Tetzlaff/Lonquich - Brahms, Enescu, Webern, and Franck, 16 November 2019

Pierre Boulez Saal

Brahms: Violin Sonata no.2 in A major, op.100

Enescu: Violin Sonata no.2 in F minor, op.6

Webern: Four Pieces for violin and piano, op.7

Franck: Violin Sonata in A major, FWV 8

Christian Teztlaff (violin)

Alexander Lonquich (piano)

What could be more satisfying than a comprehending performance of a Brahms masterwork? Nothing—and this was certainly that. Intimate yet not withdrawn, the opening of the first movement to the A major Violin Sonata—and much else besides—always had much bubbling beneath the surface, sometimes bubbling over, even erupting. Shifting balance between violin (Christian Tetzlaff) and piano (Alexander Lonquich) were managed almost as if this were the work of one player rather than two: a true partnership. Apparently simplicity soon revealed complexity, balance between melody and harmony, horizontal and vertical finely judged, likewise ever shifting. Formal concision and expression were two sides of the same coin. An ‘Andante tranquillo’ whose lyricism again encompassed harmony as much as melody proved the perfect foil for a Vivace section whose shadow games spoke not only of playful melancholy but also the melancholy of play. This second movement’s through-composition was truly felt and expressed, no mere structural ‘feature’. Metrical dislocation in the finale, as elsewhere, told without the slightest exaggeration. Once again, line, tempo, and mood were perfectly judged for music as intense, in its own way, as anything in Schoenberg and as deeply indebted to Beethoven, as revealed here, as anything Brahms wrote. Such things need not be shouted from the rooftops, especially with Brahms.

George Enescu’s 1899 Second—again of three—Violin Sonata was next on the programme, in a similarly absorbing performance. Its first movement, ‘Assez mouvementé’, began to speak from another shadow world with similar command of line, both aspects related to what we had heard in Brahms yet also distinct. Lonquich wore formidable technical demands lightly and without sentimentality, with an elegance one might consider Gallic. Such demands revealed rather than concealed underlying harmonic rhythm. Tetzlaff likewise made light of what he was asked to do, simplicity of utterance, not contrivance, the order of the day. The lyrical trade of the second movement offered something similarly distinctive. ‘Brahms with a French accent’ would sell it quite short, yet as a starting point in this particular recital, it may yet have served a purpose. Here, as elsewhere, contours were expertly, meaningfully shaped. The finale proved as rigorous as it was passionate, the idiom of Enescu’s strange ‘Romanticism’—I think one may just about call it that—judged to a tee. Equally fine in judgement was Teztlaff’s witty sign-off, too consequential merely to be nonchalant, yet momentarily, partially suggestive of that.

If I have heard a superior concert-hall Webern Four Pieces then I must have forgotten—which seems unlikely. Without apparent effort, art concealing art, Teztlaff imparted such meaning to his opening perfect fourth (double-stopped), that by the time Lonquich’s piano chord responded, one might almost have reached the end of a conventional first thematic group. The nine bars of the first piece present an entire drama of their own and were presented as such. Webern’s second piece emerged as a scherzo on acid, each note again the equivalent to a hundred in so much other music. The third announced itself as a drama of pitch and proceeded to be a drama of much else too, almost a Mahlerian world in itself. As in Beethoven, as in Brahms, a Webern finale’s victory needs to be won—and how it was here. All composer and performers asked was that we listen; it is difficult to imagine why, in circumstances so propitious, anyone would have declined.

For the final work on the programme we returned to A major, to César Franck’s Violin Sonata. What struck me most clearly from this sympathetic, refined, often ardent performance was, without disregard to certain affinities, the very different nature of Franck’s formal concerns here. The danger—I am not sure any performance can entirely avoid it—is that the music begins to speak with a certain sameness. Whatever the truth of my suspicion, Teztlaff and Lonquich made a valiant attempt, not through overt effort to be ‘different’, but by attending to different character between movements, by greater yet far from unrelieved intensification in the second and third, and finally by presenting a finale that balanced developmental and cyclical demands. It certainly did not stand still. Nor did the subtle, well-nigh Goethian tragedy—major mode conclusion notwithstanding—of the encore, the final movement from Brahms’s G major Violin Sonata. My only regret was that we had not heard the entire work; next time, perhaps.

