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In concert – Steven Isserlis and Friends – Fauré at the Wigmore Hall (5)

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Steven Isserlis (cello) – with Joshua Bell, Irène Duval (violins), Blythe Teh Engstroem (viola), Connie Shih, Jeremy Denk (pianos)

Fauré Dolly Suite Op.56 (1894-6)
Enescu Pièce sur le nom de Fauré (1922)
Ravel arr. Garban Berceuse sur le nom de Garbriel Fauré M74 (1922)
Koechlin Hommage à Gabriel Fauré Op.73bis (1922)
Fauré Cello Sonata no.2 in G minor Op.117 (1921)
Fauré String Quartet in E minor Op.121 (1923-4)

Wigmore Hall, London
Tuesday 5 November 2024

Reviewed by Richard Whitehouse Picture (c) Wigmore Hall Trust

So to the final concert of this series, curated by cellist Steven Isserlis and centred on Fauré’s larger chamber works in the centenary of his death. The last of five concerts was rounded out in its coverage by including his most popular work for piano duet, along with miniatures from several pupils of one who was held in equal esteem as a teacher.

It is doubtless as easy to describe the Dolly Suite with patronizing charm as it is to play it so but, with Jeremy Denk and Connie Shih an alert if always sensitive partnership, there was no likelihood of this latter. A limpid take on the evergreen Berceuse was followed by no less a deft rendition of Mi-a-ou; the ineffable charm of Le jardin de Dolly made a telling foil to the skittish evocation (of a dog) that is Kitty-valse, then the searching poise of Tendresse created a delightful contrast with that affectionate send-up of Chabrier in Le pas espagnol.

Quite why the journal Le Revue chose Fauré’s 77th year to publish an edition devoted to his music is unclear, but it did enable seven former students to express their admiration through miniatures that encapsulate his own idiom as surely as theirs. Hence the intricate texture and enfolding harmony of Enescu’s Pièce, the pert elegance of Ravel’s Berceuse arranged (from its violin-and-piano original by Lucien Garbon), then the gently inflected wit of Koechlin’s Hommage to remind one of the latter composer’s service to Fauré as sometime orchestrator.

These three items were engagingly played (and introduced) by Denk, and it seemed a pity the other four (by Aubert, Ladmirault, Roger-Ducasse and Schmitt) could not have been included – perhaps at the start of the second half – given the appositeness of the programme. This first half ended with the Second Cello Sonata which, while it resembles its predecessor in form, is appreciably more forthcoming as to expression. It is evidently a work that Steven Isserlis first played as a teenager, and there could be no mistaking his identity with the close-knit dialogue of its opening Allegro, pathos bordering on the elegiac of its central Andante that started out as music commemorating the centenary of Napoleon’s death, and effervescence of a finale as endows what is otherwise typical late Fauré with a genial humour never less than captivating.

After the interval, this series ended in the only way possible with the String Quartet that was Fauré’s last work. In his initial remarks, Isserlis mentioned how long it had taken for him to ‘get’ this piece and, indeed, its three movements each unfolds in a seamless polyphonic flow which can feel disconcerting even in the context of the composer’s other late chamber works. Whether or not they play it frequently, Joshua Bell, Irène Duval, Blythe Teh Engstroem and Isserlis audibly had its measure – their steady though always flowing tempo for its Allegro moderato ideally complemented by the luminous radiance of its Andante; before its Allegro elides elements of scherzo and finale in music whose dextrous pizzicato writing and gently cumulative intensity conveys an affirmation that speaks of a challenge, and a life, fulfilled.

As a work and as a performance, it set the seal in the only way possible on a series of concerts through which the quality and substance of Fauré’s chamber music could not have been more eloquently confirmed, which is just as should be expected from a retrospective of this nature.

