Showing posts with label Saffron Hall. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Saffron Hall. Show all posts

Friday 3 March 2017

Mayhem with murderous intent, yet stately and serious of purpose : Neil Brand's orchestral score for Robin Hood (1922)

This is a review of Robin Hood (1922), with new orchestral score by Neil Brand

More views of - or before - Cambridge Film Festival 2016 (20 to 27 October)
(Click here to go directly to the Festival web-site)


25 February



This is a review of the new orchestral score for Robin Hood (1922) by Neil Brand, as performed by The BBC Symphony Orchestra, under Timothy Brock, at Saffron Hall, Saffron Walden, Essex, on Saturday 25 February 2017 at 7.00 p.m.




Playwright, composer and accompanist of silent fims, Neil Brand (@NeilKBrand) has recently come to a wider audience as a t.v. broadcaster, in and through his series The Sound of Cinema, and The Sound of Musicals

Neil¹ has regularly played silent films at Cambridge Film Festival - including, last year, Buster Keaton for Kids [of all ages] ~ Here we had Neil’s score for more than 90 musicians for Robin Hood (1922), as orchestrated by Timothy Brock (for the second part, alongside Hugo Gonzalez Pioli) : by contrast, in 2011, Neil and percussionist Jeff Davenport had played it between them at #CamFF


First part :

At the start of the film, the scene was given by a glissando, the timpani, and by setting the woodwind against the brass, and lively writing for harp. Later, as tournament was established, a quiet theme was presented, with a hint of horns, and we were already quite clear who were King Richard I (Wallace Beery) and the Earl of Huntingdon (Douglas Fairbanks) [plus the skulking, sullen Prince John], and, amidst trombones, martial sounds, and procession, the gracious sweetness of strings.

During stately declamations, Lady Marian Fitzgerald was next characterized by a delicate pizzicato, Prince John by deep cellos and basses, and sinuous oboe for Sir Guy of Gisbourne. Gisbourne tries to cheat, to get near Lady Marian (Enid Bennett), but this is the last of Huntingdon’s thoughts (soberly assuming a fair contest of skill ?), and we focus on the merriment (rather than Gisbourne (Paul Dickey) and his henchmen) - because Fairbainks is mobbed by women (in that way of ‘the flower of chivalry’), but has told his king that he is ‘afeared of women’ [which tickles us - it tickles us especially, for the combination of the shame-faced inter-title, with Huntingdon's demeanour !].

Later, in the huge hall of the castle (Fairbanks' dreamchild), as Prince John (Sam De Grasse) toys with his sinister goblet, and a desire to poison Richard, the latter has more sport at Huntingdon’s expense, by tying him to an upright stone, and at the growing mob of women around him : he breaks away to rescue, and find fascination in, Lady Marian [many of the women around and about him were more obviously alluring - but she must be his type ?], and so make himself an enemy to Gisbourne (Paul Dickey). It is only just at this point that we had become truly aware that this gathering is on the eve of setting out for the Crusades, and as he courts her (with a love theme plus flutes).


With the procession in which King Richard makes ready to go – he appointed Huntingdon to be his second in command, and also urged him to woe a maid during the night before, but, with increasing tetchiness, Wallace Beery peremptorily now calls out for Douglas Fairbanks’ appearance – we hear purposiveness in more subdivided note-values. It is from now on that we become more aware of the vibraphone (or ‘vibes’), and start to notice how it becomes significant : we think of it usually as a relaxed sound, but these are sinuous and sinister vibes, and – in conjunction with the Prince John theme – denote his dread intent, of which we already know…

The army is on the Continent when Marian is bold to pen Huntingdon an uncensored account of life in England under the rule of John, and, in this respect, Robin Hood is a political film for our day, because it shows how quickly what had been taken for granted in life can change and be changed : for John has swiftly moved to tax and otherwise penalize those who already had little to make revenue² for him and those to whom he looks to maintain power. As well as a shock, a love-note for Fairbanks, which comes with the sweetness of oboe and flute.

Fearful that Richard will abandon the Crusade, if he knows, Fairbanks feels forced to make his request, without giving reasons, to return to England, and we hear the solemnity in the trombones, and the snare-drum. Unfortunately, he then has to repeat it, because the same man who made Huntingdon his second also insisted that he needed a maid at home, for when war is over, and now cannot credit him with any better reason than she : king and knight are not talking the same language, because the former sees it as a big, if impertinent, joke.


Meanwhile, the highly symbolic play is in the sky, with Gisbourne’s falcon bringing down the dove that bears Huntingdon’s message for Lady Marian (at the tournament, Richard had enticed John to wager his falcon on Gisbourne’s tourney defeating Huntingdon). The score to this, Gisbourne’s stopping Huntingdon from deserting, and instead producing the message and other proofs of treason gives weight to the serious purpose, and sense of the stately, and then with eerie effects on vibraphone, and plangent viola and cello.

Fortunately, Gisbourne is another knight out of step with his king, because the more that he over-eggingly insists that death is the penalty for a traitor, the less Richard wants to do it. Bundling Huntingdon (still with a fresh wound from Gisbourne) and his squire into the tower till Richard’s return looks undignified and painful, but it is worth harp and soft vibes, although the latter become suspensive with the plot ‘then let them rot’, when the convoy has moved on. (Surviving is what proves to have mattered, as the squire then springs them from captivity…) With the process and intensity of the score, we had been able to feel the drama building, which is something special in music for silent film.


For the close of the first part, to which this has been prelude, messages in telegraphese about the mysterious robber-chief (with which Neil Brand made play in Blackmail (1928) [also at Saffron Hall, with this conductor and orchestra], and its computer-brain, seeking incriminatory data), and the impression of lively rebellion from the luminous violins, and their energy and pulse : stealing from the rich to give to the poor, whilst John - when not torturing and persecuting – uses outdated (and fussily tetchy) words, such as ‘meddling’ and ‘tattling’, to describe Lady Marian’s actions.

From other films (and accounts), we know the fantastical exploits in more detail, and the characters and characteristics of the woodland ‘pals’, such as Will Scarlett : after some merrie frolics and horseplay, Fairbanks’ focus remains on the story of this new life, for Huntingdon, as Robin Hood… (The original inter-title granted an interval of just six minutes, but service at the bar necessitated taking a little longer.)


Second half :

Slow to make good on ensuring that some people did not return from the Crusade, and to flute and harp, and then to the surprise of the deed with vibes, strings and tubular-bells – Gisbourne stabs the sleeping Richard. Except that, to resonant vibes, and then muted trombones and timps, when he turns over the body, Richard finds that his fool (or jester) has been killed in his stead (he tells him that has slept in his bed once too many).

Gisbourne is hardly ‘a valiant knight’, but, when Richard hears of one in England, he guesses at who it is, and his laughter, and that of Robin, link them (as against the sour John) : to an English dance, and then the tune of ‘Richard of Loxley’, we see good-hearted distribution of dole, and restorative acts, on the greensward.


It is usually said, with versions of the story of Robin Hood and Lady Marian, that she must have thought him dead, when she had no answer to the message that she sent, and she, equally, had spread around the story of her death, although she is actually at the priory of St Catharine’s : in Robin Hood, the moment when they become disabused is exactly that when what has really happened to them - and who and where they are - becomes known to Prince John, mixing Joy with Doom...

