Festival d’Aix-en-Provence (4) – Degout/Quatuor Diotima: Ligeti, Respighi, and Schoeck, 10 July 2025

Conservatoire Darius Milhaud

Ligeti: String Quartet no.1
Respighi: Il tramonto
Schoeck: Notturno, op.47

Stéphane Degout (baritone)

Yun-Peng Zhao, Léo Marillier (violins)

Franck Chevalier (viola)

Alexis Descharmes (cello)

 

(Picture taken by me)

For a second outstanding concert at the Festival d’Aix-en-Provence, the Quatuor Diotima was joined by Stéphane Degout, another musician whom I have never heard give anything other than an excellent performance. Degout joined the quartet for what must count almost as ‘early music’ for them: two rarities, both entirely new to me, by Ottorino Respighi and Othmar Schoeck. First, however, we heard the Diotima on its own, in what is, by comparison, almost a repertoire work – it certainly is in the particular field of twentieth-century quartet writing – the first of György Ligeti’s two string quartets. 

Written in 1953-4, two years before Ligeti departed Hungary for Vienna in the dread year of 1956, the First Quartet emerged here very much out of Bartók’s soundworld, the first of its twelve short movements sharing and extending clearly recognisable – yet not reducible – melodic impulse and unease, its scalic writing unnervingly strange. From those seeds, the rest of the quartet seemed to spring, as if on a coil. Expressive intensity; riotous invention; humour in the tipsy waltz, captivatingly swung; and many other hallmarks of the ‘mature’ Ligeti were all present and thrillingly correct, a little string swarming too. The disconcerting nature of the composer’s Bartókian inheritance continued to make itself manifest, though, not least in unearthly harmonics and a final movement that threatened at least to transcend. Such a Romantic notion, however, was never going to proceed unchallenged, the Diotima players brining us back to earth, if we had ever left it, at the close.   

1914 has inevitable connotations of war for European and indeed world history. I am not sure one could hear much of that in Respighi’s Il tramonto, nor is there any reason one should. Many fancy we hear presentiments at least as far back as Mahler’s Sixth Symphony; yet. Essen, Krupp, and Kaiser notwithstanding, what does that actually mean? It concerns a sunset, of course, in translation from Shelley, but in some ways it seems more forward-looking – no value judgement – than, say, the ‘Ausklang’ from Strauss’s Alpine Symphony (1911-5), though there is what sounds to be, at least in retrospect, an obvious kinship with Strauss. Ripe, not over-ripe, it offers quartet writing as rich as that for voice, instruments here speaking as much as baritone or poet, in performances that took nothing for granted. Tristan und Isolde was, perhaps unsurprisingly, present for much of it, Puccini too, Respighi showing that his scenic gift need rely neither on large orchestras nor on obvious word-painting. It naturally helps to enjoy a performance of such distinction, Degout’s colouristic transformation on the exclamation ‘Pace!’ so much more than mere diminuendo. 

1933 is likewise a year so laden with doom for European history one can forget it did not necessarily seem so at the time—even to many in Germany, however much it should. Switzerland was of course a longstanding haven for refugees and exiles from there and elsewhere, Wagner and Busoni in Zurich included. It could prove a haven for modernist music too, Berg’s Lulu receiving its first performance in 1937, also in Zurich. Othmar Schoeck, who owed much to his sometime mentor Busoni, did not exactly cover himself with glory in the years to come. No Nazi himself, he nonetheless had his Eichendorff opera Das Schloß Dürande – to a libretto by an undisputed Nazi (before that, a longstanding member of the extremist DNVP), Hermann Burte – premiered at the Berlin State Opera in 1943. It was a decision that not unreasonably enraged many Swiss. Ten years earlier, though, that was some way off. 