You can watch the concert below, thanks to the Wigmore Hall YouTube channel:

For more information on the Fauré series, visit the Wigmore Hall website – while you can also read Arcana’s interview with Steven Isserlis about the French composer

Published post no.2,355 – Thursday 5 November 2024

In concert – Steven Isserlis and Friends – Fauré at the Wigmore Hall (3)

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Steven Isserlis (cello) – with Joshua Bell, Irène Duval (violins), Blythe Teh Engstroem (viola), Jeremy Denk, Connie Shih (pianos)

Fauré Violin Sonata no.1 in A major Op.13 (1875-6)
Saint-Saëns Piano Trio no.2 in E minor Op.92 (1892)
Ysaÿe Solo Violin Sonata in D minor Op.27/3 ‘Ballade’ (1923)
Fauré Piano Quintet no.2 in C minor Op.115 (1919-21)

Wigmore Hall, London
Sunday 3 November 2024

Reviewed by Richard Whitehouse Picture (c) Joanna Bergin

This third instalment of the Wigmore Hall’s journey through Fauré’s larger chamber works, as overseen in typically understated fashion by Steven Isserlis, took in works from (almost) either end of this composer’s output alongside pieces by two very different contemporaries.

It was Joshua Bell’s recovering illness that brought a switch in programme such that tonight began with the First Violin Sonata which established Fauré’s reputation and remains among his best-known works (also the only one of these pieces in a major key). The melodic verve of its initial Allegro responded well to Bell’s tonal warmth, despite marginal loss of focus as the development ran its cumulative course, then the Andante lacked little in lyrical intimacy nor the scherzo in nimble dexterity. That the final Allegro felt less than animated (not much evidence of ‘quasi presto’) was understandable in context and, even if it meant rounding off this performance with less than ideal decisiveness, there could be no doubting the sense of epiphany as its main theme returns transformed for an apotheosis of heightened eloquence.

At a time when Fauré was grappling with the implications of what became his Second Piano Quintet, Saint-Saëns was writing his no less substantial Second Piano Trio with relative ease. Its stylistic retrenchment is not hard to discern, witness the opening movement’s prolonged and ultimately doomed struggle to break free of a main theme riven with doubt and anxiety. Tensions relax appreciably in the sequence of middle movements – a lithe and ingratiating Allegretto, an Andante of ‘song without words’ lyricism, then a Grazioso with more than its touch of quixotic humour – during which, interplay between Bell, Isserlis and Jeremy Denk was at its most felicitous. Returning to weightier issues, the finale takes in some intensively contrapuntal passages prior to a conclusion whose headlong impetus came to the fore here.

After the interval came the third of Ysaÿe’s solo sonatas – the Ballade dedicated to Enescu but, as Bell pointed out, premiered by his teacher Josef Gingold who had been the last pupil of its composer; its ‘introduction and allegro’ format incisively delineated on this occasion.

Thence to Fauré for his Second Piano Quintet. Although written relatively quickly compared to its predecessor, it is no less fastidious in content or elusive in character – witness the initial movement whose harmonic subtlety is accentuated by the flexibility of its rhythmic contours, which latter aspect comes to the fore in a scherzo whose angularity betrays more than a touch of malevolence. Is there a more consummate instance of this composer’s art than its Andante? Once characterized as a synthesis between Beethoven and Wagner, it exudes a transcendent calm entirely its own in which the eloquence of Irène Duval and Blythe Teh Engstroem added appreciably to the underlying affect. If the finale is less remarkable, it injects an impetus that propelled the work to a headily affirmative close which was conspicuous by its presence here. An impressive performance of a masterpiece that, while it will never achieve in popularity what it has in respect, could never seem other than communicative when realized with this empathy – something that should be no less evident in the remaining concerts of this series.

