Paul Lewis and friends - Beethoven and Schubert, 22 December 2014

Wigmore Hall

Beethoven – String Trio in C minor, op.9 no.3

Cello Sonata in C major, op.102 no.1

Schubert – Piano Quintet in A major, D 667, ‘The Trout’

Paul Lewis (piano)

Alexander Sitkovetsky (violin)

Lawrence Power (viola)

Bjørg Lewis (cello)

Alois Posch (double bass)

 

This was a delightful pre-Christmas concert, in which a group of very fine musicians came together and offered something more than the sum of their parts and likewise more than the sum of the already appealing programme’s parts. First we heard Beethoven’s op.9 no.3 String Trio in a splendidly alert account, the sense of responsiveness between players at least as great as in a quartet performance. The first movement’s violence registered fully, almost as if this were later Beethoven, but the overall ‘Classical’ line remained intact. Its second subject sounded utterly gorgeous. The development sounded unusually close to Mozart in C minor mode, his piano sonata in that key in particular: perhaps a matter of motivic working? Febrile intensity of playing reminded us that we were also not so very far from Schoenberg – his own String Trio of course one of the very greatest essays in the genre. In the Adagio con espressione, notwithstanding the undoubtedly Beethovenian manner of the melodic ‘surface’, the method rightly underlined the composer’s debt to Haydn. The wonder of the trio texture was fully communicated in gloriously rich tone, though never for its own sake. The third movement sounded as a true scherzo: furious, but with none of that all-too-common sacrifice of harmony to rhythm. (As if in a it were ever a matter of either/or!) The trio again offered Haydnesque reminiscence – up to a point. A duly goal-oriented finale proved anything but inflexible, showing how Beethoven had learned his tragic lessons from Mozart. This was playing of an intensity that would not have shamed a performance of the Fifth Symphony, the scale of Beethoven’s ambition fully realised. Although it seems almost unnecessary to mention this, given the excellence of the performance, Alexander Sitkovetsky was a very late substitute for an indisposed Lisa Batiashvili; one would never have known.

 

Paul and Bjørg Lewis were the artists for the C major Cello Sonata, op.102 no.1. Whatever the presentiments in the Trio, there was no mistaking the real ‘late’ thing here, its distilled simplicity and fathomless profundity already to the fore in the first movement’s introduction. Drama, in whatever sense, asserted itself thereafter through typical ‘late’, dialectical complexity. A concentration worthy of Webern was the reward. The second movement struck uncommonly well that difficult balance, or dialectic, between fragility and sublimity: difficult not least since it is not necessarily the most overt of those relationships. Occasional intonational slips were of minimal import. The concluding Allegro vivace section seemed on the verge of the late piano sonatas and, in its most abrupt outbursts, again on the verge of Webern too. There was of course Bachian counterpoint to be heard, but quite rightly, the realisation of Beethoven’s tonal planning and drama retained, even strengthened, its roots in Haydn and Mozart.

 

All players were on stage for the Trout Quintet. The twin ambitions of work and performance were announced in grand style in the first movement’s opening bars. This was a gloriously big-boned performance, full of life and chiaroscuro. The piano sounded quite different, brighter and avowedly post-Mozartian: a matter of Schubert’s writing, of course, but also of Paul Lewis’s performance. If anything, he sounded still more at home in Schubert than in Beethoven. The performance of the Andante was full of potentiality, offering a fine sense of where Brahms and even Schoenberg might have come from, Brahms especially strongly anticipated in the relish accorded to the movement’s harmonic and melodic richness. The motivic insistence of Alois Posch’s double bass was not the least valued contributor to its progress. Both difference and similarity with respect to Beethoven again registered in the scherzo: this was certainly a more good-humoured note than had been struck in the first half. A beautifully relaxed trio maintained rigour and vigour. The celebrated variations were loved – how could they not be? – but never sentimentalised; this remained a thoroughly vital performance. Unity was the hallmark of the finale, its somewhat problematical form managing nevertheless to bring together the work as a whole. This was decidedly superior Hausmusik.

