Showing posts with label Antonín Dvořák. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Antonín Dvořák. Show all posts

Saturday, 15 July 2017

'What we expect of the young (or the old ?) - and why' [working title]

More views of - or before - Cambridge Film Festival 2017 (19 to 26 October)
(Click here to go directly to the Festival web-site)




Unless stated otherwise, all films reviewed were screened at Festival Central (Arts Picturehouse, Cambridge)
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Sunday, 21 May 2017

Seraphin Chamber Orchestra : Whilst you're alive, playing to hear live

This reviews the second concert by Seraphin Chamber Orchestra, under Joy Lisney

More views of - or before - Cambridge Film Festival 2016 (20 to 27 October)
(Click here to go directly to the Festival web-site)

21 May

This is a review of the second concert given by Seraphin Chamber Orchestra, in the chapel of King’s College on Sunday 21 May 2017 at 8.00 p.m., in a programme of works by Vaughan Williams, Mozart and Dvořák, conducted by Joy Lisney



Ralph Vaughan Williams (1872–1958) ~ Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis (1910)


Ralph Vaughan Williams (RVW) as conductor


There, in the first chord (and at which one could smile contentedly), was established the spirit of Vaughan Williams – and the King’s chapel-bell, a regular at concerts, chimed eight o’clock without one’s having a care in the world. With a well-defined, slower tempo than is much heard, Joy Lisney enhanced the luminosity of tremolo-infused beauteous calm that is part of RVW at his best.




At ebb of tide, think not the sea is faithless ;
It will return with love unto the shore.
‘Love’s Ebb and Flow’ ~ Aleksey Konstantinovich Tolstoy


When we heard a crescendo, it was proportionate to the piece, and, by making us wait for moments that we love well - both by pacing and the use of rallentando - Joy respectfully disrupted¹ our merely expecting to experience what we already knew : in this way, as she had done in Seraphin Chamber Orchestra’s initial concert, she and the orchestra somewhat teased us (almost - if one may - as a sexual partner might ?), to give the familiar back to us, but better.

So, when the four principals² began separating from within the texture of the ensemble and coming to the fore, a tear formed, and there was a full emotional response to appreciating the dimension of two orchestras, which are used so differently from how Michael Tippett does in his lovely Concerto for Double String Orchestra (responding, amongst other things, to English madrigals of the seventeenth century as, in that era, RVW is - inter alia - to Corelli (1653-1713)).



We did not stay in this realm, though, since the composer has the effect of vibrancy drop away, and instead presents us with somewhat mysterious and heavy-laden chords and modulations (though the harmonic language may always been implicit when he presents long, sustained notes at the beginning of the work ?). Even so, the glorious main theme is allowed to re-emerge, with the voice of the leader, alongside soft pizzicato, and Joy here brought out a strong feeling of expectancy.

Then, the lightness and luminosity of the opening returned, with its concords, and a forceful quality to the string-sound. Vaughan Williams concludes with the strains of violin obbligato, superbly brought to us by Paula Muldoon (not, as advertised, Rachel Stroud), before another dropping away, and our due applause. (In this performance, one thought, for the first time, of the Epilogue (marked Moderato) of RVW's Symphony No. 6 in E Minor (and of his audio-preserved remark about Sir Adrian Boult's recording : might we, some day soon, be confidently hearing from Joy, with complete symphonic forces, in such a work ?)




Wolfgang Amadee³ Mozart (1756–1791) ~ Divertimento in D Major, K. 136 (1772)

 1. Allegro

 2. Andante

 3. Presto


Delahaye's portrait of Mozart (1772), i.e. aged 16 years old

The latter part of the eighteenth century is another sound-world, but equally one that a conductor and orchestra co-create. However, in the opening Allegro of a fairly well-known work, there were notable differences : Joy had made sure that Mozart's ornamentation did not sound 'throwaway' (which was also a feature when we came to the Andante), and that the underlying bass-line was both not unheard, and did not seem unimportant in relation to the upper parts.