You can watch the concert below, thanks to the Wigmore Hall YouTube channel:

For more information on the Fauré series, visit the Wigmore Hall website – while you can also read Arcana’s interview with Steven Isserlis about the French composer

Published post no.2,353 – Tuesday 5 November 2024

In concert – Steven Isserlis and Friends – Fauré at the Wigmore Hall (2)

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Steven Isserlis (cello) – with Joshua Bell, Irène Duval (violins), Blythe Teh Engstroem (viola), Jeremy Denk, Connie Shih (pianos)

Hahn Variations chantantes (1905)
Fauré Piano Quartet No. 2 in G minor, Op. 45 (1885-6)
Fauré Piano Quintet No. 1 in D minor, Op. 89 (1887-1905)

Wigmore Hall, London
Saturday 2 November 2024

Reviewed by Richard Whitehouse

If it did not get off to quite the start intended due to illness, this Wigmore series centred on Fauré’s chamber works certainly hit its stride with two such pieces from crucial junctures in their composer’s output.

Providing a degree of context was music by Reynaldo Hahn – remembered primarily for his operettas and songs, but whose chamber output is considerable. Hardly a defining statement, Variations chantantes sur un air ancien (its full title) draws on the aria ‘Beato chi può’ from Cavalli’s 1655 opera Xerses for what feels less a set of variations than a sequence of variants of unwavering restraint amply reflecting that blithe detachment of its theme. Steven Isserlis conveyed this in full measure, heard alongside some ingratiating pianism from Connie Shih.

Having achieved a successful balance between formal density and expressive eloquence in its predecessor, his Second Piano Quartet has Fauré laying even greater emphasis on the cyclical transformation of motifs which, hitherto associated with Liszt and Frank, is here imbued with a new cohesion. This is evident from an opening movement whose sonata design unfolds in a constant yet methodical state of change, Isserlis and Joshua Bell restlessly trading exchanges with Blythe Teh Engstroem a lyrical counter-balance and Jeremy Denk the deft anchor-point.

This approach served no less well the ensuing scherzo, with its engaging alternation between pizzicato and bowed playing as well as a tangible mordancy that never quite surfaces. Nor is it entirely absent from a slow movement whose vernal eloquence is informed by more than a little equivocation, and which only waylays continued motivic evolution in the finale. Here the music’s striving towards a decisive while hardly affirmative resolution seemed palpably in evidence, confirming this work to be a triumph of human resilience over existential odds.

If this work marks the culmination of Fauré’s earlier creative maturity, his First Piano Quintet effectively straddles its central phase given the near-on two decades between conception and completion. What had started out for four instruments in four movements ended up as five in three, yet there is nothing tentative about an initial movement whose pervasive introspection belies an emotional eddying no less subtle than the motivic intricacy these players uncovered, and in which the expressively effulgent playing of Irène Duval was an undoubted enrichment.

Less formally involved, the central Adagio prefigures the introspection of its composer’s last years – not least through a seamlessness of texture which, as here, never precludes variety of nuance. After this, the finale can seem less remarkable merely by fulfil its function within the overall scheme, but those thematic elements (of which one the songwriter Bart Howard was evidently aware) that evolve from the previous movements are assuredly realized on route to an apotheosis no less affecting for having delayed its resolution almost until the last moment.

Never neglected but rarely received with more than guarded admiration, Fauré’s late chamber works rely on an advocacy central to such music-making as was heard tonight. Hopefully this will prove no less evident throughout the remaining three programmes in this important series.

You can watch the concert below, thanks to the Wigmore Hall YouTube channel:

For more information on the Fauré series, visit the Wigmore Hall website – while you can also read Arcana’s interview with Steven Isserlis about the French composer

Published post no.2,352 – Monday 4 November 2024

In concert – Steven Isserlis and Friends – Fauré at the Wigmore Hall (1)

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Steven Isserlis (cello), Joshua Bell, Irène Duval (violins), Blythe Teh Engstroem (viola), Jeremy Denk, Connie Shih (pianos)

Fauré Violin Sonata no.2 in E minor Op.108 (1916-7)
Saint-Saëns Piano Trio no.1 in F major Op.18 (1863)
Nadia Boulanger 3 pièces for cello and piano (1914)
Fauré Piano Quartet no.1 in C minor Op.15 (1876-9, rev. 1883)

Wigmore Hall, London
Friday 1 November 2024

Reviewed from the online stream by Ben Hogwood Photo (c) Satoshi Aoyagi

As the saying goes, the best laid plans of mice and men often go awry. And so it was that this five-part festival at the Wigmore Hall, two years in the planning to mark 100 years since the death of Gabriel Fauré, was compromised by bad fortune that had violinist Joshua Bell suffering from sickness, unable to perform the first work on the programme.

