Hall One, Kings Place
Zemlinsky – Feiger Gedanken bängliches Schwanken,
op.22 no.3; Volkslied, op.22 no.5; Das bucklige Männlein, op.22 no.6; Jetzt ist die Zeit, op.27 no.4; Die Verschmähte, op.27 no.5; Harlem Tänzerin, op.27 no.8
Schoenberg – Verklärte Nacht, op.4, arr. for piano
trio by Eduard Steuermann
Schoenberg – Chamber Symphony
no.1, op.9, version for two pianos
Marie Jaermann (soprano)
Amaya Piano Trio (Batia Murvitz (piano), Lea Tuuri (violin), Lauri Rantamoijanen (cello))
Charles Owen, Alberto Portugheis (pianos)
Zemlinsky benefited from a better
selection of repertoire than he had received on the first
evening of this two concert series, ‘Schoenberg – Master and Pupil’. He also
benefited from a better performance of the pieces selected. The six songs
performed, three from his op.22 set, and three from op.27, showed the mature composer
rather than someone ineptly, if not uninterestingly, straining towards Brahms.
The op.22 songs were written in 1934, and premiered in that year in Prague. We
hear the composer offering a tonal richness partly born of Schoenberg, yet
without following him into breathing the air of another planet, and with a
relative concision, even toughness, characterising much of Zemlinsky’s later music,
op.22 no.3, for instance, seemingly over in no time at all. Similarly for the
op.27 songs, from three years later. Earlier preoccupations - the Wunderhorn setting, ‘Das bücklige
Männlein’ inevitably puts us in mind of Der
Zwerg – and later ones alike, for instance the Harlem renaissance in op.27
no.8, show themselves mutually accommodating rather than contradictory. It
would be difficult to consider them works of genius – unlike, say, the Lyric Symphony – but they are
accomplished songs, and that is how they came across in concert. Marie Jaermann offered cleanly sung, direct
performances, not without occasional moments of shrillness, but giving a proper
sense of the songs’ qualities. Alberto Portugheis’s rendition of the piano parts
was uninspired, often heavy-handed and bludgeoning, but at least competent –
which, sadly, was far more than could be said for his performance later on.
Eduard Steuermann’s
arrangement of Verklärte Nacht for
piano trio is a curiosity, though not an especially revealing one – unlike,
say, the gorgeous transcriptions of Johann Strauss waltzes by Schoenberg, Berg,
and Webern (in almost every respect preferable to the originals!) There are
passages in which the new instrumentation works well enough, but equally there
are passages where it does not. The very opening, heard on the piano, sounds
leaden, and there are too many instances where balances do not really work –
partly, I think, a problem with performance, but not entirely so. What we heard
from the Amaya Piano Trio was for the most part a decent enough performance,
but somewhat short of inspired, which is probably what a transcription such as
this really needs, if it is to come closer to convincing. Violinist Lea Tuuri’s
intonation often left something to be desired; Batia Murvitz and Lauri
Rantamoijanen proved more sensitive. There were, however, too many passages in
which Schoenberg’s ebb and flow did not seem fully understood, or at least
conveyed. This music needs to move like Tristan;
here it often sounded four-square, sectional, the rests endured, counted
through, rather than ‘played’.
One will generally learn
something, hear something new, from transcriptions, even if they do not convince
fully. It is certainly of interest to hear, if only occasionally, a work such
as Schoenberg’s First Chamber Symphony in piano guise. I remember learning a
great deal from hammering my way through a version for piano solo, as part of
my preparations for conducting the piece years ago. Alas that was, at best,
what Portugheis seemed to be doing here, a doubly frustrating situation since
Charles Owen’s musicianship proved, insofar as one could tell, to be on another
level entirely. Indeed, on the odd occasions when Portugheis fell silent, we
suddenly, all too briefly, seemed to be in the realm of a real performance:
tantalising, even beguiling. Then we returned to a realm of rehearsal speeds,
fistfuls of wrong notes, general incomprehension. There seems little point in
saying anything much on the performance as interpretation, but someone, at some
point, really ought to have advised Portugheis against performing something of
which he was clearly so utterly incapable. A long, drawn-out performance such
as this would have been more likely to repel than to attract audiences to
Schoenberg. In its way, it was as bizarre and as lacking in basic competence as
Rick Jones's accompanying programme note, full of nonsense such as this: ‘The 19th
century had all but killed off the symphony.’ It read, at best, as if someone
had been inhaling air from another planet entirely.
