Tag Archives: Mikhail Glinka

In concert – Frank Dupree, Philharmonia Orchestra / Santtu-Matias Rouvali: Kapustin, Glinka, Borodin & Rimsky-Korsakov

Posted on by
Reply

Frank Dupree (piano, above), Philharmonia Orchestra / Santtu-Matias Rouvali (below)

Glinka Capriccio brillante (Spanish Overture no.1 ‘Jota Aragonese’) (1845)
Kapustin Piano Concerto no.5 Op.72 (1993)
Borodin Symphony no.2 in B minor (1869 – 1876)
Rimsky-Korsakov Capriccio Espagnol Op.34 (1887)

Royal Festival Hall, London
Thursday 7 March 2024 (7.30pm)

Reviewed by Ben Hogwood Pictures (c) Raphael Steckelbach (Frank Dupree), Sisi Burn (Santtu-Matias Rouvali)

After this orchestral spectacular, I can confidently say that the Royal Festival Hall is free of cobwebs!

This most appealing program from the Philharmonia Orchestra was a cosmopolitan collection of works with roots in Russia, in the symphonic tradition (Borodin), delivering postcards from Spain (Glinka and Rimsky-Korsakov) or bringing in music from even further across the Atlantic (Kapustin).

The work with the farthest reach took top billing, thanks to the advocacy and breathtaking pianism of Frank Dupree. Making his debut with the Philharmonia, the soloist seized the opportunity to share his love of the music of Nikolai Kapustin, a composer he has championed on record in the past three years.

To call Kapustin ‘eclectic’ would be an understatement, but the label fits his unusual gift for looking outwards from classical music to jazz, boogie-woogie, Latin and even rock. To his credit none of those stylistic references sound hackneyed, and although the single-movement Piano Concerto no.5 is written out on paper it has a fresh, improvisatory quality that Dupree and the Philharmonia fair lifted off the page.

There were fun and games in this performance, harnessing elements of Gershwin, Milhaud and Shostakovich’s jazz writing, but ultimately channelling a style all of Kapustin’s own. Dupree shared the many musical jokes with the audience, while the Philharmonia percussion section – drum kit, bongos, castanets, everything but the kitchen sink! – was on hot form, Santtu-Matias Rouvali conducting with relish. The slow music explored more tender asides, evoking Harlem nights or even poolside in a hotter climate, while the fast music found Dupree exhibiting deceptive virtuosity as he navigated riffs and syncopations aplenty.

Even this wasn’t quite the highpoint, for there followed a high-spirited encore, Dupree leaning into the piano to thrum the strings in an atmospheric introduction to rhythmic high jinks, the percussion section – including Rouvali – out front to joust playfully with the soloist. It brought the house down.

With such a crowd-pleasing concerto, it was to the Philharmonia and Rouvali’s enormous credit that the rest of the program did not suffer, thanks to sparkling performances of music by three of the ‘mighty handful’ from late 19th century Russia.

Glinka’s clever interpolation of Spanish themes into his own Romantic language was brilliantly conveyed, a colourful account where Rouvali’s tempo had just the right ebb and flow. It is easy to forget this music is as old as 1845, and while the influences of Berlioz and Mendelssohn were still relatively fresh there was plenty of swagger in the dancing rhythms, the percussion again enhancing the brassy swagger of the closing pages.

Rimsky-Korsakov’s Capriccio Espagnol was even more successful, a treasure chest of melodies opened with evident enthusiasm by Rouvali, whose rapid tempo changes did occasionally leave the string section needing to make up ground. Cadenzas for violin (orchestra leader Zsolt-Tihamér Visontay), flute (Samuel Coles), clarinet (Mark van de Wiel) and harp (Heidi Krutzen) were superbly executed, Rimsky’s mini ‘concerto for orchestra’ revealed in glorious technicolour.

Rimsky wrote the Capriccio while orchestrating his friend Borodin’s opera Prince Igor – and it was his own Symphony no.2 that was in theory the most ‘sober’ of the night’s four works. We reckoned without a powerful performance from Rouvali and his charges, however, making the most of a work bursting with melodic ideas that should be heard much more often in the concert hall. The first of these ideas sets the tone for the symphony, a stern utterance with strings digging in and brass solemnly intoning their thoughts. Once heard the melody sticks in the listener’s mind, dominating the first movement where symphonic arguments were tautly exchanged.