With that to work on, in terms of dramatic irony, the second part of the film is where whether escaping, or getting somewhere else to effect a rescue – in time – is in issue, and generates suspense. The first is at St Catharine’s, after Robin Hood has brought back its monstrance and other liturgical items (John’s pretence of raising funds for the Crusade – by raiding a religious order – is shown to be just that), and intercutting with, probably, the Sherriff of Nottingham's men approaching, but about John’s dire retributive work.


Here, Neil gives us :

(1) Lady Marian, by water – richness of strings and modulation, (2) another initiate identifies Robin Hood as Huntingdon – swell and woodwind, and brass undertones, (3) the plotting of John – sinister tremolo plus vibes, (4) Robin and Marian – ‘happy’ violin-tone and vibes, (5) cross-cutting, until Robin mistakenly leaves her, as if safe – triangle and soft pizzicato, (6) the militia approaches - a sinister snare-drum pattern, (7) arrival of troops - snare-drum plus triangle and xylophone, (8) when searching - over to glockenspiel, then back to xylophone.


The next long scene is with Lady Marian and the Sherriff of Nottingham (and briefly contrasted with Robin’s mood, thinking that a victory has been won, and that he can carouse – till told news otherwise), and scored with elements that begin with tremolo, with bassoons and trombones, and then enters the territory of ‘spooky’ vibes, heralding the screech of woodwinds, joined by basses, for the Prince John theme - to which are added trombones, plus tubular-bells (as at the fool’s death), and with that ambiguity, as previously, of the beats of the snare-drum.


Momentarily, these disturbing elements are mitigated by the excitement of the stranger’s lusty fight with Little John, who then (and therefore) acclaims the still-helmeted figure King Richard – to the jubilant sound of cymbals. In Nottingham, Robin is happy, joining in, and celebrating its capture - with an ale-horn³ : till he has news of Marian’s, and makes great haste for the castle, which we hear in the use of hectic xylophone. BBC Symphony boasted some half-a-dozen versatile percussionists, watching whose movements served as a guide [as at an all-Steve-Reich concert at this venue]), and clarified what sounds were reaching us at any moment (as well as hoping to keep track of the action). This player moved directly to give us a moody passage on the vibes, and into further telegraphese (with harp and strings), to signify the messages that are vitalizing the counter-assaulting forces.


Now, it is as if, for her tattling and meddling, Lady Marian is no better than some sacrificial victim. (At the time of John’s peeved comments, we had seen her lady-in-waiting or handmaiden tortured, to make her confess what her mistress had written to Huntingdon, but there was no Marian to answer the offences.) The inter-cutting is to Robin’s high daring, notably athleticism on the drawbridge, and we know that he provided Marian with a dagger, expressly in case of her virtue being assailed, so his battling against great numbers is also against the clock.

At one point, we see Marian speak from under a cross, with xylophone, timps, and string-strokes – perhaps for private devotions, long abandoned in this castle, where Marian is instead supposed to be the agreed reward for ill-doing (although twice bungled) ? Later, she is driven to the window by the menace of Gisbourne's advances, and, looking up, Robin perceives the danger, seeing her at the window : as has been the stuff of theatre since as least Sophocles, and evidently in Lear, there is a leap, but no fall.


Do not ask, as one’s attention was elsewhere, how Neil scored Robin jumping up and Marian’s being caught, but, be it here or with Neo and Trinity in The Matrix (1999), there is something so deeply and primally moving about the other being there, seconds to spare, to effect the rescue. As Huntingdon, Robin promised to crack Gisbourne’s spine, and we heard that sound ring out, after Robin has had his grip around Gisbourne’s neck, exerting force – again, immersion in the drama means that, as is a true credit to conductor’s and composer’s craft, one would have to watch again to know what the scoring did here !

So, from Marian and Robin meeting again after a year or more (though unaware of the tightening noose), and Robin spurred into energetically saving her from death (we can be glad that she did not trust to the blade that he gave her - please see above, as to when this was...), it is still Robin, alone, and unaided, despite the ‘three blasts’ horn-signal, which promised so much. Initially, the mood is summed up by anxious triangle and quiet xylophone, because Robin's charmed life only got him thus far, and not even Marian is safe again :


This still suggests that Marian may be given the dagger after the mid-air catch - an excuse to watch it all again !


Against material to match the greatest darkness that Shostakovich conjures in his symphonic works, we see Robin tied to the same post where he was mocked, by Richard’s having placed him at the mercy of the mob of women. The cross-cuts, this time, are more frequent, but, although they offer some hope and even given that the dagger that John is to dip – as a signal to the cross-bolts to fire – obligingly lingers about doing so, too little is at hand. Or so it appears… because the bows fire, and then the tail and stout shield of King Richard interposes, deflecting them from harming Hood / Huntingdon.


It is not too much to say that there is a moment of revelation. The lion-hearted king, whose people his trustworthy patriot and friend has been protecting, and protecting in Richard’s own name⁴, reasserts his regality and his reign. Pulling down the dark drapes on the throne, Richard shows that the three vivid lions are still there, underneath the appearance.

Even now, some might perhaps still think to call it a group hug, but, back to the film’s opening gesture of glissando, Richard, Marian, and Huntingdon cheerfully embrace, as we launch into strings, and the flowering of the theme, with glockenspiel. Prince John is put outside the door, and the drawbridge raised against him.

The only mutiny is in the matter of matrimony : passing over the question of droit de seigneur, has Richard’s sense of humour gone astray, or is it a test for Huntingdon ? On a wedding-night, we would – pranks apart (or those traditions that demand to see the virginal bed-sheets) – not do such a thing, but this is the third time that Richard has bellowed for his knight, and this at the door behind which he has been shut out.


Wisely, because, whether he wishes to give his personal greetings, he should really read Do not disturb !


As at the end of the first part, the approbation was warm and keen, but this time Neil could come down from his seat, and Timothy Brock and he could each urge that he owed the other more.

A thoroughly satisfying evening, and one commends which other dates this tour de force with Robin Hood screens on !


End-notes :

¹ Neil had comped Cambridge Film Festival director Tony Jones, who in turn invited Ramon Lamarca, its programmer of Camera Catalonia (as well as its Retro 3-D strand), and #UCFF. (This was a rematch, involving some story about winning a pair of tickets, through Silent London (@silentlondon), for the premiere at The Barbican in September 2016, and then Ramon not getting to see the film, because of someone at #UCFF getting the early start-time, of 7.00 p.m., wrong…)

² Forgetting that Crusades were, as all wars are, ways of occupying territory and taking what belongs to others, the usual version of the story says that John exaggerated the cost of the crusading force, and justified such cruel measures by needing to pay for it.

³ In branding terms – no pun intended ! – Huntingdon has caught this hearty, man-of-the-people look, and which has been the making of a trusty, if once unduly serious, knight – and the film thrives on the gaiety of the man who deserts his king’s service to do the proper service of saving his people, and of giving them comfort and hope.

