordings of Christus are thin on the ground, and in spite of some spirited accounts it perhaps needs the attention of an established ‘period’ conductor like John Eliot Gardiner. The soloists elevate Kent Nagano’s version, while the recent live account from Sir Simon Rattle and LSO forces is a dramatic one.

Also written in 1803 Salieri Gesù al limbo

Next up Andante favori in F major, WoO 57