Schoeck’s Notturno from that year, later championed by Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, proved quite a discovery (at least for those of us for whom it was), one could well understand being admired, at least in part, by Berg, not least in the long first movement. It was a very different soundworld, as one would expect, offered by Schoeck to Nikolaus Lenau and Gottfried Keller, and by the Quatuor Diotima and Degout to them all (and each other). Again, clarity of words, line, and harmonic motion was matched by palpable emotional commitment and ‘atmosphere’. Voice and instrument – for instance, Alexis Descharmes’s eloquent cello – duetted as well as other combinations in what often seemed as much quasi-symphony as song cycle. Zemlinsky’s Lyric Symphony came to my mind more than once, not least encircling words such as ‘So ganz, wie unsre Liebe, zu Tränen nur gemacht’. It is a work of assured mastery, and sounded so, which never did quite what one expected without ever seeming to court surprise, rhythm in the second movement a case in point. If not quite Bergian, the third movement, ‘Es weht der Wind so kühl’, ushered in a wind of riches, if one can imagine such a thing, not so distant. The musicians’ musical and dramatic shaping were rightly as one. It felt like the emotional centre as well as simply being the third of five movements. Likewise, the fifth felt like a finale from the outset. A finale can take many forms – in more than one sense – but this was one of them. The path was never obvious, yet made good sense: sometimes more direct than one expected, sometimes less so. It put me a little in mind of late Schreker. Perhaps more to the point – my point, anyway – it made me keen to hear Degout in Wagner.

Gerhaher/Huber - Holliger, Wolf, Schumann, and Schoeck, 12 February 2023

Wigmore Hall

Holliger: Elis
Wolf: Abendbilder
Holliger: Lunea
Schumann: Vier Husarenlieder, op.117
Schoeck: Elegie, op.36: ‘An den Wind’, ‘Herbstgefühl’, ‘Verlorenes Glück’, ‘Das Mondlicht’, ‘Herbstentschluss’, ‘Welke Rose’
Schumann: Sechs Gedichte von N. Lenau und Requiem, op.90

Christian Gerhaher (baritone)
Gerold Huber (piano)

Any recital from Christian Gerhaher is likely to be special; offering a range of quite unusual repertoire, Heinz Holliger’s Lunea written for and dedicated to Gerhaher, this was no exception. It opened, though, with a rare solo spot for Gerhaher’s long-term collaborator, pianist Gerold Huber, and early (1961, revised 1966) Holliger. Gerhaher reading the three Georg Trakl texts on which Elis’s three short piano pieces, ‘Verkündigung des Todes’, ‘Todesangst und Gnade’, and ‘Himmelfahrt’, are based, even providing his own English translation for the programme sheet. Strikingly post-Schoenbergian harmony characterised the first, though its musical gestures worked differently. The soundworld of the second sounded later, more post-Webern, if you will, indeed surely marked by Holliger’s contemporary study with Boulez, albeit with a Germanic accent. ‘Himmelfahrt’, as its name might suggest, seemed in some sense both to reconcile and to go beyond. These aphoristic nocturnes emerged pregnant with emotion, gesture, and – who knows – perhaps ‘meaning’ too. 

Hugo Wolf’s Abendbilder (again early, 1877) followed, without a break. In context, the piano prelude to the first of the three sons sounded Romantically consoling, yet not unrelated: an excellent starting point for our Wolfram von Eschenbach, sorry Gerhaher, to sing, the sincerity as well as beauty of his delivery striking from the outset, likewise command of detail without pedantry. All three Nikolaus Lenau ‘pictures’ rightly formed part of a greater whole, whilst happily going on their own, sometimes pastoral, ways. It was difficult not to marvel at the different shades and colours of Gerhaher’s voice, poetically deployed, an sinking wanness as the sun set (‘Bald versinkt die Sonne’, an example in point. Shades of Schumann and Liszt in language and performance contextualised without overwhelming.

We remained with Lenau for Holliger’s Lunea, written from 2009-10, though only premiered at Zurich’s Opera House in 2013 (also venue five years later for the premiere of Holliger’s opera of the same name, featuring Gerhaher, reworking these settings ‘like chorales in a Bach Passion’). Notably more gestural than what we had previously heard, it yet remains – and, in performance, remained – within the noble Lied tradition. Twenty-two Lenau sentences and a short poem, ‘Einklang’, in memory of Johann Baptist Mayrhofer form a striking cycle that must surely have won the composer new admirers here in London. Gerhaher’s acuity of verbal and musical response seemed ideally suited. That range of colour was now married to a greater range of general delivery, sometimes unabashed song, sometimes recitation, often somewhere in between; extended piano techniques such as bowing the strings acted similarly. Searching melismata unsettled, lit up, even amused, as instances of wordpainting (‘Ein Tropfen im Stein’) worked something like their traditional magic of recognition. Wonderfully nomadic harmony illuminated Lenau’s Wüstenwanderer, prior to that neo-Schubertian postlude of ‘Einklang’.  