With a degree in music, and as a working composer, Joy had found other emphases to choose to make in this performance. For example, with the principal theme (and its iterations), she placed a little more stress on the first part of its outline, and then, in the second movement, she continued what we had heard with the Tallis Fantasia, shaping the phrasing to be maximally expressive. Thus, under her conductorship, Seraphin Chamber Orchestra (@SeraphinCO) took in the full grace of the Andante’s main theme, as well as that of its harmonization – Joy seemed to have let the natural measure of the score determine the exact tempo.

As so often with Mozart’s work, its suspensive or reflective qualities – which are at the core of the music – are to be found in the innermost moods of these slower movements. Again, the significance of trills, turns and slurs did not go unheeded, and so of giving effect to them somewhat differently : by not treating them simply as artefacts or conventions of the time when the work was written, Joy avoided the sort of playing that can seem to honour the spirit of Mozart’s compositions, but actually be more like superficial sheen - rather than very good reasons to listen to what he has to say.


Thus, in the concluding Presto, one can all too easily take the impression that the balanced nature of the material is either flippantly glib on the composer’s part, or play it as if it is just foursquare. Here, it was clear that it was neither, and, although the orchestra gave us nice, quick bowing, Joy – unlike with those who seem to view the marking Presto, as at an end-of-speed-limit sign, allowing them to indulge themselves – never made us feel rushed.




Antonín Dvořák (1841–1904) ~ Serenade in E Major, Opus 22 (1875)

 1. Moderato

2. Tempo di Valse

3. Scherzo. Vivace

4. Larghetto

5. Finale. Allegro vivace



Dvořák, in 1891 - having received an honorary doctorate from the University of Cambridge

As with Tchaikovsky’s Serenade for Strings, performed in Seraphin Chamber Orchestra’s first public performance (in mid-February 2017, and in the same venue), the concluding work, by Dvořák, contains movements that would be familiar just in their own right (such as the Tempo di Valse or the Larghetto, which are the second and fourth movements, respectively), whereas – except to someone who really knows the work as a whole – the opening Moderato will not be.

However, we can perceive how Joy, with assurance, is again shaping the musical material, and how, as she conducts, her fellow string-players respond to give her interpretative control (she also gives recitals as a cellist, and had played / directed a Haydn Concerto in the previous concert). In a way that, perhaps, we might associate more with Igor Stravinsky, or Michael Tippett, when Dvořák gives a reprise of the theme, we hear that he has a counter-melody in the second violins (after the premiere of Joy’s own ‘Thread of the Infinite’, Tippett's Fantasia Concertante on a Theme of Corelli had been played next, in the preceding weekend’s concert at West Road Concert Hall).


In the Tempo di Valse, in passages marked forte (or louder), Joy is giving us what has otherwise been carefully kept back in curating and punctuating the initial theme – just as, later, Dvořák himself prominently uses a fortissimo cadence as an emphatic way of marking the end of the first part of the movement. What we may have found - if we were not just hearing the music - is that Joy (to make it more effective) was alternating that full richness with employing restraint elsewhere. When Dvořák effected a transition to legato writing, Joy brought out a honeyed tone from the orchestra, with pizzicato on the cellos, and as a further use of clear and precise demarcations within the scope of the movement. After a rallentando, it concluded with a very definite full close.

The third movement (marked Scherzo. Vivace) has a different aspect altogether, which we felt in how Joy caused the ensemble to express intensity, and onward movement. In the slower sections, there was a feeling of suspense, from which we built back to the initial tempo, then, with some lovely pizzicato playing in the lower lines, and the melody held back (with a slight rallentando), the central section of the Serenade moved to an end. The Larghetto is quieter, and we heard tremolo, sensitively utilized by this versatile group of instrumentalists, as well as adeptly long bow-strokes. There was an attractive melody, written for cello, and then running arpeggios (marked to be played as triplets ?), and all of this conducted and played with charm and poise.


