BTVN WOCHE (4) – Meta4/Zimmermann/Saksala/Mustonen - Beethoven and Mustonen, 9 February 2020

Kammermusiksaal Hermann J. Abs, Bonn

Beethoven: Violin Sonata no.8 in G major, op.31 no.3

Beethoven: String Quartet no.5 in A major, op.18 no.5

Olli Mustonen: Sextet (world premiere)

Beethoven: String Quartet no.16 in F major, op.135

Antti Tikkanen, Mina Pensola (violins)

Atte Kilpeläinen, Tabea Zimmermann (violas)

Tomas Djupsjöbacka (cello)

Janne Saksala (double bass)

Olli Mustonen (piano)

BTVN WOCHE 2020 took a different path from predecessors, offering in Beethoven’s anniversary year his music alone – ‘Beethoven Pur’ – in order to present the entirety of his chamber music. However, no such celebration would be complete without at least a glance to the present and future, so for its final instalment, Tabea Zimmermann’s final concert as artistic leader, we were treated also to the world premiere of a newly commissioned work from Olli Mustonen, a Sextet for two violins, two violas, cello, and double bass, the string quartet Meta4 joined by Zimmermann and Janne Saksala.

First, however, we heard Antti Tikkanen and Mustonen as pianist for Beethoven’s Violin Sonata, op.31 no.3. A first movement infused with nervous energy, skittish and excitable even to the point of violence both confounded reasonable expectations and set the tone for much that was to follow, both in this work and in the concert as a whole. The second movement was likewise full of contrasts, both within and between sections, however defined. I confess that I wondered initially whether it were simply too much, but it grew on me – and far better the shock of the new than comfortably derivative Schlamperei. There was no doubting that both these musicians cared. Ebullient, extrovert, highly insistent, the finale proceeded somewhat in the vein of the first movement, yet fulfilling nonetheless its structural role. This was, then, like Meta4’s performances in an earlier concert, as well as those to come, a highly rhetorical reading the likes of which I should not necessarily want to hear often, but which seized the moment for itself.

The op.18 no.5 Quartet proved freely unpredictable, as by now I had learned to expect. Whether I could quite discern a line in the first movement was at best an open question, but such rediscovery was never dull. A similarly free second movement seemed to cohere better, its drunken, rustic trio full of charm and wit. One needed to listen intently, but so one should. The minuet’s reprise, heard through the trio, proved a little crazier still. (Largely) winning eccentricity characterised the third movement, traversing an extraordinary range of emotions, styles, possibilities. This, I felt, truly got to the heart of the players’ vision: a divine and at times rambunctious comedy. The helter-skelter creation of euphony and contest between euphonies heard in the finale proved quite a ride, fascinating and, I think, revealing so long as one held on tight.

Mustonen’s three-movement Sextet was clearly intended to be heard with and in relation to Beethoven. A meta-work? Most probably, but that doubtless only rephrases the question(s). The angular rhythms of the opening suggested Beethovenian gesture reimagined, subsequently balanced and/or contrasted with a more ‘feminine’ – to employ nineteenth-century gendered language – second subject equivalent, which nonetheless seemed to grow from what we had heard before. What I learned immediately after formulating that impression, however, was that it was better to listen on whatever the work’s own terms might be, for that Beethoven comparison quickly proved unhelpful, indeed quite wrong. We may still often find our bearings in the musical world with a Beethovenian compass – more often than not, the ‘Beethoven’ of the later nineteenth century – but at some point we need to let go. Will ‘Beethoven’ let us, though? Material related to those opening gestures kept on returning; I even fancied I heard something related to the Fifth Symphony. Ears and memories can (productively) play tricks. Then came a glacial close, with little or no harmonic change.

Beethovenian derivations became clearer in the second movement; or was I now listening differently? What did those ghosts of Beethoven scherzi mean? What could they mean, perhaps above all that of the Ninth Symphony? And did they not always possess more potential meanings than any one performance or reading would allow? Accompagnato chords in remembrance of the entry of the voice in the Ninth heralded the third and final movement. Answers were different, if not necessarily unrelated. Again, has that not always been the case for ‘Beethoven’? How do we connect fragments, remembered or misremembered? And who, as composers, performers, listeners, and yes, scholars too, are ‘we’? After all, Beethoven’s music has never gone out of fashion, never been neglected. A little violence here and there may be just what it needs. Then, to rebuild or not?

If hardly ‘traditional’, whatever that may now mean, the first movement of Beethoven’s final quartet, op.135, seemed less wilful and, more importantly, more convincing in its liberties than that of op.18 no.5 had. Or was that a matter of having been preceded by the Mustonen Sextet? How could I ever really know, and why should I care? Whatever the answers to those unanswerable questions, Beethoven’s musical procedures here seemed clearer to me, although, this music being what it is, there was always much to challenge. The music seemed from the outset to be developing themes of which we had prior knowledge: in medias res, however much we might cling to the idea of ‘exposition’. A second movement of kinetic energy proved so much of a whirlwind that a vortex beckoned, yet never quite materialised. (Should that be dematerialised?) Seraphic fragility that nonetheless found strength to construct something from itself characterised its successor. Then came the ultimate question, both answerable and not: ‘Muß es sein?’ This was music on the brink, even if we knew not of what, the query followed by release and intensification. The path hereafter would be difficult though never obscure. There was struggle to be had, yet on one level, at least: ‘Es muß sein’.