There was room for lightness, however, in the quickfire scherzo and jubilant finale. These movements were bisected by an emotive third movement of deeper Russian origin, its theme lovingly delivered by cellos but finding plangent brass (the wonderful horn section led by Ben Hulme) and superb woodwind solos to complement. Rouvali relished the chance to dust off this relative symphonic outcast as part of a thrilling, memorable concert. The smiles on the faces of the Royal Festival Hall concertgoers as they filed into the open air said it all.

You can find more information on further concerts at the Philharmonia website

Published post no.2,112 – Saturday 8 March 2024

On Record – Basil Vendryes & William David: Three Centuries of Russian Viola Sonatas (Toccata Next)

Posted on by
Reply

Basil Vendryes (viola) & William David (piano)

Bunin Viola Sonata in D minor Op.26 (1955)
Glinka (ed. Borisovsky) Viola Sonata in D minor (1825-8)
Shebalin Viola Sonata in F minor Op.51/2 (1954)
Sokolov Viola Sonata (2006)

Toccata Next TOCN0014 [69’31”]

Producers Basil Vendryes, William David
Engineers Bras Smalling, Athena Wilkinson

Recorded 28 September – 1 October 2020 at Mathie Music Salon, Glendale, Colorado

Reviewed by Richard Whitehouse

What’s the story?

Toccata Classics’s Next imprint comes up with an enterprising concept in four viola sonatas extending across 178 years of Russian music, all sympathetically played and recorded while revealing numerous similarities, as well as contrasts, in approach between these composers.

What’s the music like?

Chamber music occupied Mikhail Glinka (1804-57) for barely a decade until the early 1830s, but there are substantial pieces – among them a Viola Sonata whose finale was never written, and slow movement finished in 1932 by Vadim Borisovsky (founder violist of the Beethoven Quartet). The resulting torso is still impressive in its formal ambition and expressive sweep – whether the Allegro moderato with its decidedly serious and often combative tone, then the Larghetto whose halting lyricism yields appealing if restrained eloquence towards the close.

Despite building a sizable catalogue, including 10 symphonies (the second being premiered by Yevgeny Mravinsky), Revol Bunin (1924-76) died without having attained real success at home or abroad. Written for Rudolf Barshai, his Viola Sonata is deceptively understated as to its technical demands and musical substance – a weighty opening Allegro setting up decisive contrast with a central Andantino of greater pathos than its ‘semplice’ marking suggests, then a sombre introduction into another Allegro that maintains unflagging purpose until its ending.

Currently residing in Germany and best known as a pianist of wide-ranging sympathies, Ivan Sokolov (b1960) contributes a Viola Sonata whose relative brevity (barely 12 minutes) feels matched by its circumspection – the pensive opening Allegro leading, via an unaccompanied passage, into an Andante akin to an ‘album-leaf’ in its unaffected poise then an even shorter Allegro which functions as the improvisatory scherzo into a finale revisiting both mood and material of the first movement, now imbued with a fatalism that persists through to the close.

The music of Vissarion Shabalin (1902-63) is showing tentative signs of a return to favour – understandable in the case of his Viola Sonata, central part in a triptych of such pieces also for violin and cello. Written just before that by Bunin, the opening Allegro is less forceful in its rhythmic profile if more accommodating in melodic content, with the central Andante all but permeated by folksong inflections across its reticent course – an aspect shared by the final Allegro with its respectively animated and amiable themes, rounded off by a trenchant close.

Does it all work?

Yes. Not all these works are of equal quality, but the Bunin and Shebalin sonatas should be in the still too limited repertoire for this instrument while also representing these underestimated composers at something near their best. Both works, incidentally, are otherwise unavailable in modern recordings so that Basil Vendryes and William David place listeners in their debt with their perceptive if sometimes overly dogged readings. The sound is a little dry but never to the detriment of this music-making, with Derek Katz’s detailed notes an undoubted enhancement.

Is it recommended?

It is. Those who acquire it will hopefully be encouraged to seek out further music by the latter three composers – Shebalin being adequately represented (though his symphonies and string quartets need to be reissued), Bunin hardly at all and Sokolov with a further Toccata release.

For further information on this release, and to purchase, visit the Toccata Classics website. Click on the composer’s name for more on Ivan Sokolov, and here for more information on a disc of chamber and instrumental music, also on the Toccata label. Click on the artist names for more on Basil Vendryes and William David.