Apollo Saal, Staatsoper Unter den Linden
Rossini,
arr. Jonathan Scott: Il barbiere di
Siviglia: Overture
Debussy,
arr. J Scott: Prélude à l’après-midi d’un faune
Alexandre
Guilmant: Scherzo in D
minor, op.31
Franck:
Prélude,
Fugue et Variation, op.16
Saint-Saëns,
arr. J Scott: Danse macabre
Saint-Saëns:
Six
Duos, op.8: ‘Fantasia e
fuga’
Gounod,
arr. J Scott: Méditation – Ave Maria
Tom
Scott: Dances for harmonium and piano
Guilmant:
Ariane, op.53: ‘Adagio’ and ‘Danse des songes’
Dukas,
arr. J Scott: L’Apprenti sorcier
Jonathan Scott (harmonium)
Tom Scott (piano)
It is not every day one hears a
recital for piano and harmonium duo; still less often, I suspect, might one
hear such a recital in which novelty of combination and sonority takes second
place to captivating quality of performance. Here with arrangements and no
fewer than four pieces written originally for the combination were the Scott
Brothers Duo, Tom on piano and Jonathan on harmonium, the latter a new Mustel
instrument acquired by the Staatsoper Unter den Linden.
A Rossini overture will always
prove, performance permitting, a sparkling way to open a concert. Performance
here permitted—and it proved an excellent choice in accustoming our ears and,
more generally, expectations. The introduction alternated between piano and
harmonium playing in concert, sometimes doubled and sometimes complementary,
and antiphonal writing, Jonathan Scott’s arrangement here as elsewhere skilful,
catching, indeed beguiling. His registration choices proved imaginative without
eccentricity and balance never proved a problem in the slightest. Rossini’s music
put a smile on one’s face, as it should. Debussy’s Prélude à l’après-midi d’un faune is a different kettle of fish, to
put it mildly, but Scott’s arrangement proved just as adept. The opening flute
solo swelled on his instrument, answered with piano arpeggios. Taken through
various, often magical transformations, this was quite an ear-opener, again for
the quality of the performances more than the novel instrumentation.
A piece for harmonium solo
followed, Alexandre Guilmant’s post-Mendelssohnian Scherzo in D minor, op.31.
As fleet as imaginable in performance, Mendelssohn soon took second place to
something not unlike Rossini and, less surprisingly, the world of the
nineteenth-century French organ. Music by Guilmant for piano and harmonium
would appear during the second half. I cannot say that the ‘Adagio’ and ‘Danse
des songes’ made me long to hear the rest of his ‘symphony-cantata’, Ariane, but it was pleasant enough for a
while, if not without sentimentality. Still, one item to which I struggled to
respond in a programme of this kind was pretty good going. Speaking of
sentimentality, the Bach-Gounod Ave Maria
preceding it was beautifully shaped, both as arrangement and performance; I am
not sure I did not prefer it to the vocal ‘original’.
Returning to the first half,
Franck’s Prélude, Fugue et Variation,
op.18, was the real thing, written with the surest command of the unusual
combination of instruments, and performed with flair and security. It had
impetus; it grew; and ultimately, there was a fine sense of cyclical return.
Perhaps the highpoint for me, though, was Saint-Saëns’s ‘Fantasia e Fuga’ from
his Six Duos, op.6, which opened the
second half. Opening piano cascades set against harmonium chordal progression?
The more one truly listened, the less simple such generalisations were. How,
moreover, could one fail to listen in so inviting a performance? Not all fugues
are fun—it would be a peculiar, embarrassing description for those in late
Beethoven—but this most certainly was. I should have loved to hear more from
this collection; leaving an audience wanting more is, however, not an unsound
tactic. The remaining piece written expressly for this combination of
instruments was Tom Scott’s own Dances
for Harmonium and Piano: unapologetically tonal and even, for want of a
better word, ‘popular’ in style, a waltz, sarabande, and minimalist (!) gigue were
written and performed with typical ease and panache.
Two tone poems completed the
two halves: Saint-Saëns’s Danse macabre
and Dukas’s Sorcerer’s Apprentice.
Both offered clarity and imagination in arrangement and performance. In the
former, one probably heard more strongly than ever the composer’s debt to
Liszt. There was a nice death rattle too. In the latter, equally full of
rhythmic impetus, one perhaps listened more clearly to Dukas’s often
extraordinary harmonies; I was reasonably sure that I heard things I had not
noticed before. Not, of course, that registration failed to ring the
colouristic changes. Along with winning introductions and commentary throughout—all
in German—we were treated to two encores: a virtuosic account of Vittorio Monti’s
Csárdás and an intimately expressive Fauré
Après un rêve. A lovely evening,
then, to which the Apollo Saal audience responded with great enthusiasm.