BTVN WOCHE (2) – Tabea Zimmermann and friends: Beethoven, 7 February 2020

Kammermusiksaal Hermann J. Abs

Serenade in D major for flute, violin, and viola, op.25

Quintet in E-flat major for piano, oboe, clarinet, bassoon, and horn, op.16

Horn Sonata in F major, op.17

Septet in E-flat major, op.20

Adam Walker (flute)

Lucas Macías Navarro (oboe)

Vicente Alberola (clarinet)

Guilhaume Santana (bassoon)

José Vicente Castelló (horn)

Daniel Sepec (violin)

Tabea Zimmermann (viola)

Tomas Djupsjöbacka (cello)

Janne Saksala (double bass)

Olli Mustonen (piano)

A lovely concert of early Beethoven chamber music from a fine ensemble: just the thing for a cold February night. The D major Serenade, op.25, for flute, violin, and viola is a curious work and a rarity in concert, but worth hearing from time to time – and not only in order to wonder at what point one would have guessed the composer, if one did not know already. Its opening Entrata here sounded bright and jolly, Adam Walker’s solo flute and responses from Daniel Sepec and Tabea Zimmermann transporting us to the world of a summer’s eve outdoor entertainment. If that music might often have been from the generation of Bach’s sons, brusque (and other) surprises in the following minuet and trios may have suggested the 1790s after all. Sepec’s fiddling in the first trio, fully matched by Zimmermann, proved quite infectious. Changes were nicely run through the three hearings of the somewhat strange minuet, such variation and more generally comprehending performance ensuring that it never outstayed its welcome. That lack of predictability was followed up in the third movement, ‘Allegro molto’, as characterful, cultivated, and collegiate as the ensuing ‘Andante con Variazioni’. The vigorous whirlwind enveloping us in the scherzando fifth movement and its somewhat ghostly trio suggested Beethoven more strongly than anything heretofore, splendid preparation for a poised ‘Adagio’ that flowed without ever sounding hurried. An irresistibly good-humoured finale rounded things off in infectious and unaffected fashion.

If the op.16 Quintet for piano and wind instruments were written earlier than the Serenade, it does not necessarily sound so. Mozart’s influence is unsurprisingly strong, but the first movement unquestionably signalled fond recollection rather than imitation. Its introduction was spacious, perfectly balanced, and directed. Here, as elsewhere Olli Mustonen offered more than a hint of steel on piano: perhaps not to all tastes, but his refusal to condescend, let alone to smooth out, and the evident thoughtfulness of his decisions proved ever admirable. A sharply etched opening to the exposition foretold a performance that would have me smile and sit up to attention in equal measure. The slow movement, equal in clarity, was aptly more yielding in character. Its successor was every inch the post-Mozartian hunting finale. If at times, one might have thought one were listening to a concerto, that is Beethoven’s doing, no quirk of performance.

I have sometimes heard disparaging remarks about the Horn Sonata, op.17. I genuinely cannot understand why; it is a gem, always meriting performance, especially one so refreshing as this. The vigorous approach presented by Mustonen and José Vicente Castelló offered proved quite different from that in a more Mozartian performance I heard last year from Daniel Barenboim and Radek Baborák. It was certainly an account to take no prisoners, more aggressive in the pianism, but with greater precision too. Boldness of contrasts in all three movements suggested once more a commendable seriousness of purpose, however early or allegedly ‘slight’ – it is not – the work may be.

The Septet is a glorious and gloriously unqualified masterpiece: so it sounded here, although the first movement did not quite catch fire for me in the way the rest did. There was much to admire and indeed to love, the first subject making me smile, as too did Beethoven’s cunningly laid surprised in the recapitulation. It basked in Mozart’s glory, yet there was no shadow cast, only sunlight. A relatively swift ‘Adagio cantabile’ won through, recognising that the key here is ‘cantabile’. Get that right, as these players did, and a range of tempi choices can work. Harmony arose, so it seemed, from the combination of instrumental lines, sung as only instruments (as opposed to voices) can. The Minuet swung swiftly, yet with charm. I especially enjoyed Tomas Djupsjöbacka’s cello interventions and the bubbly Harmoniemusik of the trio. A potentially awkward slip later on was admirably well covered, to the extent even of offering interest of its own. The ‘Andante con Variazioni’ swung in a different yet surely related way. Violin and viola duetting, soon joined by the cello proved just the ticket in the first variation. The captivating urgeny of the minor-key variation seemed to hint at a Romantic, Mendelssohnian future. Taken at a proper pace, yet with all the space in the world, the Scherzo received a model reading, somehow all the more thrilling the second time around. Its trio, led by wondrously suave cello, offered contrast and complement in equal measure. A portentous introduction built up tension very nicely for the finale, released with a genuine necessity that permitted all soloists to shine and to blend. There were some glorious vistas to take in en route, Sepec’s cadenza arguably first among equals. They never distracted, though, instead contributing to an excellent conclusion of true chamber music.