⁴ With paper versions of Richard’s heraldic lions used to promote that allegiance, as well as prankishly belittling those who have been causing enmity and fear – there, again, is that unity in laughter). There is something proto-Aslan to Wallace Beery, though Aslan is more wise, who also enjoys good-natured fun ?




Unless stated otherwise, all films reviewed were screened at Festival Central (Arts Picturehouse, Cambridge)

Sunday 15 May 2016

Britten Sinfonia with Ruby Hughes and Mahan Esfahani : As a brook might ripple ? (review in progress)

This is Part II of a review of Britten Sinfonia with Mahan Esfahani and Ruby Hughes

More views of - or before - Cambridge Film Festival 2016 (20 to 27 October)
(Click here to go directly to the Festival web-site)


15 May

This is Part II of a review (work in progress) of a concert given by Britten Sinfonia with Mahan Esfahani and Ruby Hughes (standing in for Alice Coote) at Saffron Hall, Saffron Walden, on Sunday 15 May 2016 at 3.00 p.m.


[...]


Benjamin Britten (1913–1976) ~ Phaedra (1975), Op. 93

There is so much going on in Benjamin Britten’s Phaedra that one can only give an overview of a live performance, and it even feels to begin very immediately - nigh in media res, as well it might from a composer who worked with the BBC on operas that were broadcast, or even premiered, on t.v.

The text, which was taken, by Britten, from Jean Racine’s verse play Phèdre (originally Phèdre et Hippolyte) in a version by poet Robert Lowell (published in 1961), straightaway, and in just four lines, makes a statement from and on which everything devolves and depends…



For, as if one has to judge, to choose - of course, the setting suggests quite otherwise - between viewing Phaedra as prey (of Aphrodite, revenging herself on Hippolytus, Phaedra's stepson), or as predator (on Hippolytus), the nature of this composition, as with Peter Grimes (1945, Opus 33), is to invite us into the psyche of the outsider, the person with behaviour or desires that others will not (easily) accept.

At the close of the Prologue, at the literally appalling words turned white, we descend to harpsichord (Mahan Esfahani) and single cello (Caroline Dearnley), which are to act as the continuo for words, scoring and vocal that are now no less charged and daring* than when first performed at Aldeburgh Festival in June 1976. For Phaedra, now living before us in the person of Ruby Hughes**, heaps blame for her actions, and attraction to Hippolytus, on Aphrodite :

We hear [of Phaedra’s / narrate her efforts] ‘to calm her wrath’ [i.e. Aphrodite's], and how she tried to do so by flowers and praise, and by building and desiring to decorate a temple, but we come back to the opening and very earthly territory that is Phaedra’s not being able to breathe or speak, and of :

capricious burnings [that] flickered through my bleak
abandoned flesh



Surely Britten, for whom his love for and life with Peter Pears was not all that hidden, nonetheless wished to be as open as, sometimes, some parts of twentieth-century society might have allowed him to be – and, no less than Phaedra being sexually and emotionally drawn to her fiancé’s son (as Hippolytus first is), he must have felt the imprint of the firebrand that is real stigma. Even if, for Phaedra, that way lies – and must lie – condemnation, castigation, banishment and exile, we are given this conflicted conflation of the bodily and the sacred / sacramental in Lowell’s words :

Alas, my hungry open mouth,
thirsting with adoration, tasted drouth ---
Venus resigned her altar to my new lord



In the Presto section (and elsewhere), and although it is the norm in the work for lines to be set ‘straight through’, some lines are repeated. One such place is just after the short sentence My mind whirls, which is at the centre of the third line (and where we first heard a mimetically whirling accompaniment, which is to recur at the end of this section), with the self-ascription Phaedra in all her madness stands before you !

Revisiting words then continues, with lingering over (some of) the words in :

I love you ! Fool, I love you, I adore you !

Yet Phaedra then retreats, into the comparative safety (and asserting the attempted power of human resistance), of, and starting softly, making other claims :

Do not imagine that my mind approved
my first defection, Prince, or that I loved
your youth light-heartedly, and fed my treason
with cowardly compliance, till I lost my reason



As the movement proceeds (though this is truly an undivided work, there is some sort of distinction between passages of sung text and those of recitative), we reach a moment of great and open self-revelation, with Phaedra imagining declaring The wife of Theseus loves Hippolytus !, and it is there that Britten takes us so swiftly from the mood of a processional (the marriage ?) to that of a dirge (pointing to the end of the work ?). That sense of swirling – of Phaedra’s being adrift ? – recurs with ‘Look’ in the first of the next three lines, which (with all their Freudian connectedness as to whether the desired ‘sword’ is a real blade, to kill in fact (and thus for Phaedra to die), or the metaphorical one of covertly desiring Hippolytus’ unlawful penetration) close this section*** :

See, Prince ! Look, this monster, ravenous
for her execution, will not flinch.
I want your sword’s spasmodic final inch.



Here, however, Britten does break the flow, and with a percussive interlude that reminds us that Racine’s world of the tragic originates in that of the Greece of Sophocles or Euripides (and also, of course, that the dramatist’s five-act play has been compressed into something of the order of one-tenth of its stage-time). (In her programme-notes, Jo Kirkbride remarks that the scoring of ‘the uncommon ensemble [sc. string-band plus percussion and timpani] presents a stark texture in which strings and percussion do not blend, but jar in a way that underpins the rawness of Phaedra’s fate’.)

When the more contemporary time of the composer did feel to come back in, maybe to greet us anew, it was with the pizzicato of Caroline Dearnley on cello, which grew to resemble to the sound of the guitar (or banjo). The succeeding passage of recitative also reflects the fact that Time has passed by (and it is maybe arguable that, overall, the five sections of the work - Prologue / recitative / Presto / recitative / Adagio - reflect the five-act structure of Racine’s Phèdre), since Phaedra, at the start of this second recitative, is remarking :

Oh Gods of wrath,
how far I’ve travelled on my dangerous path !
I go to meet my husband ; at his side
will stand Hippolytus
.



In the third, broken line, Ruby Hughes gave an anguished feel in the caesuræ that are either side of the telling words at his side, for – ravelled up in this trinity of monosyllables – is much more than the more florid / flowery, romantic summary with which, maybe persuading us (maybe herself ?), Phaedra first presented the genesis of her triangular story of Theseus, Hippolytus, and herself :

The son is in relation to the father, as evidenced by literally being at his side, and also by virtue of kinship (i.e. psychically). As Theseus’ wife, however (and as Phaedra so well knows), she 'should’ likewise be there, by Theseus’ side – whereas, in fact, her mental need to be at Hippolytus’ side [sc. in his bed / arms] has become so strong, present and distressing to her that, as the recitative progresses, she fears her powers of pretence, and, in all this and most of all, fears herself. (Though some progress, this, as rather one of violent disintegration (and distrust)...)


It seemed fitting to choose to talk, here (at the centre of the piece), about what Ruby Hughes (@rubyvoce) showed us in Phaedra, both woman and role – as in the first half (review to come), she stepped onto the stage (with a little due delay), and did not appear to need (even if appearances can deceive...) to do more, when arrived, than ‘immerse herself in’, as the case might be, the music of the Sinfonia, or instrumental introduction. (A matter equally pertinent to how, in this venue, we could see Robin Blaze ‘acclimatize to’, or ‘prepare for’, a performance of Pergolesi’s Stabat Mater, or Bach’s Cantata Vergnügte Ruh, beliebte Seelenlust, BWV 170.)