 

Maxim Rysanov and friends - Bach, 20 November 2013

Hall One, Kings Place

Cello Suite no.3 in C major, BWV 1009

Cello Sonata in G major, BWV 1027 (performed on violin, viola, cello, and harpsichord)
Cello Suite no.6 in D major, BWV 1012 (performed on viola)
Cello Sonata in G minor, BWV 1009 (performed on violin, viola, cello, and harpsichord)

Maxim Rysanov (viola)
Alexander Sitkovetsky (violin)
Kristina Blaumane (cello)
Iain Farrington (harpsichord)

 

What an imaginative programme – and, moreover, what a finely-performed programme, from Maxim Rysanov and friends! Four of Bach’s cello works (or, if you must, viola da gamba for two of them): two solo, one, performed ‘straight’, one transcribed for viola, and two of those with keyboard performed as trio sonatas. My only gripe might have related to my unfashionable preference for the piano, but that is not in any sense a reflection upon Iain Farrington’s alert harpsichord continuo.

 

The C major Cello Suite was performed first, by Kristina Blaumane. Her tempi were well-considered; even if I initially thought the Courante a little on the fast side, I was soon persuaded. The performance was certainly not rigid. Rubato was applied, yet never in exaggerated fashion; moreover, there was a nice lilt to Bach’s rhythms. Each dance was well characterised, leading to a properly climactic yet never uncharacteristic Gigue, in which Blaumane dug deep into her strings. Hers was a rich tone, applied sensitively throughout.  

 

The cello and piano (or, if you prefer, gamba and harpsichord) sonata, BWV 1027, followed. My ears took a minute or two to adjust to the new sound world of violin, viola, cello, and harpsichord, but I was swiftly won over. Interestingly, it was Rysanov’s viola, though not in any sense performed in allegedly ‘period’ style, which offered the most audible link with the older viola da gamba. Rysanov is, of course, an excellent violis, but more importantly, an excellent musician. I had the sense, rightly or wrongly, that these performances were somehow ‘his’ – and I for one was grateful for that. The opening Adagio was courtly in character, though it was here that textural busyness most stood out: more, I suspect, of needing time to adjust to the new forces than anything else, though I did wonder whether the harpsichord contribution might have been a little more restrained. A lively yet sturdy second movement ensued, properly based upon a sound understanding of rhythm and harmonic rhythm. The opening of the Andante I was a little less sure about: Dmitri Sitkovetsky’s violin tone was oddly low on vibrato, making for a glassy impression. Fortunately, it thawed, though we might still have benefited from a little less parsimony in that respect. The finale offered a wonderful display of contrapuntal ingenuity, putting me in mind of that to the Sixth Brandenburg Concerto.

 

Rysanov opened the second half with the D major suite, albeit for viola. His was a much easier platform manner than Blaumane’s; indeed, the way he launched into the opening Prélude could not help but take an audience with him. He offered a similar lilt and rubato to the cellist, but with a more brilliant – though certainly never glossy – tone, which again also managed to evoke in the best way resonances of older instruments: history refracted, considered, rather than misunderstood as antiquarianism. (Do the purveyors of so-called ‘Historically Informed Performance’ realise how little they know of the complexity of the philosophy of history? A little Hegel, Marx, and Croce, let alone more recent writing, should be sent their way forthwith.) It was interesting, if perhaps not surprising, to hear just how different Bach’s music sounded on viola, perhaps as distant here from the cello as from the violin, yet quite how readily it was born anew, the first Gavotte being the only case – though I am not entirely sure why – when I was less convinced by the adaptation. Rysanov offered such an array of character, whether with respect to different note values or to different dances, that the choice of instrument seemed beside the point. Repeated sections were never merely ‘repeated’, yet the difference – that word again – never sounded as if it were for its own sake, as exhibitionism; it was built rather upon solid musical understanding, at times drawing one in to moments of quite breathtaking intimacy. There was wit too, the Courante definitely making me smile at its suavity. The closing Gigue, even with an occasional intonational slip, proved wonderfully captivating, indeed almost Bartók-like in its always-musical excitement.

 

My ears had no problems then in adjusting back to the trio sonata set-up for the Sonata, BWV 1029, which sounded as if it had always been conceived for such forces. Its opening Vivace was imbued with an irresistible sense of life, likewise the closing Allegro, most definitely a finale in spirit. The intervening Adagio was again slightly the victim of Sitkovetsky’s odd withdrawal of vibrato. (It is not as if that were how he played the rest of the time.) Nor was I terribly enthusiastic about Farrington’s re-employment of the lute stop. But those were ultimately minor points, given a performance in which all concerned communicated Bach’s musical argument with such sympathy.