Lastly, as if the Finale's initial (and partly repeated) gesture had been ‘a wake-up call’ from Dvořák, his writing for the lower strings - which came across as lively and yet measured - led us to the loudest music that we had been exposed to all evening. More and more, the Allegro vivace resembled a dance-form (was what it had become a Furiant ?), with, at one point, another counter-melody before the fortissimo dynamic returned (fortississimo ?). After a deft piece of pizzicato playing from Christopher Xuereb, on double-bass, and as if Dvořák were still in a playful mood, he set up the expectation that the chords played were a closing cadence : it proved to be a false end, and, a few bars later, the work came to its proper conclusion.

In one undivided performance, another very agreeable, and highly accomplished, evening of music-making from Seraphin Chamber Orchestra (@SeraphinCO) and Joy Lisney (@JoyLisney) ! If those reading this review have not heard Joy or the orchestra before, make it your aim, with another Seraphin concert (to be announced) due in the autumn.






End-notes :

¹ The modern vogue for talking about disruptive technologies (or our reaction against this jargon, which would seem better applied to computer viruses and other malware) may make us assume that all disruption is (as one may see it) bad - or good. Yet it may depend on viewpoint whether subverting the commonplace (e.g. in art, to ask us what we assume or why), or minority shareholders or outside protestors stopping an AGM to make an ethical point. (With different prefixes, we also have corrupt, erupt, interrupt - a lexical root that gives rise to other words with strong meanings...)

² Paula Muldoon and Anita Monserrat (first and second violins, respectively), Roc Fargas i-Castells (viola), and Laura van der Heijden (cello).



 ³ So (on Radio 3’s The Listening Service) Tom Service (@tomservice) wishes to assert Mozart actually styled himself.

Leopold Mozart, his father, had certainly ensured Wolfgang's exposure to as much as possible of music and culture in Italy, as this map shows (from the Wikipedia® web-page Mozart in Italy) :


Mozart's travels in Italy (December 1769 to May 1771)

Unless stated otherwise, all films reviewed were screened at Festival Central (Arts Picturehouse, Cambridge)
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Friday, 24 July 2015

Czech classics in Cambridge

This is a Festival review of Melvyn Tan and The Škampa Quartet

More views of – or before – Cambridge Film Festival 2015 (3 to 13 September)
(Click here to go directly to the Festival web-site)

24 July


This is a review of a concert given, as part of Cambridge Summer Music Festival, by Melvyn Tan and The Škampa Quartet at West Road Cancert Hall on Friday 24 July 2015 at 7.30 p.m.

Cambridge Summer Music Festival (@cambridgemusic) has, in years past, given opportunities to hear both the Quartet and Melvyn Tan – one well remembers the latter in Messiaen (Quatuor pour la fin du temps – same page-turner !), and in a piano recital (also at West Road : @WestRoadCH) – and the former at The Union Society (@cambridgeunion), and here they were together !


West Road Concert Hall, Cambridge



Beethoven ~ Piano Sonata No. 30 in E Major, Op. 109

Janáček ~ String Quartet No. 2 (‘Intimate Letters’)

Dvořák ~ Piano Quintet No. 2* in A Major, Op. 81



The review begins with what is most immediate in one’s mind, where Melvyn Tan (@Melvynbetan) and The Škampa Quartet played together



Antonín Dvořák (1841–1904) ~ Piano Quintet No. 2* in A Major, Op. 81

1. Allegro, ma non tanto

2. Dumka : Andante con moto

3. Scherzo (Furiant) : Molto vivace

4. Finale : Allegro


The huge scale of Dvořák’s Piano Quintet No. 2 (in A Major, Op. 81) (from 1887), is necessarily influenced by the scale of the quintets by Schumann (1842) and Brahms (1864), and its principal themes will not fail to be known to and impress us.

