Pierre Boulez Saal
Schumann:
Violin Sonata no.1 in A
minor, op.105
Prokofiev:
Violin Sonata no.2 in D
major, op.94a
Franck:
Violin Sonata in A major
Guy Braunstein (violin)
Martha Argerich (piano)
Martha Argerich returns to
town: for chamber music with Guy Braunstein and for the Ravel G major Piano
Concerto with Zubin Mehta (to follow). My heart went out to those in the lengthy
queue for returns at the Pierre Boulez Saal, but certainly not so much as to
relinquish my ticket. Was it worth it? Yes, as ever. All three sonata
performances elicited thoughtful, committed performances from Braunstein and
Argerich in this, their first joint recital.
First, though, we heard the
first of Schumann’s three late violin sonatas: enigmatic works, for which many
seem unable to find the key. (I battled with all of them at one time or another
as a student pianist, always finding at least one movement well-nigh impossible
to bring off.) From the off, this was clearly a true partnership, well
balanced, moving forward together, offering dialogue and contrast as required.
All three movements benefited from a rightness of tempo and of tempo variation such
as enabled much that can often sound problematical simply to fall into place.
Argerich’s piano part in the first put me in mind of a cauldron from which
Schumann’s witches’ brew could rise and seep into our consciousness – not,
perhaps, entirely unlike Wagner’s contemporaneous conception of the orchestra
as Greek Chorus. Motivic working seemed to nod on either side to Beethoven and
Brahms, without ever sounding like anyone other than Schumann. The central
‘Allegretto’ was taken swiftly, yet with commendable flexibility. Surprises,
modulatory and otherwise, at the ends of phrases registered with all the
freshness in the world. If ultimately, the music remained enigmatic – that word
again – then so it should. In the finale, fantastic, even impetuous flight and
traditional lyricism alike rested on rock-solid foundations, harmonically and rhythmically.
With so distinguished exponent of the Piano Concerto at the keyboard, we should
not have been surprised, but there was no sense that this was something other
than music-making between friends on which we were fortunate to eavesdrop.
Prokofiev’s Second Violin
Sonata (the violin transcription of his Flute Sonata) followed. I noticed
immediately a difference of voice, not only concerning the composer but also his
performers, its first movement speaking with idiomatic bitter-sweetness – such exultant, lyrical sweetness from
Braunstein – and romanticised modernism. Mood swings were more abrupt, even
cinematic, without compromise to underlying continuity. Potentiality in the
piano part, simultaneously vertical and horizontal, was vividly generative. And
still there remained some of the composer’s old Fiery Angel bite; perhaps there might have been a little more at
times, but relative subtlety had its own rewards. The scherzo spoke more
clearly of demonic possession, piano scampering taken up by violin and vice versa. There was plenty of sulphur
here, however neoclassicised. Uneasy placidity characterised the side-slipping ‘Andante’,
perhaps the movement that went deepest, so long as one listened. The finale
proved fantastical, swashbuckling, and not without a little grotesquerie. Argerich’s
seductive hammering of Prokofiev’s chords said it all.
Opened the Franck
Sonata sounded as if one old friend was greeting another – and it her, a third, Braunstein, responding in kind. Not that the music was taken for granted, but
that the score had been thoroughly internalised as material for recreation.
Outpouring and subsiding were two sides of the same Argerich coin, sometimes
even within the same phrase; its spinning would often find itself caught in
magical, almost Brahmsian half-lights, though never for long. Tracing and
shaping of the first movement’s contours and indeed those of the rest of the
sonata were undoubtedly a dual effort, partnership once again apparent from the
outset. The second and third movements both offered intensification and due
attention to particular character. There was wonder in their transformation
too, not least in the myriad of colours revealed in piano chords and their
progressions. Braunstein’s violin recitative in the third movement was eloquent
and alluring, Argerich already having forestalled the danger of premature
climax at the close of the second by taking this music attacca – and what attack this was! The finale offered refreshment
in well-nigh Mozartian response, thereafter taking its own path, our guides
both knowledgeable and passionate. As encores we heard not one but two Viennese
dances by Fritz Kreisler, played, as Braunstein now informed us, on Kreisler’s
own violin: a lilting, poignant Liebesleid
and a Schön Rosmarin whose notes flew
off the page with all the time in the world.