Heinz Holliger in Profile, 'Childhood and Encryptions' - Schumann, Holliger, and Berg, 26 March 2011

Hall One, Kings Place

Schumann – Pieces from Album für die Jugend, op.68, interspersed with:
Holliger – Duöli (2008/2010)
Holliger – Præludium, Arioso, and Passacaglia, for solo harp (1987)
Berg – Chamber Concerto

Ursula Holliger (harp)
Alexander Lonquich (piano)
Muriel Cantoreggi, Florence Cooke, Alexander Harris, and Curtis Wilkinson (violins)
Wind players from the Royal Academy of Music
Heinz Holliger (conductor)

This was the second of two concerts, curated by Christoph Richter, welcoming Heinz Holliger to Kings Place. We did not hear him as oboist, but we heard him both as composer and as conductor – as well as lecturer in a pre-concert analytical talk on Berg’s Chamber Concerto. The first concert had been entitled ‘Fantasies and Journeys’, offering music by Sandor Veress, Schumann, Holliger, and Kurtág. I wondered whether the second, ‘Childhood and Encryptions,’ might have made more sense in the context of having heard the first. As it was, ‘childhood’ inhabited the first half, and ‘encryptions’ the second; it was not always clear what connected the two.

However, there was much to enjoy. Alexander Lonquich offered an excellent selection from Schumann’s Album für die Jugend, both precise and Classically alluring of tone; I should have been happy to have heard more, and suspect that I cannot have been the only audience member taken back to my own childhood assaults on Schumann’s exquisite miniatures. It was interesting to hear interspersed with the Schumann pieces Holliger’s Duöli, the work title as those of the individual pieces given in his native Swiss German. Whether one wish, outside a Holliger series, to hear all of these violin ‘duos’ (confusingly, they occasionally involve three or four players) is another question. I am sure they work very well as teaching pieces, rather like Bartók’s Mikrokosmos, to which they sometimes sound close in language. There is humour, whether in the titles, for instance, ‘It is really not so difficult,’ or ‘Two Little Pieces that do not quite fit together,’ or in the additional noises (cat-song, the canon for two or three snorers) the instrumentalists are sometimes called upon to provide. Moreover, there are moments of considerable beauty, for instance the droplet music, which sounds as one might expect, or the occasional ventures into Nono-like near-inaudibility. There are also instances of a somewhat soft-centred version of Lachenmann-like re-examination of the violin’s possibilities, though without Lachenmann’s intensity. It was encouraging to note that two young violinists from the Junior Guildhall, Alexander Harris and Curtis Wilkinson, stood up perfectly well in comparison with their professional colleagues, Muriel Cantoreggi and Florence Cooke. Nevertheless, a selection might prove a better way to programme the pieces, for a certain monotony, compositional variety notwithstanding, sets in.

Holliger’s wife, Ursula, opened the second half with the Præludium, Arioso, and Passacaglia. The piece is dedicated ‘for Ursula for 8.6 and 7.7’. We are not informed what these numbers signify, but are told that they form a structural role in the music as a whole. (I am afraid I should need to be informed how…) Whatever the meaning of these encryptions, it is a fine addition to the solo harp repertoire, combining neo-Baroque form, or at least an echo thereof, with decidedly twentieth-century style. Ursula Holliger was clearly in command throughout.

Finally – and this was what I had been waiting for – came a splendid performance of Berg’s Chamber Concerto. Holliger has good form in Berg: I highly commend his recording of the Violin Concerto with Thomas Zehetmair. Having heard a detailed description of the various encryptions in the earlier lecture, it was all the easier to receive the work as much as a dramatic exploration of various Romantic ‘characters’ – Berg, Schoenberg, Webern, Rudolf Kolisch, and so on – and their interaction. The performances were certainly impressive, woodwind players from the Royal Academy of Music proving full of drive and character. One could truly relish their engagement with the score – and doubtless with the conductor too. Lonquich proved an estimable pianist, finely balancing post-Romantic expressive considerations with complexity and structure. Cantoreggi played the violin part; initially she sounded somewhat disconnected, taking a little while to get into her stride, but when she did, she proved impassioned indeed. Holliger’s overall command of Berg’s form was as clear as his attentiveness to detail. I have never understood why some people claim to love Berg’s music yet to be put off by this work. In its marriage of labyrinthine complexity and hyper-expressivity it could hardly be more typical of the composer. A very good performance such as this, or the outstanding West-Eastern Divan Orchestra performance at the 2009 Proms, ought to convince any remaining doubters. It was interesting, moreover, to note how different the work sounds in a small hall: much more 'concerto', much less 'chamber'.

