Waterloo Festival (5) – Isserlis, Haywood, Bruch, Strauss, Dvořák, and Le Beau, 24 June 2021

St John’s, Waterloo

Bruch: Kol Nidrei, op.47
Strauss: Cello Sonata in F major, op.6 (London premiere of first version)
Dvořák, arr. Isserlis: Four Romantic Pieces, op.75
Luise Adolpha Le Beau: Cello Sonata in D major, op.17

Steven Isserlis (cello)

Sam Haywood (piano)

Image: Matthew Johnson

All good things must come to an end, or at least from time to time a pause. Let us hope that this, the last in the Spotlight Chamber Concert series, now also part of the Waterloo Festival, is only au revoir. Anthony Friend’s achievement in attracting such an array of musicians, to give such excellent performances at the darkest of times, merits our deepest gratitude; it certainly has mine. This long-delayed concert from Steven Isserlis, now with pianist Sam Haywood, made for a splendid finale—at least for now.


First up was Max Bruch’s Kol Nidrei, treated to a performance of High Romantic expressivity, balanced with great dignity, Haywood’s sensitivity as accompanist crucial here. Bruch’s piece is very different, of course, from Schoenberg’s Kol nidre for speaker, chorus, and orchestra. Schoenberg wrote to Paul Dessau that ‘one of my principal tasks’ had been to ‘vitriolize away the cello-sentimentality of the Bruchs etc., lending this decree the dignity of a law, of an “edict”.’ Whatever one thinks of that, one probably knows what he meant. Dignity takes many forms, however, as does sentimentality. It would have taken a harder heart than mine not to admire and enjoy so committed and freely romantic a performance. The way the music subsided just as dusk outside began to fall offered magic in itself.


Strauss and Schoenberg had a fraught relationship over the years. Schoenberg could not possibly, however, have known the first, 1881 version of Strauss’s Cello Sonata, since it only became available last year, Strauss’s music having passed out of copyright. (The same fate or opportunity awaits Schoenberg’s music next year.) Isserlis and Haywood gave the London premiere with a conviction that suggested a repertoire piece—which, even when one considers the first movement, in which relatively little changed, is perhaps something of an exaggeration for Strauss’s revision, let alone this. Both musicians were clearly inside the music, the pianist in particular, unsurprisingly, given quite a work-out. Strauss’s talent, at only seventeen years old, at writing for any instrument was heard both in his cello writing and in its combination with piano. There is little, even no, sign of the ‘real’ Richard Strauss, but it is an enjoyable, incredibly competent piece. The first movement was shaped as if it were Brahms, underlining an astonishing, Mendelssohn-like security of harmony and form. Its successor, an Andante entirely absent from the more familiar version of the work, received a rapt reading that did not obscure but rather enhanced its essential simplicity. The third movement, again replaced in its entirety in the second version, was likewise imbued with all the freshness of discovery and all the apparent familiarity of repertory. Mendelssohn again came to mind. It sang beautifully, if not remotely like the Strauss of maturity. There were some splendidly deadpan surprises too.


Dvořák, arranged by Isserlis, was next. One might never have guessed the Four Romantic Pieces were not originally written for cello and piano such was the success of arrangement and performance, clarifying textures that might conceivably have proved awkward. A delectable, songful performance of the first had genuine simplicity, albeit one that concealed much craft beneath the surface. The second was given in passionate contrast, founded on fine command of detail and articulation, leading aptly enough to a third that seemed to combine many of the virtues of both. Melancholy nobility, moving me considerably, proved the hallmark of the fourth.


Finally, a curiosity: the D major Sonata of Luise Adolpha Le Beau, written, albeit three years earlier and emerging victorious, for the same competition Strauss’s failed to win. The first movement’s opening proved, like Strauss’s, highly accomplished and, in performance, rich in tone. Where it travelled thereafter seemed more arbitrary. It nonetheless benefited from great care and evident belief. This big-hearted performance more or less melted my sceptical heart. A sad, yet warm and dignified slow movement, and pleasant enough finale likewise benefited from committed performance. I could not help but think the latter went on a bit, but did not mind in the slightest. The encore, Cécile Chaminade’s Sommeil d’un enfant was very much what one would expect: pleasant and well-crafted in its salon way.