Musikfest Berlin (10) - Zimmermann/Les Siècles/Roth: Rameau, Lachenmann, and Berlioz, 15 September 2019

Philharmonie

Rameau: Les Indes Galantes: Suite

Lachenmann: Mouvement (– vor der Erstarrung)

Berlioz: Harold en Italie, op.16

Tabea Zimmermann (viola)

Les Siècles

François-Xavier Roth (conductor)

Images: © Monika Karczmarczyk

Charles Ives’s father famously insisted that his son stretch his ears. It was partly in that spirit that I went to this concert from the French period-instrument orchestra, Les Siècles, and its founder, François-Xavier Roth. Hand on heart, I remain a sceptic, though certainly not an opponent, when it comes to period instruments. I reacted very strongly against them, or rather against the underlying ideologies of those preaching their use, when coming of musical age. No one was successfully going to tell this teenager that he could not play Bach – or Handel, or Rameau, or Byrd… – on the piano; no one likewise was going to create anything other than an enemy by telling him the Bach of Klemperer or Furtwängler or, God help us, even Karl Richter was ‘incorrect’, or as Gustav Leonhardt put it in the case of Furtwängler, ‘disgusting’. (To be fair, ‘disgusting’ at least shows some emotional engagement; the idea of a performance being ‘correct’ or ‘incorrect’ is considerably worse.) However, not everyone is like that, especially today; many ‘period’ musicians indeed never were. Partly through curiosity, partly through friendship with many musicians with varying degrees of commitment to such music-making, and partly through re-examination of my own prejudices and that imperative to stretch my ears, I have latterly shown greater interest and sympathy.

When it comes, say, to seventeenth-century music, I frankly have little choice, if I ever want to hear that music performed live. With the eighteenth-century, opportunities to hear its music on modern instruments vary according to repertoire and instrument: pianists are clearly never going to give up Bach, yet how often do we hear a symphony or even chamber orchestra perform a Handel oratorio that is not Messiah, let alone a Rameau opera? The nineteenth century is another matter again; I have never felt any particular need here, but curiosity led me here to give Berlioz on instruments of the period. So too did the ethos of the orchestra in question: that is, playing each piece, as close as possible, on the instruments of its time, thus affording a contrast between instruments of the mid-eighteenth, mid-nineteenth, and the late twentieth centuries. So too did the programme – how often, if ever, have Rameau, Lachenmann, and Berlioz appeared together like this? – and the conductor, whose work I have long admired. Why mention all of this? I hope that is not simply self-absorption, but also to try to explain what will perhaps be an unusually personal response. My aim is certainly not to dissuade musicians from performing and listeners from listening to Berlioz on period instruments – why on earth should I wish to do that? – but to describe and also to reflect a little on my experience. By all means call me an antediluvian, if it helps – whilst also acknowledging the ‘historicist’ irony that may entail.

First, however, Rameau, and a suite from Les Indes galantes (instruments of 1750, A=415 Hz). As it happens, I had actually heard another suite from the same opera on modern instruments (LSO/Rattle) earlier this year. I had also, once before, heard Roth conduct Rameau dances, albeit from Dardanus, with a modern orchestra (the BBC NOW), at the Proms. If my prejudices may lie in that direction, I am not at all sure that this was not the best performance of the three. It certainly left me in no doubt that I was happy to listen to this music on instruments of any period, which would doubtless have surprised my younger self. Roth and his players, mostly standing with obvious exceptions, offered an introduction, the ‘Entrée de la suite d’Hébée’, as enticing and in its way as fantastical as anything in Berlioz: an array of percussion, responded to by light, lithe, yet far from inexpressive or indeed vibrato-less playing. It set an infectious precedent, to which subsequent dances fully lived up. Two rigaudons (‘pour les Matelots provençaux et Matelotes provençales’) both offered expressive lilt and meaningful contrast, both with what had come and with each other. Here and in the pair of tambourins (also for those Provencal sailors) one could pretty much see the dancers in one’s mind’s eyes, fully alert to the dramatic possibilities of the dance’s intensification on repetition (and dynamic variation). Two numbers in common with Rattle’s selection, music for the ‘savages’ and the great chaconne, brought the suite to a memorable conclusion, the latter’s sequential sense of drama firmly founded in rhythm and harmony. Indeed, it was Raymond Leppard, rather than any period-instrument conductor, who came to mind for me. Not that these instruments lacked their own character and colour, in many respects delightful, but those were not ends in themselves.