So Dvořák gives us one of his telling melodies on cello, before it is passed to the first violinist (Helena Jiříkovská) : we could not only see, later, Melvyn Tan’s facial pleasure at how she rendered it, but also smiles from Adéla Štajnochrová (second violin), Lukáš Polák (cello) and Radim Sedmidubský (viola) at playing this music from their homeland, which they were going to develop for us with commitment and verve :

Into the structure of the movement, Dvořák inserts dance measures, and we hear him, through them, reaching to make a grand assertion with the material. Then, when Polák brings back the theme, it is controlled, with piano set against it, and Tan goes on to punctuate and facilitate the movement, with the music revealing itself, and its expressive potential, in the repeats, and with the intervallic leaps giving us a sense of reaching for the stars.

The scoring seems to use the piano and the quartet as if they are desks of instruments in an orchestra, ranging the former against the later, and, in the rise and fall, do we hear echoes of the composer's symphonic sound from the late 1880s / early 1890s ? (It is a different approach from the more integrative one of Brahms, but with the same orchestral possibilities at work.) With the sound of the piano closing the movement, there was a strong feeling of excitement in the ensemble to be performing this work.


At the opening of the second movement, Tan placed the theme before us with articulation and great delicacy, and then, as the others handled it, continued to do so in the capacity of embellishing and enriching it. We are a little reminded, by a melodic line in the cello part, of the slow movement of the Schumann quintet, and then Dvořák lulls us, again and again, into a restful state with each time that the piano restates the initial theme.

New vistas open with a feeling of holidaying (or journeying), and, with an undercurrent from the cello, of traversing summer meadows. Very tender playing from Polák, with the merest of gestures on violin, brought in a section of enchanted quietude : the other players were profoundly hushed as he played tremolo writing with a powerful strength of feeling. Then, full of energy, a new motif, and Tan’s face said it all, as that motif turned into a modified form of the theme. Just before the end, the holiday mood resumed, and so did the magic, in this respectfully unhurried and quiet music-making – almost a lullaby.


Albeit in proportion to the rest of the work, this is a biggish Scherzo**, and it is almost an anthology of themes, with the same feeling of yearning / journeying. This was playing with every appearance (though we know the hard work that it belied) of effortlessness, and Dvořák makes us feel a measure of ease, though he is shifting the tonal centres, and also playfulness, with Tan giving us a profound legato, echoed by the string-players. That moment of yearning briefly recurs, before the use of variation-form reminds us of the Beethoven Piano Sonata, and the Scherzo closes with very definite, clear strokes.

The Finale is written with, and was played with, graciousness and also propulsive force, and Dvořák subdivides, by sounding the violins against the cello and the viola : the stage arrangement chosen, with the first violin to audience left, and the viola to the right, was good visibly, but also separated the voices here. Rhythmic patterns are used in the scoring, as well as little, playful gestures of the notes of another key, and the effect of small pulses.

As the Allegro moves, it develops into a fast, modulating fugue with a lively piano voice, but then bringing back a theme from an earlier movement. The harmony becomes ambiguous, and there is a play-fight of a tussle as to where we are rooted, before reducing to a hush, for a simple statement on violin, to which the other strings add descending figures.

They provided exceedingly quiet harmony to a piano passage, before what must have been one of the softest sections of pizzicato ever. From there, first violin Helena Jiříkovská took the lead, but, with competing material that desired to come to the fore, Dvořák left us guessing right to the closing bar to see how he would end this thrilling, lively piece.


One took great pleasure in and in hearing this work, and was most impressed both by the integration of all the players into the work, and by the deployment of what Ralph Vaughan Williams (in praising a performance under Sir Adrian Boult) called a true pianissimo (or ppp). The Festival audience was abundantly happy to have finished the varied programme with this compelling playing, where attention had been intense all round.