This was a performance that brought passion and a meaningful sense of madness (very far from the stock and once-obligatory ‘mad scene’ in operatic tradition), coupled with personal humility, gratitude and even sacrifice (as it cannot be easy to become Phaedra - just, or even just, for fifteen minutes). Phaedra herself may remind us that Theseus’ life was also wedded with that of Medea [told in Handel's Teseo, and where, not for the first time, Theseus was playing with others' hearts], in the product of whose art - almost ironically ? - Phaedra is to find her own peace.

So, when she paced that phrase at his side (which was referred to earlier, three paragraphs above), within the space that she helped create for it (in partnership with Britten, Lowell, Racine), it was not staccato, but was, equally, not legato, but accented : likewise, in the following line, we had a telling pause – where ‘telling’ for the audience means, of course, emotionally ripping for Phaedra – just after she says the name Hippolytus again (once more, in claustrophobic proximity to referring to Theseus) :

I go to meet my husband ; at his side
will stand Hippolytus.



Of course, we must acknowledge the latency in Britten's setting, and electing to set, the recitative****, and doing so alongside his paring of the text of Lowell’s translation in a short-form treatment (which in no way could be seen to substitute for reading, or hearing, what Racine wanted to tell us of Phaedra – or Lowell of Racine).

However, the implied analogy with film here may be a useful one, in thinking of the choices that Britten made in preparing the libretto : the parallel is with what a writer-director might undertake, first in adapting a literary work as a film's screenplay, and then, with the help, skill and insight of a trusted editor, crafting cinema from the footage that he or she has shot in production.

A touch of this approach is the emphasis inherent in, and given to, the phrase The very dust (which opens the quotation below) – we almost had the feeling that, not for the last time (please see the next paragraph), another trio of words lets us hear Phaedra, guiltily disgusted by her shared human nature, and by the tradition of our origins in the dust (i.e. mankind created from clay, e.g. in - amongst other religious accounts - Genesis 2 : 7) :

The very dust rises to disabuse
my husband – to defame me and accuse !



In one passage, there was demonstrated a very strong connection between Phaedra and the principal cello-part, played by Caroline Dearnley, and which one realized as much by exact observation as by identifying what one was hearing : Britten's having her play both tremolo (bow hand) and vibrato (hand on the finger-board) at once. (Likewise, when Phaedra forms the resolve from which everything else proceeds, not to live is another strong group of sounds, underlined by Dearnley having to produce a continuous drone.)


In the transition from recitative to the Adagio (and from the simplicity of the harpsichord-and-cello continuo), one effect with which we might notice that Britten characterizes Phaedra’s decisiveness is how, by modulating up, and up, but adding in, at the same time, first one cello, then both, and instrument by instrument, until he builds up to full, undivided forces.

Appropriate, to wind up like a spring in this way, because hers is a fait accompli - in the vein of, but reversing, D.O.A. [also Dead on Arrival] (1950). [Also, Britten's last chamber opera, in 1954, had been The Turn of the Screw.]



From her selected position of safety (in a sense, she was always only talking to us, in and of her life), Phaedra is now actually launching herself forward : giving Theseus a confessional story, but coupled with the impossibility of his acting on it (as Medea, too, did ?).

At the centre of this passage of text, we were to come, with all its suggestiveness, to a massive climax on the words noble son’. It was then, in the emptiness of the hiatus that succeeded it, where - if we still, somehow, ‘felt outside’ this story - we were to find ourselves uncomfortable in our own company. (Phaedra, who has been so present to us, momentarily seems absent from our side ?)


By the time of the calmness that, rapt, we were also disquietingly to feel more and more strongly, and locate most in Phaedra’s final half-dozen lines of the Adagio, we fully realized, and so felt : this is her way of finding the peace, in herself and in the situation, that had eluded her before.

On such occasions, no one wants to break the silence (and yet perhaps it was broken too soon), which shows the interpretative power of this soprano (@rubyvoce) and this ensemble (@BrittenSinfonia) with Britten’s towering skill of setting texts that matter : music and all its makers, very alive to possibility !





End-notes

* Even when one has heard the work before : Britten Sinfonia performed it, a handful of years back, at West Road Concert Hall, Cambridge (@WestRoadCH).

** Childishly, one cannot help revelling in the fact that, when her name is not pronounced clearly on radio, it does sound rather like Scooby-Doo… !

*** From the fifth line onwards (starting Do not imagine, and quoted above), we have text in which Phaedra imagines apostrophizing Theseus. (Yet, by the time of the Adagio at the end of the work, she will be addressing him, and absolving Hippolytus, in the act of undergoing her chosen death.)

**** Where, of course, the continuo players are necessarily led by, and so closely attendant upon, the way in which the vocal soloist chooses to interpret the individual words and phrases of the libretto of the recitative – by phrasing, accent, tone, timbre, etc.




Unless stated otherwise, all films reviewed were screened at Festival Central (Arts Picturehouse, Cambridge)

Monday 18 April 2016

Bach Collegium Japan at Saffron Hall (Part II)

This is Part II of a review of Masaaki Suzuki's Bach Collegium Japan at Saffron Hall

More views of - or before - Cambridge Film Festival 2016 (20 to 27 October)
(Click here to go directly to the Festival web-site)


17 April

This is (Part II) of a review of the concert given by Bach Collegium Japan, under its founder Masaaki Suzuki, at Saffron Hall (Saffron Walden, Essex) on Sunday 10 April 2016 at 7.30 p.m.

The last of three pieces in the evening’s all-Bach programme [it was preceded by a short Cantata, in the second half, and, in the first, by a longer one] was :

Johann Sebastian Bach (1685–1750) ~ Magnificat (in D Major¹), BWV 243

Masaaki Suzuki brought us a sharp and distinct affect to the familiar opening Sinfonia of Bach’s Magnificat (BWV 243¹), the trumpets suitably clear and celebratory, and with Guy Ferber (the principal player of three) deliberately sounding slightly bright.



The momentum was nicely kept up, and one could see Robin Blaze nodding, and so showing his involvement with, and his commitment to, the work in toto – not unusually, as one can likewise see tenor James Gilchrist (@JamesTenorGilch), staying acclimatized to the ambience of Bach’s music². (As it is, though, do all too many vocal soloists just seem to rise for their aria / duo / recitative in general, and do not necessarily feel part of the whole, but maybe an adornment to it, or a needful addition (as no mortal – not just in amateur choirs – can usually match the demands of Bach’s writing) ?)