Yet, as cellist and curator Steven Isserlis announced from the platform, there was a silver lining, thanks to Irène Duval – who stepped in to head the Violin Sonata no.2, programmed instead of its predecessor. Thus we heard the first chamber work of the French composer’s celebrated late period, dating from the middle of the First World War, when Fauré had lost his hearing and his son Philippe had been sent to the frontline. Not surprisingly the sonata is invested with concentrated feeling, brought straight to the surface by Duval’s searching tone and Connie Shih’s assertive piano, both fully inside the music. The first movement found brief consolation in its third principal theme, though this was a brief respite in music of passionate and occasionally fraught discourse. The second movement was initially bittersweet in these hands but more obvious serenity was achieved in the long melody of the second theme, beautifully phrased by Duval. The finale, where Fauré finds positivity in the face of his troubles, was sunlit in these hands, with a thoroughly convincing surge to the finish.

Rewinding just over 50 years, we heard music from Fauré’s teacher and long time friend Saint-Saëns – his first major chamber work. The Piano Trio no.1 is full of charm and good humour, and the trio of Shih, Duval and Isserlis enjoyed the cross rhythms of the first movement. Shih met the demands of the composer’s inevitably tricky piano part head on, with some sparkling passages in the right hand. The captivating second movement took us outside, evoking the French mountain regions with a memorable folk-derived theme, recounted by the strings in a solemn unison. Contrasting with this was the light-footed Scherzo, the players enjoying Saint-Saëns’ playful syncopations, and the confident finale, surging forward with a conviction confirming the composer would have many more such moments in his compositional career. The players’ enjoyment was abundantly clear.

After the interval came music from Fauré’s pupil Nadia Boulanger, usually renowned as a teacher but increasingly recognised as an accomplished composer. The 3 Pièces for cello and piano fully deserve their more frequent airings in concert halls today, for they are brilliantly written and full of originality. Isserlis enjoyed the singing high register of the Modéré, its melody gradually descending to ground like a butterfly. The two players enjoyed the canon of the second piece before the bold outlines of the quickstep third, a little prophetic of Debussy’s Cello Sonata a year later. Isserlis and Shih were brilliant throughout.

The Piano Quartet no.1 in C minor is one of Fauré’s (above) best-loved works, though it experienced a turbulent composition period in the wake of the dissolution of the composer’s engagement. This is however rarely evident in the music, constructed with elegance and control – though there is plenty of room for expression, as the four players found here.

The first principles of chamber music were on show from the start – for this quartet were playing as one, very much a team rather than a collection of soloists. Such a quality is of great importance in Fauré, his music often containing long and thrilling melodies such as that found at the outset, beautifully played.

Joshua Bell showed commendable energy in spite of his ill health, his sweeter violin tone complemented by Jeremy Denk’s authoritative piano playing, the burnished tone of Blythe Teh Engstroem’s viola and Isserlis’ cello, with lovingly phrased melodies as part of the all-important counterpoint. The syncopations of the second movement, one of Fauré’s calling cards, were deftly handled by the trio and brilliantly led by Denk, the players watching each other closely. Meanwhile the Adagio found time for contemplation, laden with sadness but with an enduring brightness led by Bell’s brighter tone.

The finale found renewed strength in its assertive unison themes, winning through to a thrilling and jubilant finish in spite of the occasional shadow cast in the quieter passages. The closing flourish put the seal on a wonderful first concert which bodes well for the series, providing – as Isserlis said – that the players stay in good health. Should they do so a whole series of treats await.

For more information on the Fauré series, visit the Wigmore Hall website – while you can also read Arcana’s interview with Steven Isserlis about the French composer

Published post no.2,350 – Saturday 2 November 2024