* * * * *


Ludwig van Beethoven (1770–1827) ~ Piano Sonata No. 30 in E Major, Op. 109

1. Vivace ma non troppo / Adagio espressivo

2. Prestissimo

3. Gesangvoll, mit innigster Empfindung. Andante molto cantabile ed espressivo


Melvyn Tan (image from www.nmcrec.co.uk)


Performances vary as to whether the two sides of the first movement are ‘run together’ with another in that of the second movement, but these so-called five (or six) ‘Late’ sonatas are their own kind of beast : probably, one guesses more (as one listens), not because Beethoven only came technically to think in terms that broke the mould at this stage in his life, but because, as Bach was, he must have been aware of his legacy, and could dare to say the things that had been in his heart for a long time ? [For CRASSH (@CRASSHlive) in January (also at West Road), Murray Perahia’s compelling analysis of, and guided performance with The DoricString Quartet (@doric_quartet) of movements from, the original form of Beethoven’s Opus String Quartet Op. 130 revealed the roots of his thinking, and of his future-proofing compositions.]




Melvyn Tan, who saluted the one nearest to him, clearly had not seen before the distended urns, bearing plants with green foliage, that had been arranged at either end of the piano : as they did not disturb him, they served to give a certain balance to the backdrop of what can, visually, be an exposed stage at West Road. As is usual with him, he seems to catch himself as much as us by surprise in starting to play, i.e. without any grand preparation of holding the arms aloft above the keyboard :

He threw us straight into something that causes us to ask what Schubert (1791–1828) would have made of this theme (or of the use of variation form ?) – he whose mere thirty-one years alive were, apart from the last twenty months, coincident with when Beethoven was alive (1770–1827 : as we do not always realize ?). Beethoven gives us here – with typical, and undimmed, Beethovenian fire, drive and energy – a mix of feelings and techniques straightaway, with a great sense of balance, and of modulation, momentary touches of great beauty, and the hands gradually separating to the ends of the keyboard.

In all this, Tan felt immensely prepared, but not to have premeditated the exact interpretative choices that he brought to the performance – which is what one values so much in his approach, the sense of freedom within full facility with the score – except that it was always going to be rhythmically very live, and played from the inside outwards.


A Schubertian theme of tenderness (or Schumannesque, ahead of its time ?), which was right at the outset of the Andante, Tan repeated slightly more softly. Pacing the playing as if it were breathing, he brought out its quality as a chorale, and, emphasizing some of the not obviously significant internal lines, led us into the variations : the heart of the matter, infused by dance-forms, and also with wonder at what the world might have made of this music at the time...

If one had judged by appearance, and been unable to hear Tan’s playing, he did not look at ease, and one would not have imagined that he was creating such a beautiful, appropriately precise sound much in his approach, the sense of freedom within full facility with the score – as part of which, as the variations progressed, he also brought out some spikiness in the writing. In working on Beethoven with The Doric Quartet (as mentioned above), Murray Perahia talked about a moment when, to try to paraphrase the religious conception that he evoked, Heaven comes to meet Earth, and we had that feeling from Beethoven here much in his approach, the sense of freedom within full facility with the score – and then building to an expansive treatment.

Yet, at root (as with, say, The Goldberg Variations), all that development comes back to a simple statement, and then further decoration / ornamentation, in which we hear Tan exposing the full feeling within this sonata, and enwrapping us in it : we are willing it on, to where we hear it to be going, and he is maintaining our engagement, by keeping something back. It is, though, in a simple statement again that Beethoven, through Tan, seeks a conclusion, with much in his approach, the sense of freedom within full facility with the score – reminding us of the chorale element much in his approach, the sense of freedom within full facility with the score – a nigh Lutheran, quiet close to this thoughtfully vibrant interpretation.


* * * * *


Leoš Janáček (1854–1928) ~ String Quartet No. 2 (1928) (‘Intimate Letters’)

1. Andante – Con moto – Allegro

2. Adagio – Vivace

3. Moderato – Andante – Adagio

4. Allegro – Andante – Adagio


The Škampa Quartet (but one got away, Adéla Štajnochrová) : Radim Sedmidubský (viola), Helena Jiříkovská (first violin), Lukáš Polák (cello)

The opening Andante sees paired violins against, first, viola in an extreme Sul ponticello, then cello : in all this, there is the assurance of mastery of language and form from, especially here, Radim Sedmidubský (viola) and Lukáš Polák (cello). Propelled by writing for the latter, the work opens like a flower, but one that is both vibrant (energy, passion, enthusiasm, from Janáček and his interpreters) and, at the same time, shy and delicate, exemplified by an almost imperceptible Sul ponticello passage from Polák. Throughout, the members of the quartet are communicating to each other, as well as to us, links in its episodic structure, where it moves from a slow and reflective feeling of the rhapsodic to intensity. Brought in by quiet writing for viola and touches from the violins, the movement came to a high, bright close.