Lachenmann’s Mouvement ( – vor der Erstarrung) for ensemble dates from almost two-and-a-half centuries after Rameau’s opera (1982-4, as opposed to 1735). It was played on modern instruments, or, as the programme had it, ‘instruments from the year 1980’, tuning at A=442. This was at least as committed a performance, not only revealing something akin to a sonic palimpsest, but also revelling in the drama of effort in music-making, as well as its reward, by players truly in sovereign command of their instruments. Webern and Nono, as in the Tanzsuite mit Deutschlandlied heard that morning, were present guests at the feast, yet in no sense could any of the music have been said to sound like theirs; rather, their methods, or memories thereof, helped us – or at least me – find a way in. Extreme ‘expressivity’ – I am not sure that that is quite the right word – of twin precision and intensity bade, even insisted, that one listen, and listen with ears both old and new: an idea not without implications for such an orchestra and such a programme. I could even have sworn I heard a Rameau rhythm echoed at one point: a coincidence at best, yet a pleasing one. Lachenmann’s music was played with all the skill and understanding of a dedicated new music ensemble, but does this music, the best of forty years all, still qualify as ‘new music’? Does it matter? Eruptions as powerful as those in Mahler (or Webern), whispered confidences as hyper-expressive as those of Nono, riots of wind and percussion to rival Messiaen’s: those and many other aspects, moments, of death, yet also surely in some sense of life, offered a world-kaleidoscope different from Rameau’s, yet one which could surely be heard with profit in succession to it. A performance exhilarating in its aggression had me ask whether my ears would ever be quite the same again, and why on earth I should wish them to be.

Finally, then, Berlioz, and Harold en Italie (instruments from 1850, A=438), for which the orchestra was joined by Tabea Zimmermann. I learned much from the performance, yet emerged from it less convinced. That may simply, or principally, be more a matter of my resistance; perhaps I was hearing it not dissimilarly from the way some notably dissatisfied members of the audience appeared to have heard Lachenmann. Perhaps that was no bad thing at all. Certainly the darker, less resonant string tone with which the first movement opened, had its own potentialities. It was woodwind blend, or lack thereof, both within the section and with the strings, that troubled me more. That will doubtless have been part of the attraction for many, but I found it had me listen more to the instruments, less to what they played. On her entry, Zimmermann proved unfussy yet expressive; so too was the harpist with whom she duetted. (The idea of placing the harp at the front of the stage, almost as a second soloist, offered a definite advantage here.) As time went on, though, Zimmermann proved surprisingly wayward, not just of mood, but of tuning, a problem far from restricted to this movement. Roth’s basic tempo was faster than usual, but it worked well, and was far from inflexible. If a relative thinness of orchestral tone contrasted greatly with Roméo et Juliette from the Berlin Philharmonic just two nights previously, stretching my ears was always intended as part of the exercise.

For the second movement, I was gain struck by the difference in balance and blend. The mood was very different, too, from any performance I could recall: less solemn, more a motley crew of pilgrims. Why not? Again, it made me listen, and there was something quite Catholic, even if renegade Catholic, to the conception, which fitted well. The mountaineer serenading his beloved in the third movement benefited from splendidly rustic sound, period woodwind here coming into its own (for me, at any rate), in what proved another swift account. There was plenty of nervous energy to the finale, whose darker colours and moods came off best, Roth handling its many twists and turns with typical skill and conviction. There were some pretty wild sounds, all in all: many will have found them exciting; alas, they soon became rather wearing for me. I suspect they would have done so still more on repetition. As an encore, the ‘Marche hongroise’ from La Damnation de Faust proved infinitely more colourful and involving than it had during a dreary trudge on modern instruments through the entire work at Glyndebourne this summer with Robin Ticciati. Swings and roundabouts, then; I had at any rate stretched my ears and been made to think.

Proms 29 and 30 – Swedish CO/Dausgaard - ‘The Brandenburg Project’: Bach, Turnage, Hillborg, Caine, Neuwirth, Dean, and Mackey. 5 August 2018

Royal Albert Hall

Bach: Brandenburg Concerto no.1 in F major, BWV 1046

Mark-Anthony Turnage: Maya (2014, UK premiere)

Bach: Brandenburg Concerto no.3 in G major, BWV 1048

Anders Hillborg: Bach Materia (2017, UK premiere)

Bach: Brandenburg Concerto no.5 in D major, BWV 1050

Uri Caine: Hamsa (2015, UK premiere)

Bach: Brandenburg Concerto no.4 in G major, BWV 1049

Olga Neuwirth: Aello – ballet mécanomorphe (2016-17, UK premiere)

Brett Dean: Approach – Prelude to a Canon (2017, UK premiere)

Bach: Brandenburg Concerto no.6 in B-flat major, BWV 1051

Bach: Brandenburg Concerto no.2 in F major, BWV 1047

Steven Mackey: Triceros (2015, UK premiere)

Fiona Kelly, Claire Chase (flutes)

Per Gross, Katarina Wiedell (recorders)

Lisa Almberg, Daniel Burstedt, Mårten Larsson (oboes)

Håkan Hardenberger (trumpet)