I struggle to find Schumann’s Lenau Husarenlieder among his more compelling work, but they received stylish, commanding performances, with a fine degree, where required, of Schwung. Rhythms were well-pointed, and Gerhaher, rightly, I think, permitted a word-driven approach. A selection of six songs from Othmar Schoeck’s Elegie, four to texts by Lenau, Gerhaher imparted a strong sense, even in the others’ absence, of its character as a whole, yet equally individual character to individual songs. Musical process was clear, courtesy above all of the piano, in ‘Das Mondlicht’. The performance as a whole was subtly surprising: no shocks, yet deeply satisfying provided one offered musical attention.

The final Schumann set showed the composer, at least some of the time, the recapturing the infinitely touching spirit of his youth. Gerhaher and Huber offered plenty of variety in the opening, strophic blacksmith’s song, but it was the ensuing ‘Meine Rose’ that played on the heartstrings. Was that perhaps a sense of Schumann influenced by Wagner, or simply memories of Gerhaher’s Wolfram? At any rate, it brought tears to my eyes. So too did the sense of youthful anticipation in ‘Die Sennin’, whilst ‘Einsamkeit’ and ‘Der schwere Abend’ both turned from disquieting ambiguity to ultimate sadness. The final ardour of the strange ‘Requiem’, offered us flame that flickered both in defiance and reconciliation, perhaps like the Lied tradition’s persistence unto Holliger (and beyond?) ‘Zweifeldner Wunsch’ from Schoeck’s Elegie made for a fitting encore, concluding and continuing a line of subtle questioning.

Park Lane Young Artists Spring Series, 19 and 21 April 2016

St John’s, Smith Square

Giles Swayne – Chansons dévotes and poissonneuses

Kurtág – Twelve Microludes, op.13
Blair Soler – Imaginings – Six pieces for string quartet
Josephine Stephenson – Tanka
Freya Waley-Cohen – Oyster
Kate Honey – Predator Fish
Stevie Wishart – Eurostar: A Journey in sound between cities (world premiere)
Brett Dean – String Quartet no.1, ‘Eclipse’

Aike String Quartet (Soh-Yon Kim, Emily Harper (violins), Benjamin Harrison (viola), Karen French (cello))

The Hermes Experiment (Héloïse Werner (soprano), Oliver Pashley (clarinet), Anne Denholm (harp), Marianne Schofield (double bass))

 

Robin Holloway – Killing Time

Joel Rust – Trio Trio Trio, for string trio (world premiere)
Holloway – String Trio
Othmar Schoeck – Wanderlieder, op.12
Lord Berners – Three English Songs
Morgan Hayes – Dictionary of London
Schoenberg – String Trio, op.45

Nardus Williams (soprano)

Peter Foggitt (piano)

Eblana String Trio (Jonathan Martindale (violin), Lucy Nolan (viola), Peggy Nolan (cello))

 

St John’s, Smith Square played host last week to no fewer than ten concerts in the Park Lane Group Young Artists Series. Each evening from Monday to Friday offered a short 6 p.m. concert, usually combined with an ‘in conversation’ event with a featured composer, followed by a 7.30 concert, in which that composer’s music would be programmed with that of other composers. I was only able to attend two 7.30 concerts, but was delighted to hear a wide range of music, from which only one work, Schoenberg’s String Trio, was familiar to me.

Tuesday’s concert began with a wonderful surprise: Giles Swayne’s witty Chansons dévotes and poissonneuses, a setting of verse by Georges Fourest. In French – although, somewhat oddly, we were only given English translations in the programme booklet – the songs also sounded very ‘French’ in style. In this performance by The Hermes Experiment, soprano, Héloïse Werner really used the words performatively: not just their meaning but their sound. Use of a clarinet (ravishingly played by Oliver Pashley) perhaps inevitably brought to mind Pierrot lunaire, but the vocal line had nothing to do with Schoenberg, or Sprechstimme. Indeed, there was something almost Ravelian to the vocal tapestry woven. This was tonal music that in no way sounded re-heated, ‘neo-tonal’. Following ‘The music-loving fish’, ‘The old saint’, at its opening, offered in its subtle archaism a splendid evocation of la vieille France; I loved the duetting of clarinet and double bass. Werner was not at all afraid to sound ugly when the text, literally, called for it: ‘Il est trop laid,’ if I remember correctly. The mock sadness of the final ‘Sardines in oil’ had us wondering, almost surreally, what was ‘real’ and what was not. A fine work I should be delighted to heart again, then, in equally fine performances.