Other pleasures from the early movements were :

* Soprano Joanne Lunn adopting a position more upstage than in the Cantata in Part I (to come), and, in terms of projection, with a much better result

* Young Suzuki (Masaaki Suzuki’s (@quovadis166’s) son Masato [@eugenesuzuki]) ‘multi-tasking’, in that he often had – with the instruments arranged at right angles (rather than, as many times seen, one on top of the other) – his left hand occupied with playing a harpsichord, the right, meanwhile, with the chamber organ

* Rachel Nicholls (@raenicholls), alongside soulful tones from Masamitsu San’nomiya (on oboe, plus Suzuki Jnr on harpsichord), who (as one already had good reason to know) was very accomplished, and expressed the text seamlessly


Yet, as to seamlessness (and despite much onward energy - with bassist Frank Coppieters keenly and nimbly fretting the instrument’s bottom string), Suzuki chose not to succeed Nicholls' aria for soprano immediately with the Chorus Omnes generationes³ : rather than running it on, he instead gave it to us as if it were a distinct movement in itself, and so, by his not keeping with the sense of the verse, it ceased to be musically and syntactically dependent on the words of the preceding aria (although it appears to have been meant to be indissolubly so⁴ ?).

In truth, a minor cavil, when one well-known recording of the work (which shall remain unnamed) has the aria Quia fecit (for bass and continuo) resemble little more than a ditty with which one might imagine, as it chugs along, a cheerful and friendly whale amusing itself (partly because of how the part for double-bass is rendered) ! Of course, not the impression that BCJ gave of the movement, one can gladly report, but instead that (as with Joanne Lunn's aria, and in an ensemble full of assurance) Dominik Wörner carried himself with more bearing than in Part I, doing justice to the text. Even more true of counter-tenor Robin Blaze (who had been the soloist in the preceding Cantata - please see below), well matched with tenor Colin Balzer : a confident rendition in Et misericordia, with Blaze especially handling the chromaticism / chromatic writing very well, and with sensitive string-playing in the ripieno.

As required, the following Chorus, Fecit potentiam, was very vigorous, with a good sound from the orchestra, well enhanced by the timpani – and with a glorious moment of suspension (an effect heard again in this work - and which, later in Bach’s canon, we may know superbly used in the Mass in B Minor, BWV 232 ?). We were therefore set up to hear from Balzer’s in the aria Deposuit potentes, for tenor voice : all sounding good, with, at times, organ, bassoon and bass continuo ; at others, with strings that were pert and alive.


Esurientes implevit bonis, the central aria of three that Bach gives us consecutively, brought Blaze back down from the row of members of the Chorus (who were arrayed, at the back, on podia – as when The Sixteen (@TheSixteen) had been heard at Saffron Hall). He was joined by both flautists (who moved their music-stands forward to play standing) :

The very pleasing tone and colour of their transverse instruments was part of an overall effect that was simply charming (even if, theologically, one might question Bach’s setting a text that corresponds to The hungry he has filled with good things, and the rich he has sent away empty⁵, and giving it this mood ?). More surely even than in Vergnügte Ruh (the preceding Cantata), Blaze and the instrumental soloists emphasized the light touches, and Suzuki signalled a deft bom, right at the end. And so into the aria Suscepit [Israel puerum suum], a trio of voices with the two oboes, which suspensively took us into other worlds, as Bach is adept at doing (again, he does so in the Mass in B Minor) !

A contrast was thus pointed with the closing movements for Chorus, first Sicut locutus est, with a strong, firm bass-line (supporting violins and cellos), and then - unlike with the transition to Omnes generationes (please see above) - being taken almost straight into text taken from the liturgy (the doxology of the Gloria (and not from Luke’s Gospel)).


Here, Suzuki had his forces / resources hold back - and with the contribution from the Chorus sounding, perhaps, as of the wings of hovering birds ? Then the timpanist (Thomas Holzinger) entered again – and, in a live performance such as this, seeing a percussionist making ready can, through familiarity coupled with anticipation, heighten that moment. [At this venue, it did with Colin Currie Group's all-Reich concert, but was sometimes less of an aid on the occasion when Eddie Gomez played with Britten Sinfonia...]

After a very momentary caesura, we were into the closing section of the Gloria (Sicut erat in principio), re-energizing us both through the impact of a full and dramatic conclusion, and with our recollection of the rejoiceful tone (jauchzend) with which the Magnificat had begun.


It was evident that everyone was well pleased with the culmination of the concert in the familiar guise of this joyful work, and to have had the Collegium, and Suzukis father and son, in their midst :

The former had been heartily hailed when first seen on stage, and his musicianship and musicality had been relished as heard in the latter, in whom [not least through hearing him beforehand on Radio 3's In Tune programme (@BBCInTune) - from 1:32:33 onwards in the live broadcast on 7 April 2016, and available to listen to for thirty days] a great future seems set to lie...






Bach ~ Cantata : Vergnügte Ruh, beliebte Seelenlust, BWV 170

The preceding Cantata had fallen into five movements. It alternates Arien with Rezitativen, and the first has a brief orchestral introduction, in which Masamitsu San’nomiya was now to be observed playing oboe d’amore, before we first caught Robin Blaze’s enviable vocal-tone (he had not performed in Ich hatte viel Bekümmernis, the longer Cantata that constituted Part I of the concert).

Not least when he re-entered after a reprise of the initial material, Blaze put the soloists whom we had already heard in the shade – a lucid sound, and full of delight and of life. In the final line, on the word Wohnung (‘dwelling’), he gave a smile, and, after the warm, rich tutti at the close, his face could be seen looking eager at bringing us this text.

In the Rezitativ, and with organ and cello continuo, he continued clear and bright, and using tone-colour with a phrase such as Ach ! diese Schuld ist schwerlich zu verbeten (‘Oh, this guilt is hard to make atonement for !’) [where shown by underscoring]. The second, central Arie started with agreeably reedy / piping organ-notes and strings to the fore in the introduction, and, as the movement developed, the orchestra accompanied Blaze with gestures in the form of brief strokes on the strings.

As we were to hear in the Magnificat, he handled chromatic writing in the setting - e.g. of the words Und Hass (‘And hatred’) - with skill and sensitivity (as also, later, with beautifully executed coloratura). He was matched only by Masato Suzuki’s lovely organ playing : free and rhythmically flexible, according to mood and musical context. Further on, in the kernel of this Cantata, he brought forth from the organ peals and a celebratory ambience, and then we were taken straight into the closing pair of lines (beginning Ach ! ohne Zweifel ['Oh, without doubt [...]']). The tail-piece of the movement was nicely understated, and Blaze listened, quite engaged.

In the second Rezitativ, he was emphatic, confident and full, and – perhaps to a loved one in the audience ? – gave a little wink at one point. He might well have had reason to be pleased, for the whole had cohered, and was to feel ‘of a piece’ to the end :

In the closing Arie, the opening line of a five-line text – Mir ekelt mehr zu leben (‘The idea of living for longer is disgusting to me’) – is to be dwelt on by Bach. In Blaze's interpreting the sung part of the writing to us, we heard more virtuoso organ-playing from Suzuki come to fruition, and to great effect, in chirping organ figures (in an improvisatory style) that he gave to us as the movement resumed da capo.

Perhaps a work that we could more easily relate to than to Ich hatte viel Bekümmernis, but certainly one that yielded a performance, built around Robin Blaze and his voice, that was both convincing, and provocative of suggesting that we might heed the theological perspective from Bach’s time and faith...





End-notes

¹ As other audience members (in from Cambridge Early Music / @CambsEarlyMusic) were 'ahead of the game', and already aware that BWV 243 is (or appears to be) the revision, and transposition, of an original in E Flat Major, BWV 243a.