Göran Hülphers, Terése Larsson (horns)

Pekka Kuusisto, Antje Weithaas (violins)

Brett Dean, Tabea Zimmermann (violas)

Maya Beiser (cello)

Mahan Esfahani (harpsichord)

Uri Caine (piano)

Swedish Chamber Orchestra

Thomas Dausgaard (conductor)

It is always a fascinating prospect to hear contemporary and indeed earlier composers respond to repertoire works. Think of Mozart learning from and adding to Bach and Handel. Last year in Vienna, I heard newly commissioned responses from eight composers to Le Marteau sans Maître, interspersed with the movements of Boulez’s work. This summer, Bach’s were the masterpieces, the Swedish Chamber Orchestra having commissioned six composers to write companion pieces to each of his Brandenburg Concertos. Rarely if ever will all contributions be of equal stature or prove equally satisfying to different tastes. Such was certainly not the case, in my experience, with the responses to Boulez; nor was it to be so here. Alas, only two of the new works seemed to me to have been worth the effort; the other four proved at best over-extended and, in at least two cases, probably more, meretricious. Still, even in somewhat variable performances of the ‘originals’, Bach, as Boulez would have put it, remained.

First up was the first of Bach’s set of six. Its first movement was light, airy, not unlike Claudio Abbado’s late way with these pieces with his Orchestra Mozart, if not quite so secure. Although there was much to admire in the playing of the Swedish CO under Thomas Dausgaard, here and elsewhere, rarely if ever did I gain the feeling of being truly grounded in Bach’s music; it seemed as much an excursion to them as, perhaps still more so than, the new works. Still, it breathed – just about, and was well balanced, in itself no mean feat. What a relief, moreover, it was to hear modern horns in this music. The following Adagio enjoyed some delectable oboe playing; I also loved the dark, velvety bassoon tone. Its successor danced freely – not, thank goodness, in the bizarrely dogmatic ‘This is a Baroque dance and this is how a Baroque dance must sound and be experienced, exterminate, exterminate…’ so prevalent in certain circles. Mahan Esfahani, playing harpsichord continuo throughout the first concert, never failed to work with Bach’s harmony, to call it by name and thus create it anew (if I may slightly misquote Adorno). If certain ‘effects’ in the Polacca irritated, the closing dances nevertheless beguiled. Mark-Anthony Turnage’s Maya perplexed – that is, before it merely bored. Beautifully played by all concerned, not least cello soloist, Maya Beiser, its status as response, companion piece, anything at all to the Bach work was less unclear than absent. It did not employ the same musical forces, had no connection, at least so far as I could hear, to its material; worst of all, though, it came across as a frankly cynical prolongation of what might have been a couple of minutes or so of television serial mood music. Vaguely blues-y at times, vaguely threnody-like, it might initially have filled a gap in a concert programme; soon, however, I developed a suspicion that the gap would have been better left unfilled.

Bach’s Third Concerto offered cultivated modern playing, albeit with very small forces. (Is that really a sensible way to treat this music in the Royal Albert Hall?) It was not hard-driven as so many authenticke performances tend to be, even if it lacked a good deal in gravitas. Again, it was the continuo playing that afforded the greatest pleasure, grounding the harmony and rendering Bach’s form dynamic. About Anders Hillborg’s ‘new’ second movement, the less said the better. On a slow day, it might, I suppose, have taken five minutes to jot down. The third movement (Bach’s, thank God) was very fast yet not unreasonably so; something of Bach’s spirit and humanity remained. Hillborg’s Bach Materia opened intriguingly, out of the orchestra’s tuning up. Alas, it was all downhill thereafter. The music moved into vaguely minimalist churning out of violin arpeggios from soloist Pekka Kuusisto, offered ‘effects’ aplenty, from silly chirping noises to shouted interjections as Kuusisto and double bass player Sebastien Dubé improvised. The collaboration showed Dubé to better advantage than Kuusisto. Should unpleasant wailing be your thing, however, there was some of that too. Again, the sense was of filling in time that really had no need to be filled in. When bits of Bach returned, there was some enjoyment to be had, soon not so much dashed as dissipated. Attempts to be ‘right on’ rarely prove edifying; this, frankly, was just a mess.