Kurtág and Blair Soler followed, with works for string quartet (the Alke String Quartet). The opening cello note of Kurtág’s Microludes almost suggested Verklärte Nacht, but no, this was a very different path to be taken. Kurtág – and his performers, made us listen. Webern-like weighing of notes, in performance and work alike, gave us no other option. Integrity and importance of gesture were to the fore; harmonic turns always surprised and yet were always rendered meaningful. There was a harder-edged sound to Soler’s 2012 Imaginings. Bartók’s example loomed large, but not overwhelmingly: and is there a better example to follow? Intensity was the hallmark again of work and performance, whose furious manner proved compelling.

After the interval, there followed a series of short pieces – all, as it happens, by female composers, although nothing was made of that, and there was no reason why anything should. Josephine Stephenson’s 2016 Tanka (‘short poem’ in Japanese, apparently) proved a well-crafted scena. Freya Waley-Cohen’s Oyster made me think – perhaps irrelevantly – of Katie Mitchell’s Ophelias Zimmer, which ‘frees’ Ophelia from Hamlet. That ‘alchemy’ referred to in Octavia Bright’s text seemed musically to occur at just the same time. (I am afraid I cannot remember quite how, but there was certainly a welcome sense of the transformative.) Kate Honey’s Predator Fish was perhaps most striking to me for its moments of languor. Stevie Wishart’s Eurostar was far more experimental, apparently involving a considerable degree of improvisation. Werner was called upon to imitate the train as well as sing: all carried off with a splendid sense of performance art.

 

For the final work, we returned to the Alke Quartet. I cannot say I responded particularly fondly to Brett Dean’s First Quartet, but the fault may well have been mine. A slow, soft opening certainly captured attention. Sections were well demarcated. Otherwise, there seemed to be gestures which, by contrast with Kurtág, did not lead anywhere in particular. Forgettable, at least for me, I am afraid.

 

A movement from Robin Holloway’s Killing Time, for solo soprano, opened the second concert. (At least it seemed to be a single movement, for another text was provided in the booklet, but went unsung.) Nardus Williams proved a compelling performer in Holloway’s Auden setting, ‘As I walked out one evening’. Increasing yet never outrageous deviations from an initially folk-like setting intrigued, with telling, yet sparing, melismata particularly captivating in performance.   

Joel Rust’s Trio Trio Trio, commissioned by the Park Lane Group with funds from the RVW Trust, received its world premiere. I had a keen sense of figures sparking off each other, if that makes any sense. (I am not sure that it does!) Material sounded highly contrasted, especially rhythmically. Moments of melancholy reminded me of an older English tradition, going back to Purcell and beyond. Holloway’s own String Trio received a performance of especial richness from the excellent players of the Eblana String Trio. Early on, I was put somewhat in mind of the Prokofiev of the Second Violin Concerto: more a matter of certain intervals than anything structural, but perhaps that was just my own private concern. There was much overlapping, whether in respect of solos or duos; passages in which all three players were heard together were not exactly few and far between, but nor were they a given. An ecstatic, not entirely un-Schoenbergian climax grabbed my attention.

 

Two songs by Othmar Schoeck followed the interval: the second and then the first of his op.12 Wanderlieder. The former sounded strikingly post-Schubertian, in a highly likeable performance from Williams and pianist, Peter Foggitt. Schumann seemed more of a guiding presence in the latter, perhaps Brahms too. ‘English with French affinities’ was how I thought of the songs by Lord Berners: entertaining and never overstaying their welcome. Morgan Hayes’s Dictionary of London received a vividly theatrical performance, befitting a piece which, to me, seemed at least equally vivid in its theatricality. Its witty shifting of musical moods left me wanting more: always, I hope, a good sign.

Finally, we heard that towering masterpiece of the chamber repertory, Schoenberg’s String Trio. (Why, o why, do we not hear it more often?) Febrile, intense, this was a fine performance indeed. Every note seemed to matter just as much as it would have done in Webern. One makes connections, of course, with composers such as Brahms and Mozart, and indeed with earlier Schoenberg, but there was no doubting here the new wine for new bottles (to borrow from Liszt). The players’ instrumental singing of Schoenberg’s lines, flexible yet ever goal-directed, would have drawn in the most sceptical of listeners; twelve-note Schoenberg would have been revealed to be just as worthy of their attention as any of the composer’s ‘freely atonal’ works. There was no doubting in performance either the work’s beauty or its formal dynamism.  Developing variation was the thing – and how it unfolded here!