² E.g. when James Gilchrist splendidly returned [for Easter at King’s 2016 (@ConcertsatKings), on Monday and Tuesday of Holy Week] to give us the Evangelist in the St John Passion (BWV 245).

³ Perhaps there may have been good reasons (better than logistical ones) for not swiftly following the Aria with the Chorus. (Although it could only have been, as one recollects, to allow Rachel Nicholls to resume her place in the Chorus - and, surely, that crux could not have been insurmountable (or that resumption of place need not have been given precedence) ?)

⁴ Since (as borne out by other performances) Wikipedia asserts There is however no numbering of movements in Bach's autographs, nor is there a caesura between the third and the fourth movement : the 25th measure of the Quia respexit (where the soprano soloist sings her last note) is the first measure of the Omnes generationes movement.

(What the work’s Wikipedia page also says about how Bach set the text of the Magnificat, as a whole, is that Each verse of the canticle is assigned to one movement, except verse 48 (the third verse of the Magnificat [sc. of Chapter 1 of The Gospel According to Luke]) which begins with a soprano solo in the third movement [Quia respexit] and is concluded by the chorus in the fourth movement [Omnes generationes], i.e. :


[3rd mvt : Aria] Quia respexit humilitatem ancillae suae ecce enim ex hoc beatam me dicent /
[4th mvt : Chorus] omnes generationes)


⁵ Though maybe the Lutheran influence always causes favouring one side of the balance ?




Unless stated otherwise, all films reviewed were screened at Festival Central (Arts Picturehouse, Cambridge)

Sunday 20 March 2016

Works from Italy on Palm Sunday : The English Concert under Harry Bicket

This is a review of a concert by The English Concert under Harry Bicket

More views of - or before - Cambridge Film Festival 2015 (3 to 13 September)
(Click here to go directly to the Festival web-site)


20 March

This is a review [incomplete ?] of a concert given by The English Concert under Harry Bicket, with soloists Katharina Spreckelsen (oboe), Nadja Zwiener (violin), Anna Devin (soprano) and Robin Blaze (counter-tenor), at Saffron Hall on Sunday 20 March at 7.30 p.m.


Part Two : From the decade following Part One, a work by a Neapolitan composer, dying in Pozzuoli in the care of Franciscans¹

(4) Antonio Vivaldi ~ Sinfonia in B Minor (Al Santo Sepolcro) (c. 1730), RV 169

(5) Giovanni Battista Pergolesi (1710–1736) ~ Stabat Mater (1736)



Starting in the second half of the concert, with soloists Anna Devin (soprano) and Robin Blaze (counter-tenor) already on stage (either side of the harpsichord / chamber organ), Harry Bicket and The English Concert (@EnglishConcert) employed Vivaldi’s Sinfonia ‘Al Santo Sepolcro’ as a thoughtful prelude to the last work on the programme, Pergolesi’s Stabat Mater (almost managing to avoid applause just after it²) :

With its initial, reverentially solemn atmosphere, it was insightful programming, and the ensemble created a great sense of space, during which, from his expression, Robin Blaze (seated stage left) could be seen to be engaging with the Sinfonia, as if ‘getting into character’. (It was clearly intended as such, for him (and Devin) as well as for us). Towards the end, it was suspenseful, before, with repeated notes, becoming more expansive : thus, it had the rise and fall of emotions, and the devotional trains of thought³, that were to come out in the Pergolesi.


We may think that we live in an era of information exchange, but (as will be mentioned below) composers in different countries were aware of each other’s works in the early eighteenth century : in the last ten years of his life, Bach arranged Pergolesi’s composition (slightly expanding its orchestral resources) as Tilge, Höchster, meine Sünden (BWV 1083), in which he set a German paraphrase of Psalm 51 (and it is because Bach copied out the work that we have Handel's Brockes Passion, performed at Easter at King's on Holy Saturday, and broadcast on Easter Monday).

Coming full circle, to having heard Stabat Mater for the first time in live performance as a twenty-year-old, one was struck anew by what one would now see as the Baroque character of the setting, and how it brings out those qualities in the text (even if it is near the end of the period - whether or not that is deemed to be in 1750, with the death of Bach). That said, by being over-emphatic with the work, it is easy (as many a recording did at that time) to make it sound ‘soupy’ (and so sound from another century, era, or genre), an effect that is also greatly magnified by much vibrato in the solo voices : not, of course, what one would have any reason to expect from The English Concert.

So nowadays, perhaps, this work is less often heard with a soprano and an alto (fashions change), and, although the familiar chordal-progressions of the opening may not change, Bicket brought a tautness to the playing. He went straight into the vivid strings of the next movement, with a tightness that kept a number in a row together, and make them of a piece with each other : unlike Palestrina, who set the text of the Stabat Mater as stanzas of six lines, Pergolesi has it in groups of three, which means that those first movements can have a nuance to match the content of each shorter stanza. [In the structure's formal terms, there may be twelve movements within the twenty stanzas of text, but one-half of them are taken up with the first eight stanzas.]



Once the voice of Anna Devin (soprano) had settled with that of counter-tenor Robin Blaze after the opening number⁴, we could hear together as a whole the sections through to the conclusion of the eighth stanza (Dum emisit spiritum [‘As He gave up the spirit’]). En route, in a movement that Bicket took briskly (it is marked Allegro), the tone that Pergolesi gives to the fourth stanza (which begins Quae moerebat et dolebat, an alto aria that talks of Mary’s grief, and her shuddering at her son’s pain) is the first time where we might detect an apparent mismatch between text and the tone of the setting⁵.

Immediately after Quae moerebat et dolebat, which may be what draws Pergolesi on, we have the other-worldliness of the duet Quis est homo qui non fleret, and then the word-painting of Dum emisit spiritum, with lute-notes, the affect of Devin's soprano voice, and the pianissimo strings. These words are where the first significant difference in mood comes, as the emphasis moves from - within the context of where Mary is, and what she feels - the suffering and death of Jesus on the cross, and Bicket here took a very brief pause.



The next seven stanzas (or, at least, five) felt to have the different focus of a prayer to Mary, asking to identify with her grief (in stanza nine, Me sentire vim doloris [‘Let me feel the force of grief’]). From this point on, when it was not a duet, it was a solo aria for Blaze’s honeyed, if quiet, voice, which, at his best, has the clarity of the tone of a bell, and Bicket maintained the tight approach to keeping the movements ticking over.

However, at the close of these stanzas that directly speak to The Virgin (Fac me tecum plangere [‘Let me weep with you’]), he allowed a moment’s breath. The last three movements (plus Amen) were a less-pressured two-stanza solo alto aria (in which Blaze and the ensemble set a tone of reflection), and two duets, which took us through death and beyond with the personal voice that has been addressing us since Jesus’ death (in the triumphant way that, over a longer span, Messiah does).


Enthusiastic applause, and even some drumming of feet, were indicative of how keenly the audience at Saffron Hall appreciated the performance. It was a great pleasure to hear this ensemble and these soloists at Saffron Hall with such a meditative concentration on the variety of music in this short period of composition !