The Fifth Brandenburg Concerto was for me the unquestioned highlight of the first concert and indeed of the Bach performances as a whole. Here, it seemed, the soloists, especially Esfahani, took the lead rather than Dausgaard and turned what they were doing into a performance in the living, emphatic sense. The first movement was lively and breathed, its contours and formal dynamism not only apparent but felt, experienced. Esfahani’s way with the cadenza not only impressed, but reminded us what astounding music this is. It would be foolish to imitate Furtwängler, even on the piano, but his incredible recorded 1950 performance from Salzburg remains the model here. Esfahani proved a worthy successor. The second movement was true Kammermusik: flexible, beautifully balanced, with all the give and take one might have hoped for between harpsichord, flute (Fiona Kelly), and especially violin (Antje Weithaas). Bach’s closing Allegro danced with far greater ease than any of those aforementioned self-conscious ‘Baroque Dance Lessons’ and, naturally, went far deeper. These were not soloists who, again to borrow from Adorno, said Bach yet meant Telemann. Its contrapuntal complexity was embraced; that complexity embraced both performers and audience in return. It was perhaps a little puzzling not to have a ‘response’ that involved the harpsichord, but Uri Caine’s Hamsa was doubtless written with himself in mind as piano soloist. There is no doubting the quality of his pianism; his tone was often to die for. Hamsa, named after the Arabic word for ‘five’, seemed to me sincere and ambitious. It certainly confronted Bach in quotation, allusion, and, in its way, vaguely neo-Classical procedure. Again, it seemed far too long for its material, whose treatment began to sound merely arbitrary. Perhaps I simply did not ‘get’ Caine’s aesthetic. There was certainly no gainsaying the quality of the performances here.

Bach remained, of course, and endured into the second concert. The Fourth Brandenburg Concerto reverted somewhat to the more tentative or at least constricted ‘early-ish’ style of the First and Third, at least so far as the orchestra and Kuusisto were concerned. Per Gross and Katarina Widell on recorders, however, offered infectious enthusiasm. Dausgaard seemed overly keen to mould the central Andante; its fussiness continued into the finale, which alas, had something of that ‘This is a Baroque Dance’ quality to it. A somewhat disappointing performance, then, prefaced Olga Neuwirth’s brilliant Aello – ballet mécanomorphe, to my ears by far the strongest of the new works. In three movements, like its companion, it immediately spoke with the tones – in every sense – of a serious composer at work. Figures remembered from Bach, whether melodic, rhythmic, or both, sounded as if trapped in a machine. Or were they actually perfectly happy to be there? Claire Chase on flute, shadowed by two muted trumpets, offered breathtaking virtuosity, set against an ever-changing ensemble that included synthesised harpsichord and glass harmonica as well as portable typewriter. Machines can be fun as well as serious – indeed sometimes especially when they are serious. So too can Bach. An almost Berio-like malaise, material dragged down into something mysteriously different yet related, led, toward the end of the first movement, into a reinvention of Bach and Neuwirth in almost jazzy style (all the more convincing for making no claims to be jazz ‘itself’). The glass harmonica soundworld of the second movement, however ‘artificial’ – what art, by definition, is not? – seemed to incite more ‘traditional’, arabesque-like flute writing which yet did not lose its ‘mechanical’ edge. Jesting with form – or perhaps simply my lack of understanding! – had me think for a while we were embarked upon a transition to a finale in which Bach would reassert himself, only to realise that ‘transition’ had been the finale along. I very much look forward to hearing it again.

Brett Dean’s Approach – Prelude to a Canon was written to preface the Sixth Concerto. Its opening busy counterpoint seemed to evoke, in melody and harmony, a Bach who may or may not have been ‘real’. Different moods, never predictable, whether ludic or songful, prevailed at different times, sometimes suggesting a more ‘modern’ conception of double concerto for the composer and fellow violist, Tabea Zimmermann, sometimes very much a reinvention of Bach’s own terms. Emotional and intellectual tension was often coincident; when not, the disparity proved equally suggestive. If I responded more strongly to Neuwirth’s piece, there was no doubting the accomplishment of Dean’s either. Bach emerged from its final bars. Again, my ears had been tricked; I had expected another section of Dean. This is a very difficult work to bring off. However, if I found the first movement unreasonably fast, Bach’s dark colours nevertheless shone through (or whatever the more appropriate verb for darkness here would be). The outer movements benefited from being Dean and Zimmermann taking the lead as soloists; the central Adagio ma non tanto seemed less certain in direction.

Bach bade farewell with his Second Brandenburg Concerto. It was hard-driven and light-textured in the now fashionable way. Nevertheless, balance came across very well: no mean feat in this of all works. Perhaps the highlight was the central Andante: not, I hasten to add, because the excellent Håkan Hardeberger was not playing, but because it flowed more freely, again taken as chamber music. I am afraid I could not get on with the machine-like approach to the finale. Even Stravinsky, I imagined, might have asked Dausgaard and company to calm down a little. That said, it helped pave the way for Steven Mackey’s Triceros, which followed without a break, a held trumpet note for transition. Its initial (post-)minimalism passed amiably enough. It certainly came across in polished, even accomplished fashion when contrasted with the offerings by Turnage and Hillsborg. Again, the aesthetic is one to which I find it difficult to respond, so I shall not say too much, other than again to say that it could have done with being half, even a third of the length. Note-spinning may have been the way of many a sub-Telemann composer; it was never Bach’s. Bach, however, remained – and always will.