Salzburg Festival (3): Mozarteum Orchestra/Lonquich, 8 August 2009

Grosser Saal, Mozarteum

Mozart – Six German Dances, KV 571
Mozart – Symphony no.36 in C major, KV 425, ‘Linz’
Mozart – Masonic Funeral Music, KV 477/479a
Mozart – Piano concerto no.22 in E-flat major, KV 482

Salzburg Mozarteum Orchestra
Alexander Lonquich (piano/conductor)

The Salzburg Mozarteum Orchestra has a long history of presenting Mozart-Matinee concerts at the Festival. This one presented Alexander Lonquich in a dual role as pianist and conductor. The programme opened with a good account of the Six German Dances, KV 571: like so much ‘occasional’ Mozart, heard far too infrequently. This is deluxe dance music by any standards, of greater musical interest than any Johann Strauss waltz, whatever the considerable charms of the latter. Sometimes, when I have heard the Mozarteum Orchestra of late, there has been a tendency towards certain ‘period’ mannerisms; thankfully there was none of this here. The strings exhibited considerable warmth throughout, with characterful woodwind and percussion contributions also making their mark in a rhythmically incisive performance. Sometimes Lonquich’s direction edged a little in the direction of the hard-driven, never excessively so, but a little more time to breathe on occasion would not have been a bad thing. Nevertheless, this was a performance of considerable charm, which would only pale besides head-to-head comparisons with Willy Boskovsky and his Viennese ensemble.

Next came the Linz symphony, which I recall hearing in my very first Mozart-Matinee, in 1996, under Leopold Hager. I think I also heard it more recently from this orchestra and Ivor Bolton. None of these performances would qualify as a once-in-a-lifetime account, but equally none has disappointed. The Mozarteum Orchestra has Mozart in its blood; such consistency matters – and shows. Lonquich stood broadly in the category of modern, chamber-size Mozart. Tempi tended to be on the faster side of what one – or perhaps I should say ‘I’ – might prefer but without the exaggerations of the all too prevalent attention-seekers who inflict themselves upon eighteenth-century music. For instance, the Adagio introduction to the first movement sounded more like an Andante, and the Andante certainly walked with a limited amount of time to reach its destination. Neither sounded excessively rushed, however, and structural delineation was clear throughout. The Presto sounded spot on, I thought, not quite a headlong rush, but with more than a hint of Haydnesque wit. Special mention should certainly be granted to the Mozarteum Orchestra’s woodwind, all of whom sounded simply divine.

The weakest performance, sadly, was that of the Masonic Funeral Music. It seemed oddly programmed in this context and that was also how it sounded. Programming, however, was less at fault than Lonquich’s determination to push the pace at all times. If ever Mozart needed space to breathe, it is here. Rather than profoundly disquieting, this merely sounded odd.

The great E-flat concerto received a decent performance but this is one of those works in which one can hardly help but refer back to great performances of the past. I tend to think that pianists should be wary of directing Mozart’s concertos from the keyboard; those who are not themselves first-rate conductors tend perforce to fall a little short in both capacities. This is of course no issue for a Barenboim, or, indeed, for various pianists – such as Perahia and Pollini – whom we might do well to hear more often as conductors, but it was not clear from this performance that Lonquich is ready to join their ranks. His piano playing was technically competent throughout, though never did it betoken an especial affinity for this most elusive of composers. Semiquaver passagework tended to sound simply as passagework; a greater melodic, musical meaning was often absent. In Mozart, every note must count, for there is absolutely nowhere to hide. I do not know whose cadenzas were performed but I know plenty that are preferable.

Once again, however, the orchestral woodwind was on superlative form. The Harmoniemusik passages, not least in the slow section of the finale, were truly ravishing, though I had the impression that a slight stiffness was owed to Lonquich’s direction. The only quibble I had with the orchestral performance was the size of the string section. Whilst the Mozarteum’s acoustic had granted plenty of bloom to a smallish section – eight first violins and so forth – during the earlier works, there were occasions when the strings sounded pressed, having slightly to force their tone. For whatever reason, this was less the case during the unexpected, and in many ways delightful, encore, the Adagio from the Piano concerto in A major, KV 488, its rare F-sharp minor tonality and Neapolitan harmonies proving quite beguiling.