Moving to writing up the first half…


Part One : Venice in the early decades of the eighteenth century

1. Antonio Vivaldi (1678–1741) ~ Concerto for Strings and Continuo

2. Tomaso Albinoni (1671–1751) ~ Oboe Concerto

3. Vivaldi ~ Concerto for Violin, Strings and Basso Continuo




(1) Vivaldi ~ Concerto for Strings and Continuo in G Minor (c. 1725), RV 157


1. Allegro
2. Largo
3. Allegro

In this performance by The English Concert (@EnglishConcert), conducted by Harry Bicket, the approach to the opening piece was energetic, in the way that some of Bach is typically played (who, of course, was heavily influenced by Vivaldi’s compositions), as well as being direct and clear : perhaps we had a feeling, as in (whatever its exact origins) Johann Pachelbel's Canon for Three Violins and Basso Continuo, of being impelled, till, at the very end, we came down to quietness and the sound of the lute (William Carter).

The central, slow movement was fully expressed and unhurried. Without its being over-meditative in character, Bicket brought out a tone of thoughtfulness, which provided a vivid contrast with the Allegro, accordingly making its pace seem like that of a Presto. Again, the playing was spirited, with dynamism and attack (albeit, at times, this is writing of a somewhat anxiety-ridden kind, with the tremulous activity of its figurations), and its energy drove it through to a sure conclusion.



(2) Albinoni ~ Concerto for Oboe and Strings in D Minor (1722), Op. 9, No. 2


1. Allegro e no presto
2. Adagio
3. Allegro


The work opened with a movement in which a principal feature is what is most easily described as a swooping (or ‘snatched’) gesture, and which showed great versatility in writing for the oboe. It was welcome that oboist Katharina Spreckelsen did not play over-plangently, but, without complicating the musical line, developed expressive tone through it : an elaborated section, just before the conclusion of the Allegro e no presto, then had its proper context.

Bicket next brought out a flowing texture, which swelled in the way that Handel's familiar instrumental passage ‘The Arrival of The Queen of Sheba’ does⁶, with the Adagio being nicely and neatly played by all. As a whole with this ambience, Spreckelsen was tellingly restrained in the solo part, with unfussy trills - when Rallentando and emphasis were used, it was sparingly, and so to good effect. Winningly, we heard from her at the last, and then the movement passed to the strings for its close.

Shorter than the other movements, the Allegro gave us an Italianate style of bells, and peals of them. Spreckelsen was now using a more reedy tone, but with a dead-ahead attack, and, although the phrasing within the ensemble was balanced, it was, of course, unlike when other groups attempt such playing, being subtly done.



(3) Vivaldi ~ Concerto for Violin, Strings and Basso Continuo (per la Santissima Assenzione di Maria Vergine) in C Major (c. 1730), RV 581 :

1. Adagio – Allegro
2. Largo
3. Allegro


There is a rising Adagio introduction to the movement proper (resembling a subdued / suppressed fanfare ?), where we then heard soloist Nadja Zwiener approaching, with ease, some quite intricate violin-writing. Before returning to the opening material, and the end, we also had a real feeling of excitement in the sound of soloist and strings.

The succeeding Largo had a feeling of suspension to it. It was to be increased by the effect, in the divided strings, of brief strokes being drawn below Zwiener’s harmonizingly lyrical writing, as if with the sense of breaths, or a pulse. (It is an impression by which Vivaldi was clearly taken, and is most famously heard in Concerti Nos 1 to 4 of Il cimento dell'armonia e dell'inventione, a set of twelve as his Opus 8.) In the final bars of the movement, we find ourselves returning to full orchestral sound.

The tone of the ensemble in the closing Allegro was good natured, with something akin to joie de vivre to the fore from Zwiener. However, as if we acquiesced in this mood too quickly, there were to be darker hints, not least with the second orchestra’s contributions.

We were to be brought to a very expressive passage for violin, modulating to navigate to the soul of the piece. Upon a moment’s rest per tutti, we were then led into the Concerto’s lively conclusion.



It had been a shorter instrumental first half, without the originally programmed Sinfonia by Alessandro Scarlatti (from I Dolori di Maria Vergine - so part of the Marian (and Crucifixion) theme), but very insightful as well as enjoyable, and with evidence that the audience appreciated the sensitivity and skills of soloists and ensemble and its conductor alike.



End-notes


¹ Some traditions have it that the text's author was the Franciscan friar Jacopone da Todi.

² Though hands or bows held high do not always ensure that performers succeed in holding off applause at the end of a piece, and, if they want to run the next one together, sometimes have to make it impossible to interpolate it.

³ If, even at this modest remove of time, we sometimes have little notion, save from an indicative title, why pieces had been composed (i.e. to be performed where and / or for what purpose), and commentators and musicologists then have to conjecture, giving us their best guesses from the information available : this was as true in the first half, with another piece by Vivaldi (his Concerto for Violin in C Major, RV. 581), as with items in Bojan Čičić’s (@BojanCicic’s) recent concert programme with The Academy of Ancient Music (@AAMorchestra).

⁴ In this piece, matching may tend to be less of an issue with two female singers (although the voices can sometimes be quite exposed), but they still have to get the balance right : the hall in which they rehearsed now reacts differently, with the effect of an audience in it.

⁵ The choral version of (Josef) Haydn’s originally purely orchestral Seven Last Words of our Saviour on the Cross was performed on Good Friday at Easter at King’s. In her programme-notes, Emma Cleobury likewise refers to occasions where – in Gottfried van Swieten’s revision of a text first used by Joseph Friebert for the same purpose as Haydn – the words 'jar with the music' :

One case that she cites (in the Haydn, in the movement Es ist vollbracht !) is of 'serene music' alongside Weh euch Bösen, / Weh euch Blinden, words of rebuke to those who ignore Christ’s sacrifice. Yet such conflicting responses to the death of Christ are ones that one is familiar with in Messiah (first performed in 1742), at once mourning Christ, having lamented his suffering on the cross, but then looking to the salvation that he has won and is offering.


⁶ Taken from Act III of Handel’s Solomon (HWV 67), it is often heard alone, and also employs oboe (being scored for two oboes and strings). The oratorio was composed in 1748 (twenty-six years later), and Handel would assuredly have known, and taken from, the Concerto. (Or one might equally have been reminded of the effect, in places, of his Water Music (HWV 348–350), which pre-dates Albinoni’s work ?)




Unless stated otherwise, all films reviewed were screened at Festival Central (Arts Picturehouse, Cambridge)

Tuesday 23 February 2016

The best of duo partners (Part I) : The music is almost an excuse to hear them play

Part I of a review of Maxim Vengerov in Recital, with pianist Roustem Saïtkoulov

More views of - or before - Cambridge Film Festival 2015 (3 to 13 September)
(Click here to go directly to the Festival web-site)


21 February

This is the delayed¹ Part I of a review of Maxim Vengerov in Recital [Part II is reviewed here], which he gave with pianist Roustem Saïtkoulov at Saffron Hall, Saffron Walden, on Saturday 20 February at 7.30 p.m.

The first part of the recital that Maxim Vengerov gave at Saffron Hall (@SaffronHallSW) with pianist Roustem Saïtkoulov comprised two sonatas for violin and piano. [Part II is reviewed here.]