Festival d’Aix-en-Provence (1), ‘L’Alto à l’honneur’ – Loeffler, Bray, Liszt, Kodály, and Brahms, 13 July 2018

Conservatoire Darius Milhaud

Charles Martin Loeffler: Quatre poèmes, op.5

Charlotte Bray: In Black Light (world premiere)

Liszt: Romance oubliée, S 132

Kodály: Adagio for viola and piano

Brahms: Zwei Gesänge, op.91

Tabea Zimmermann (viola)

Andrea Hill (soprano)

Edwige Herchenroder (piano)

An oddly patchy concert, this: alongside the most unidiomatic professional Liszt performance I can recall and only intermittently successful Brahms, we heard a highly convincing world premiere and fine performances of two other works hitherto unknown to me: one indeed written by a composer of whom I had not previously heard. That composer was Charles Martin Loeffler, one of the works his Quatre poèmes, op.5 of 1893. Or should that have been Karl Martin Loeffler? So consumed with hatred, it seems, had the young Karl been for Germany that, even following his emigration to the USA, he would claim to have been born not Prussian but Alsatian and changed his name accordingly. Quatre poèmes was doubtless chosen because it would involve all three musicians performing in this concert, but it seemed to me on a single hearing fully to justify inclusion on merit. One heard, aptly enough, what seemed to be a largely yet not exclusively German sense of harmony with a more French taste in verse, melody, and sometimes texture too. The first song, a setting of Baudelaire’s La Cloche fêlée, seemed to mediate both as work and performance between Duparc and Brahms, Tabea Zimmermann’s viola-playing – Loeffler was an early enthusiast for the viola d’amore – becoming more Romantically ardent as the piece demanded or suggested. It offered development in a more conventionally instrumental sense, yet seemed also to have something of a Franco-Flemish (Franck, perhaps soon Debussy too) taste for the cyclical. It certainly convinced, moreover, as a response to the poem. The Verlaine ‘Dansons la gigue’ was gypsy-like – at least in a nineteenth-century sense – whilst also seemingly responding to Carmen in its more reflective moments. Verlaine was the poet for the remaining two pieces too. An atmosphere of general sadness, relieved somewhat by finely spun piano arabesques from Edwige Herchenrode, characterised ‘Le Son du cor s’afflige vers les bois’. The vocal line in the closing ‘Sérénade’, and Andrea Hill’s delivery of it, hinted at la vieille France, but this was no pastiche, instead a dramatic evocation of another time, ‘mandoline’ and all. I even fancied there were suggestions of the darker Ravel: presentiments, though, given the date. Fascinating: I shall be keen to hear more Loeffler.

I have always been keen to hear more Charlotte Bray too. The world premiere of In Black Light, for solo viola, furthered that keenness. It struck me as having some aspects of variational form – developing variation if you will, but also something more ‘traditional’ than that – within an overarching framework that has something of what would once have called a tone poem to it. Rhythms and intervals help generate style and idea. Following a grave opening of (relative) pitch extremes, a broad canvas emerges, upon which composer and performer alike offer a commanding variety of musical strokes: one section ‘jagged and fiery’ (Bray), another ‘a kind of broken waltz’, another ‘a mysterious pizzicato miniature’, and so on: related yet contrasting. The rhythmic profile is certainly sharp – and was certainly sharp in Zimmermann’s commanding performance, clearly highly attuned to the work’s contours and expressive requirements. The opening theme’s return did indeed sound, to quote the composer again, ‘urgently present and expressively charged’.

Liszt’s Romance oubliée has always seemed to me – perhaps unsurprisingly – superior in its piano solo version. That, however, is no reason to shun any of its others, especially when ‘actual’ Liszt chamber music is so thin on the ground, the composer’s tendency being, not unlike Wagner’s, to write chamber music within works for larger forces. The opening solo line certainly suits the viola, yet this proved for violist and pianist alike a strangely constricted performance, tentative to the point of incoherence. Kodály’s Adagio, first written for violin, then arranged for viola, proved much more Zimmermann and Herchenroder’s thing. Its darkly Romantic opening sounded almost Elgarian – at least to this Englishman. Zimmermann spun a rich, yet far from indulgent line, which enabled the material to develop in far from predictable fashion. If her pianist seemed very much the ‘accompanist’, she performed well in that role. As she did in the two closing Brahms songs; to begin with, indeed, we might have been about to hear a newly discovered sonata for viola and piano. Taken as a whole, though, those performances might have been more attuned to the songs’ form. Lack of direction, even meandering, married to a reticent way with the words (Rückert’s) from Hill sometimes made for heavy Brahmsian weather. If only they had been performed as if written by Loeffler.

Andsnes and friends - Brahms Piano Quartets, 28 May 2016

Milton Court Concert Hall

 

Piano Quartets nos 1-3

Leif Ove Andsnes (piano)

Christian Teztlaff (violin)

Tabea Zimmermann (viola)

Clemens Hagen (cello)

 

I remain sceptical about this sort of programming. Performing, say, Beethoven’s three final piano sonatas in a single recital makes a great deal of sense, although so likewise does performing them separately with other works, attempting to suggest, even to draw, connections. Performing all five of Prokofiev’s piano concertos does not, however much that combination of works might be helpful to collect as a 2-CD set. This concert, part of Leif Ove Andsnes’s LSO Artist Portrait series (albeit without any members of the LSO!), fell somewhere in between. It made for a long evening, especially when programmed in chronological order, with a single interval separating the first and second quartets. On the other hand, we do not hear these works nearly so often as we should – much the same might be said for any piano quartet – and hearing Brahms’s development is always interesting. If I should have preferred two or three concerts, including works by other composers, that was no reason to look a gift-horse in the mouth, for these were excellent performances from beginning to end, much as one might have expected from Andsnes, Christian Tetzlaff, Tabea Zimmermann, and Clemens Hagen.