Joshua Bell/Sam Haywood, 29 April 2010

Wigmore Hall

Mozart – Violin Sonata in B-flat major, KV 454
Beethoven – Violin Sonata no.7 in C minor, op.30 no.2
Ravel – Violin Sonata in G major
Tchaikovsky – ‘Méditation’ from Souvenir d’un lieu cher, op.42
Sarasate – Introduction and Tarantella, op.43

Joshua Bell (violin)
Sam Haywood (piano)

The programme above, with Mozart and Beethoven sonatas in the first part and the other pieces in the second, looked odd on paper and proved so in practice. Performances were split accordingly, with distinctly unimpressive Classical works followed by a much improved second group following the interval.

The Mozart sonata, KV 454, opened promisingly, with a properly expansive Largo introduction. Joshua Bell applied nice touches of portamento and generally phrased well. Thereafter – and this set the pattern for the rest of the sonata – the tempo was simply too fast; Mozart reacts poorly to being hurried. Sam Haywood’s rendition of the piano part had its moments of passion, but there was too much Meissen china. Likewise, Bell had some fine moments, not least some beautiful playing on the G string, but the whole was less than the sum of its parts. The slow movement was more song than aria, its piano part strikingly matter of fact, nowhere more so than in the startling prosaic broken chords; what magic should be here. Greater pathos emerged with the turn to the minor mode, but it was not fully integrated. I am not sure I have ever heard so fast an Allegretto as the finale; it sounded more akin to an Allegro – at least. Where the conclusion to this movement should astonish in the diminution of note values, so fast a tempo pre-empted surprise. It was not just a matter of tempo; there was an impetuous, even showy aggression that sounded quite out of place in Mozart. As Stravinsky once commented on a typically hard-driven Solti performance, ‘Mozart is poorer than that’. By which, of course, he meant that Mozart is richer than that.

The Beethoven sonata likewise opened promisingly, with a sense of ebb and flow. It quickly became clear, however, that Beethovenian cragginess would be conspicuous by its absence, the performance veering between Romantic-virtuosic show and pseudo-eighteenth-century preciousness. In the slow movement, Haywood’s piano opening utterly lacked the requisite noble simplicity. Phrases were fussily broken up and the tempo was once again too fast, extraordinarily so for a movement marked Adagio cantabile: this sounded like an Andante – at least. The Beethovenian sublime was nowhere to be heard. Playful and aggressive, the scherzo marked a noteworthy improvement, though it was rather late in the day and arguably overdone. The finale proved excessively, externally ‘passionate’, leaving little room for structural backbone. As with much of the sonata, it never sounded like Beethoven.

Ravel celebratedly disdained interpretation in favour of performance, at least in terms of his music. A pose? Perhaps, but he certainly permits less license, seemingly benefiting this duo, who instantly sounded more at home in Ravel’s G major violin sonata. Bell’s tone was straightforwardly gorgeous, and, more to the point, appropriate to the work. The modal piano passages sounded midway between the Middle Ages and the jazz age – which is to say, they sounded Ravelian. Perhaps the performance was a bit smooth at times, but it marked a great improvement. The slow movement was more bluesy, less Romantic than is often the case: nothing wrong with that. There was aggression too, some of the violin part sounding startlingly, revealingly close to Bartók, for the music, thank goodness, was never sentimentalised. The finale brought a similar kinship to the G major Piano Concerto and furthered that tension, as opposed to collaboration, between piano and violin: a hallmark of the sonata as a whole.

Tchaikovsky’s Méditation sounded, at its best, like a missing aria from Eugene Onegin, though there were strange moments of disconnection between violin and piano: perhaps a hangover from the Ravel? Bell took the opportunity nevertheless to lavish his rich tone, upon the music, greatly to its benefit. As for Sarasate’s Introduction and Tarantella, the piece does not amount to anything much, but nor does it outstay its welcome. Bell despatched it as to the manor born. Every difficulty thrown at him he turned into an opportunity, evincing a true stylistic affinity lacking in the first ‘half’ of the programme. In a nod to this year’s Chopin anniversary, the players gave an encore arrangement of the C-sharp minor Nocturne. On this evidence, the music gains nothing and loses a great deal from such arrangement, but Bell gave his admirers further opportunity to swoon.