Wigmore Hall
Purcell: Oedipus, King of Thebes, Z 583: ‘Music for a while’
Dowland: Preludium; Fantasia no.7; Time stands still
Giulio Caccini: Dalla porta d’oriente
Monteverdi: Quarto scherzo delle ariose vaghezze: ‘Sì dolce è’l tormento’, SV 332; ‘La mia turca che d’amor’, SV 310
Trad. Sephardic, arr. Sulayman and Shibe: La Prima Vez
Trad. Andalusian, arr. Sulayman and Shibe: Lamma Bada Yatathanna
Sayeed Dawish, arr. Sulayman and Shibe: El Helwa Di
Ziad Rahbani and Fairuz: Le Beirut (based on Joaquin Rodrigo, arr. Sulayman and Shibe)
Jonathan Harvey: Sufi Dance
Layale Chaker: A Butterfly in New York
Takemitsu: In the Woods: ‘Wainscot Pond’
Britten: Songs from the Chinese, op.58
Does the butterfly ‘… know/That I no longer run/After butterflies?/Just watch them in silence/That I live/Like a broken branch’? In Sinan Antoon’s poem, ‘A Butterfly in New York’, translated by the author from the original Arabic and set to music by Layale Chaker, memory of a butterfly ‘chased … so often/in our Baghdad garden’ contrasts with the new reality of the ‘broken branch’ which, pluralised, gives its name to this programme of cultural encounters and mystical unity of human experience from Karim Sulayman and Sean Shibe. In Chaker’s song, Sulayman’s almost unending yet endlessly varied melismata flowed with dark ease, until tellingly it (the music, rather than performance) got stuck, unstuck itself, and so on in a vivid quasi-scena whose progress thus similarly acted as a metaphor for the ‘Broken Branches’ of the recital as a whole.
We had begun with Purcell, ‘Music for a while’ given at a gorgeously slow tempo, sustained and beautifully shaded by both musicians, Sulayman dwelling playfully on the twin sibilants of ‘snakes’. Throughout, Shibe’s substitution of guitar for lute, oud, and other instruments was always accomplished with care and imagination, neither attempting to render it merely as it would have been nor ignoring the necessity or at least advisability of modification; but then, the same care was devoted to occasions when it appeared ‘as itself’ too. There was never from either musician the slightest sense of ‘one size [or sound] fits all’; such was clear from the very outset. Three Dowland items, a prelude, a fantasia, and the song Time Stands Still, ran into one another, that flow – or, if you prefer, the course of a branch not yet broken – compelling, yet never quite expected, holding our attention through words and music alike. In the song, as so often, one felt almost as if this were a single musician singing and playing, so close was the partnership; yet the visual element, both musicians seated, offered a welcome reminder this was not identity, but collaboration.
We moved from England to the Mediterranean, at more or less the same time. Caccini’s Dalla porta d’oriente opened a gate to the east of its own, to much of the rest of the programme. However clichéd the idea, it was difficult not to think of greater ‘Italian’ immediacy, rock-solid rhythm underpinning all, strophic structure used to express the words, and Shibe’s guitar interlude here and in the following song splendidly inventive. For Monteverdi’s Si dolce è’l tormento, we went deeper, reflecting the nature of words and music—here in indissoluble union suggesting, however erroneously, mutual conception. The same composer’s La mia turca che d’amor was lighter, humorous, and highly characterful: excellent programming as well as performance, also offering both a bridge to and contrast with the Sephardic near-suspended motion of La Prima Vez.
That was followed by another solo for
Shibe, Lamma Bada Yatathanna, very different from Dowland yet perhaps
also united or at least kindred in a keen sense of flow. It led directly into
Sayed Darwish’s El Helwa Di, its more popular style captured with just
as much care and skill as anything preceding. Here was another vividly
communicative performance, Sulayman and Shibe holding the Wigmore Hall audience
in their hands. Li Beirut could hardly fail to be an emotional tribute
to the city from which Sulayman’s parents emigrated to the United States. We felt
sadness, pride, ardour, and defiance. Jonathan Harvey’s Sufi Dance was a
fascinating solo for Shibe. It summoned forth all manner of sounds from the guitar
in a single, unbroken line: mysticism in motion, as if a ‘prepared guitar’
after Cage met Stockhausen and the inexorability of dance.
Takemitsu’s ‘Wainscot Pond’ offered a typically exquisite and entrancing garden
walk, Shibe’s command of line and expressive content revealing a depth that can
all too readily be missed, albeit worn with proper lightness of touch. As for
Britten’s Songs from the Chinese: well, there was no gainsaying the
excellence of the performances, but the composer’s typical archness stood out a
little too readily for me here. The Mexican composer Tomás Mendez’s Cucurrucucú Paloma,
given as an encore, may have been less overtly ‘clever’, but it sounded more sincere.