 

First was the First, in G minor, op.25, as orchestrated, unforgettably, whether you like it or not, by Schoenberg. It was a strength of this performance, the first movement opening straight away with an echt-Brahms sound, that one did forget, and indeed I am now still hearing the original, not Schoenberg’s version, in my head. Strings, and then piano, sounded ‘right’ – which is not to say that there is only one ‘right’, of course, although there are surely many ‘wrongs’. It was not just the sound, though; phrasing and, cumulatively, paragraphs evinced a similar sense of ‘rightness’, all richly Romantic. (The disjuncture between literary and philosophical Romanticism and its musical counterpart, if counterpart it be, means that we cannot really call this ‘late Romanticism’. We probably should, but it would only serve to confuse.) A viola solo from Zimmermann, rich-toned and beautiful in itself, also brought so much more, heralding not only Andsnes’s elaboration, but, so it seemed, the whole of the second group, even the development. The development section itself brought half-lights (yes, this ‘early’ in Brahms’s career) and, of course, vehemence; both propelled the music. So, fundamentally, did the composer’s motivic working, which surely must have been the greatest attraction of all for Schoenberg, here heard meaningfully throughout, quite without pedantry. This was indeed ‘Brahms the Progressive’.

 

Romantic unease (earlier?) from Hagen’s underpinning cello characterised the second movement, permitting of great ambivalence, great ambiguity. Andsnes’s way with rhythm and its relationship, inextricable, to harmony assured motivic integrity, not that that was ever in doubt! Much the same might be said of the Andante, despite its different character. Menacing currents made their point without cheap exaggeration, for they had been prepared and understood harmonically by all concerned; this was true chamber music-making. There was vehemence in those martial rhythms later on, but harmony remained the ultimate mover. They cast their shadow over the return of the opening material, just as they should. There was likewise no doubting the urgency of the finale, taken at quite a lick, nor the astounding virtuosity of the players, but that was not at the expense of chiaroscuro. Contrasting episodes certainly contrasted, but within a greater unity to which they contributed.

The A major Quartet, op.26 followed. If I found this slightly less compelling, that is more a reflection of my response to the work than to the performance, which again was of the highest quality. Andsnes opened the first movement in intriguingly neutral fashion, having us wonder where it might lead. There was certainly a lightness to what immediately followed, underlining the vehemence that followed that, and so on. But ‘difference’ never seemed in retrospect to have been for the sake of it. From Teztlaff’s golden- or silver- or various other- hued violin line – no all-purpose ‘beauty’ here – to the twists, turns, and pedal points of the bass, in whichever part, this performance knew where it was heading. The spirit, and not just the scale, seemed to owe as much to Schubert as to Beethoven, which is surely right in this particular work. The second movement progressed similarly – yet in difference, with more than the occasional hint of Brahms’s Mozartian inheritance (highly welcome!) Nostalgia and distance seemed thereby evoked and dramatized, grief in response all the more heightened. In the third movement, tendencies from both predecessors seemed united, played off against one another: form here was dynamic, never a mere framework. The finale, taken attacca, sounded very much a finale (not always as evident a quality as one might expect). If the ghost of Beethoven had sometimes been placated, here he returned with a vengeance; he had never gone away.

 

The first movement of the Third, op.60 in C minor, registered a very different character from the outset. Internalised anger of an almost Webern-like concision, tension screwed up, at times almost unbearably: this was a performance (as it is a work) still more dialectical in quality. There was nothing appliqué to this terror: it emerged from musical necessity. Rhythm was the progenitor, at least at first, of the different character to the scherzo, as one might expect. Relative rhythmical relaxation was predicated upon what it was relaxing from. The changing relationship between piano and strings, the latter sometimes ‘led’ by Teztlaff, at other times in quite a different formation, proved a crucial element to the drama unfolding. The movement came to a close with such fury that it might almost have been the close of the work; except… The cello sonata-like opening to the Andante thus came as relief (not unlike the Andante to the Second Piano Concerto). Then a piano trio, in perfect balance; then the full quartet, transformed by experience, melancholy heightened. Again, the changing relationship between parts, between ensembles, was very much of the essence. In context, we heard the opening to the finale almost as part of an ‘additional’ violin sonata; in the hands of Andsnes and Teztlaff, how could it not, if only momentarily? So subtle were the entrances of viola and cello, one hardly noticed them. The intensity, emotional and intellectual, of what followed, could not, however, have been missed by anybody.