They were written in the first two decades of the nineteenth century and within fifteen years of each other (although Schubert was more than a decade, and his work was not to be published until 1851, which, if it is the publication-date that we notice, might make us fail to realize that he lived his live almost entirely within Beethoven's life-time).



Programme (Part I) :

1. Franz Schubert (1797-1828) ~ Sonata for Violin and Piano (‘Grand Duo’)

2. Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827) ~ Sonata No. 7



Franz Schubert (1797-1828) ~ Sonata for Violin and Piano in A Major (‘Grand Duo’), Op. Posth. 162 (1817), D. 574

1. Allegro moderato
2. Scherzo : Presto
3. Andantino
4. Allegro vivace


In the Sonata’s opening Allegro moderato, the tone of Roustem Saïtkoulov’s playing was open, as if of song accompaniment. The writing for violin, meanwhile, was developing into complexity, with expressive cadences, and with Maxim Vengerov using a great variability of string-tone between, say, feeling free or sweet, exuberant or jolly. With the repeat, ease was the overriding sense, leading into a hint of nostalgia, and then new (agitated) material, with loud piano gestures. Momentarily, the duo chose to hesitate over the recurrence of the original theme, and then brought the movement to lively and uncomplicated close.


A horn-like motif, as if acting as a fanfare, opened the Scherzo (and was to make further appearances, following boisterous gestures the next two times). Schubert next variously gave us (punctuated by use of the fanfare) a passage built around repeated and syncopated notes, and a sinuously flexible line for Vengerov, whilst the piano had a sort of trotting pattern : that sound had already reminded of another composer, and, when the horn-call had come back triumphantly, the piece then duly transformed, in its ending, into a piece of Beethovenian theatre.


The third movement had a song-like opening from Vengerov. That theme was ultimately to be passed to Saïtkoulov, but a feature of this Andantino was trills on piano, violin adornments, and modulations. Those modulations, when the theme was on piano, led to harmonic uncertainty, and then it was passed back for a mood of mellifluousness that alternated with one of earnestness. More modulations, and trills, first on piano, came before the movement concluded, but with a slight feeling of irresolution.


Having once read Jo Kirkbride’s programme-notes, one necessarily listened with awareness that it was youthful Schubert. The Allegro vivace opened with what seemed to be a variation of the start of the work, with a ‘jogging’ passage connected to it (a little like the earlier ‘trotting’ figure ?). Just before a theme was passed to the violin, one was aware that the piano part was reminiscent of Schubert’s later style in keyboard sonatas.

Generally, this movement seemed more mature than the others, with a feeling of equal partners, and it had energy and dramatic tension, from performers and composer : Schubert’s piano-writing is sympathetic, and both Saïtkoulov and Vengerov brought a lightness of touch to this finale, but coupled with expressiveness. Schubert ends the piece with enthusiasm, but it is unannounced, in the usual ways, in the writing, and so catches us somewhat short.


As with the Sonata that we were about to hear, this was playing engaged on a passionate purpose, with sympathy and communication between the players, and much appreciated by those who had been listening at Saffron Hall.




Beethoven ~ Sonata No. 7 in C Minor (1802), Op. 30, No. 2 :

1. Allegro con brio
2. Adagio cantabile
3. Scherzo : Allegro
4. Finale : Allegro ; Presto




Beethoven gives us, in the opening Allegro con brio, a pair of note-clusters that, with their contrasting note-values, balance a third, longer one, and Vengerov and Saïtkoulov clearly relished this rhythmic material. The composer’s assurance in writing and handling it was matched by theirs in bringing it to us, and, in co-curating the performance with him, and so a march-like passage felt rendered quite anew when it returns.

To some extent, elements of music inevitably, if well imprinted on the first occasion, will feel fresh when the composition has it repeated, by virtue of the differing context. Yet this was all part of the performers’ nuance and intonation, to have us take in themes in passing : at another point, we would be able to notice that Vengerov used under-statement before the material reappeared – both men were clearly feeling alive to the sensitivities and revelations in the Sonata. So, musically, the group of three vigorous down-strokes on violin need to fit where we hear them, and, if they do (as they did when Vengerov played them), they do not resemble gratuitous loudness (or even aggression ?), but make musical sense.

When that martial utterance comes back one final time, before a gloriously confident end to the movement, does it now seem to pre-figure what we hear in the so-called 'Eroica' Symphony ? (The Symphony No. 3 in E Flat Major (1804), Op. 55, was completed within a year of its publication*.)


When Roustem Saïtkoulov opened the next movement (marked Adagio cantabile), Maxim Vengerov was observing him keenly, during the introduction for solo piano : one had the sense that he wanted to absorb, with all available senses (not just that of sound), how this was being played, and, when he made his entry, it was with a most beautiful tone on violin, and phrased for the light piano chords.

There was the intonation and feeling of close duo partners, with Saïtkoulov performing figures, below Vengerov’s playing, and of an overall effect that, as the writing is, was balanced, with grace amidst a sense of solemnity. Just as with those three lively down-strokes from Vengerov in the Allegro con brio (please see above, in the penultimate paragraph), so Beethoven puts two massive rumbles into the piano-writing (in the form of pairs of very abrupt scales) : maybe curious in itself at first, but, with delicate violin following and adding to it, there was a devotional feel to how we heard violin with piano.


By now, although we still had two movements to be heard, they are (in a typical performance) shorter in length, put together, than the preceding Adagio cantabile. Yet music is not, of course, to be ‘sold by the pound (or kilo)’, and so, just as the emotional centre of a work may be found in a relatively short Adagio (because of what has come before it, and prepared for it), so the effect that these last movements can have will be built and be sustained by our experience of the earlier part of the Sonata.

The Scherzo movement opens with what, to Western ears could be an erratically accented dance-line (maybe in homage to the its fellows and its Tsarist dedicatee² ?), from which players and Beethoven extract thematic material. At times, with Saïtkoulov following Vengerov, it sounded imperial in nature; at others, perhaps more like a hymn of thanks – radiant and glorious.


Of course, it is not actually that the Scherzo is any more brief than is typical with any other movement so marked, but that the Finale is no longer. However, with rhythmically inventive writing and playing, and more use of syncopated off-beats, almost everything (please see below) about the tone and structure of the movement is predicated on its doing as we expect :

Beethoven makes a fugal use of a form of the theme, and we could see and sense the satisfaction of both men, in this music and in the performance, as they built from this point. Despite indications to the contrary, in a moment of almost stasis near the end, with violin and piano moving strophically, a Presto coda, signalled by Vengerov, was to bring the Sonata to a close, and to very much applause and sincere appreciation from Maxim Vengerov and Roustem Saïtkoulov on stage at Saffron Hall.



The link here is to the review of Part II of the concert


End-notes

¹ By way of explanation for this Part (Part I) of the review not appearing when intended :




² The publication of this set of three Sonatas, Beethoven's Opus 30 (dedicated to Tsar Alexander I of Russia), had been in May 1803 (they had been written between 1801 and 1802).




Unless stated otherwise, all films reviewed were screened at Festival Central (Arts Picturehouse, Cambridge)