The Adagio starts with sinuous writing for viola, which passes back and forward with the second violin : we hear not only the full, rich sound of the quartet, but also Janáček’s pleasure and skill in writing for what is best in the viola. Beginning with very fast figurations for lead violin, the Vivace is heartfelt in its harmonies, but there are also ambiguous notes and discords – as it progresses to the rhythms of a march or dance, there is the ambivalence of Will it, won’t it ? to the mood.

We noticed the quartet’s careful use of a range of dynamics, and how contributions to the dialogue from the viola are a significant part of the work***. It is with a sensation of inner irresolution (in some version of Janáček whom we fictionalize having all these experiences of mood- and thought-patterns) that we conclude.


Led by first violin Helena Jiříkovská, the third movement has a formal, but not icy, tone, before sounding triste and regretful. Just for, initially, a short episode, it is like a folk lullaby – when, after other material, it recurs, it is quieter, but with intensity and feeling in the realisation. With an element of squeakiness (from the score), the violins quietly proceeded, but, then, the players are on full, with an alternation of a dance and a firm pulse. With a highly energized section, from which a frenetic version of the lullaby emerges, and we come back – and back – to its theme, it is as if the music (as art is sometimes thought to be) is therapeutic. Janáček seems to be seeking a soft resolution, and, twice, ushers in an open sound, although it is to be with the end of its outbursts that it is over.


As we had been used to, The Škampa Quartet brought overwhelming musicality to the familiar theme with which the last movement asserts itself – then, a quiet interlude, before a little moment of fireworks, and resuming the theme, now full and clear. Still, all is not well with the interaction between the inner and outer in this work, and Polák had some stark statements to make on cello, and there are tensions in the harmony, and with keys and rhythms pulling against each other.

A first use of playing pizzicato (first the viola, then the two violins) led into a ‘jogging’ line for cello, of which the violins were then mimetic. In this, a sense, still, of unease and even pain, and a reduction to a very gentle dynamic. However, there is no way except up, and then all four elements of the quartet in several bars’ worth of a hugely scratchy, amorphous character : it is to resume, louder and longer, but, before it does so, the viola gives us the big theme. On the edge of our seats with the emotion in the viola part – and somewhat as with the Dvořák quintet (please see above) – we are asking where does / will / can this music end.

But end is what it forces itself to do, and we know that we have heard what offers great understanding of this soul-searching piece : Yes, factually the players are Czech, and share that with the composer, but they really felt, on some quite different level, to be magnificently in tune with this repertoire, and to have done far, far more than entertain us with it : taking us into their world.



For now, the review ends there, with a continuation / completion to come...


End-notes

* Wrongly identified, in the Festival programme, as Piano Quintet No. 1, which was Dvořák’s Opus 5 (in the same key) : although he destroyed the manuscript soon after, it did have a premiere, and one understands that it was having borrowed a copy to revise the work, fifteen years later, that caused him to write anew, and produce this masterpiece in the tradition of those already mentioned.

** Not unlike the scale of that, marked Andante, of Schubert's Piano Trio No. 1 in B Flat Major, Op. 99 (D. 898) ?

*** Maybe it was an instrument favoured by Kamila Stösslová, who (despite being a married woman who did not return his feelings) corresponded with Janáček for many years, and was with him when he died ? (We understand that she was Janáček’s inspiration for Kát'a in Katya Kabanová, the vixen in The Cunning Little Vixen, and Emilia Marty in The Makropulos Affair.)




Unless stated otherwise, all films reviewed were screened at Festival Central (Arts Picturehouse, Cambridge)
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