This is a review of At Lunch 4 from Britten Sinfonia on Tuesday 10 March 2015
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11 March
This is a review of At Lunch 4 from Britten Sinfonia (@BrittenSinfonia), as performed at West Road Concert Hall (@WestRoadCH), Cambridge, on Tuesday 10 March 2015
Piano Trio No. 2, Op. 67 (1944) ~ Dmitri Shostakovich (1906–1975)
1. Andante
2. Allegro con brio
3. Largo
4. Allegretto
The work begins with high, spidery writing for solo cello, scarcely the easiest place to have a performer be, quietly seeking these harmonic notes right at the top of the range, and probably keenly waiting for the violin part (from Thomas Gould, @ThomasGouldVLN) to come in underneath…
Yet, as throughout, this was playing of great poise from Caroline Dearnley in what, as the movement proceeded to rumination from Huw Watkins (@WatkinsHuw) on piano and ‘bounced’ notes from Gould and her, was really just the prelude to the Andante proper, which was a showcase for excellent communication, both between the three, and to us of their energy and rhythmicity in bringing us the wealth of material here.
The Allegro con brio has some gorgeous, idiomatic string-writing from the man who, although he composed his String Quartet No. 2 in 1944, the same year as this Piano Trio, was going to go on to write another thirteen, and here shows his forte. The players from Britten Sinfonia gave it to us with verve, skill, and endless enthusiasm, and, almost necessarily, with quite a different feel from the chorale-like opening from Watkins to the Largo.
This sets out, in essence, both the chord-structure and the pace behind the beautiful scoring for the string-voices, where we could hear, in the lovely tone of Gould and Dearnley (both separately and together), how the principal sense, again and again, is of falling intervals. In that pacing, there was also the awareness of a heart-beat, and, by the trio’s running the Largo on with the Allegretto, we suddenly had a faster one in the famous opening theme (from when Shostakovich revisited it**) :
The trio was immensely sensitive to adjusting its dynamic up and down to suit the ambience, and Dearnley and Gould also acted as a contrast to each other in the mood of their playing, so that the facets of the work were opened up. In this movement in particular, where so much emotion is concentrated by the composer, the ensemble was devastatingly effective, with Watkins bringing out the intensity and motivic qualities of the piano part, and leading into a passage that took him up and down the keyboard, at the same time as violin and cello tapped out the tell-tale heartbeat.
Although bringing back what some have characterized as a Dance of Death treatment of the initial Jewish theme, and also the high writing for cello and the chorale, Shostakovich actually takes this piano trio elsewhere to end, with a harp-like close. The result is a compelling composition, matched by a highly persuasive performance that the audience at West Road Concert Hall (@WestRoadCH) much appreciated.
The stage had been set, in a way, by two shorter pieces (amounting to the same overall length) by Lou Harrison (1917–2003) and Joey Roukens (1982–), the second of which is reviewed first
Lost in a surreal trip (2015) ~ Joey Roukens (1982–)
Reaching under the lid at the start of this piece, Watkins had to pluck some lower strings, but this never felt akin to John Cage’s approach to piano, but highly specified (with other strings to be played with a beater). Roukens, in writing a brief programme-note about the composition, says that :
Lost in a surreal trip evolves not unlike the experience of a ‘trip’
The feel of the opening keyboard-writing is that it is in and out of time-signatures, and never settling, which turned into a stretched-out section, where the piano played shorter note-values than everyone else. The fragmented opening then came back in a vigorous version, reaching a crescendo – with Owen Gunnell prominent on vibraphone – before the score turned to making minute interruptions to, or light accents on, the thematic material.
Next, recursive patterns gave rise to a sense of travel, of movement, and attention was then momentarily passed from vibes to the cello, and from piano to violin. Visually, and in terms of the emergent sound, Gunnell being asked to play certain cylinders of the vibes with a bow was strikingly different from what had gone before, and against which Roukens placed a quiet contribution from Gould, with Dearnley to the fore on cello.
Chimes of what can only be described as a ‘doomy’ character, accompanied pizzicato, heralded – for a very brief fraction – what closely resembled Bernard Herrmann’s principal theme from North by Northwest (1959) : it was no sooner heard than gone, and melded into a persistent scraping effect from Gould, and, with the alternating presence of snare- and bass-drum, a driving pace and mood was set :
Into it, after a caesura, both loud piano chords and a tam-tam crashed, but were straightaway stilled, and we were taken down to the sound of violin, and plangent, open tones from Watkins. Within several long bowing movements, Gould bent some notes against the sound of the vibes, a section that gave way to faint cello tones, and writing for violin that was almost ghostly.
Complemented by chords from Watkins, Gunnell picked out a theme on vibes, and, as the piano stated some new material, there was a strong sense of expectation in the air – but that was where the piece ended.
One was left, both by hearing it played and by a resultant appreciation of its scope, wanting to hear it again. For it offered such a richness, and one desired – although the title had suggested something rather limited and druggy – to go off with Roukens on an exploration of this cohering notion of the travelling in travel, and – telling words ! – of being 'lost in' a trip that was genuinely Surreal (since the word is much mis- and overused).
This co-commission by the Sinfonia and the Wigmore Hall (@wigmore_hall) was very ably brought to a Cambridge lunch-time recital by these players, as to sense and sound : Maybe not, in fact, the graphic dislocation of tiny figures struggling for life against the backdrop of the huge carvings of Mount Rushmore, but entering into the dream-worlds of Catalan artists Dalí or Miró, or of the Belgians Paul Delvaux and René Magritte… ?
Varied Trio for violin, piano and percussion (1987) ~ Lou Harrison (1917–2003)
1. Gending
2. Bowl Bells
3. Elegy
4. Rondeau in Honor of Fragonard
5. Dance
Going back to before Caroline Dearnley and her cello graced the stage at West Road, we had a trio of violin, piano, and percussion.
Reaching under the lid at the start of this piece, Watkins had to pluck some lower strings, but this never felt akin to John Cage’s approach to piano, but highly specified (with other strings played with a beater). Gending began, thus, moodily and quietly, and with piano and vibes. Yet it was really as the sub-text to elegiac writing for violin (and taps on a gong), ending, as we began, with Watkins sounding a low bass-note, which was allowed to fade.
Bowl Bells (which we later saw emptied of the water that gave them their pitch) began with a sort of ostinato, and with Watkins tapping the case of the Steinway with a beater, as Gould gave us a light pizzicato. This was a movement that revolved around repetitive patterns and rhythmic structures, but which eased off and ended quietly, with Gunnell holding his chopstick-beaters aloft.
It was in Elegy, which linked thematically to the first movement (which, with Bowl Bells, served as a frame for it), that we first had less sense of the oriental, in the writing for violin, and through Gould’s playing, both being more elegiac in a western style. The mood of the ensemble was chromatic, but not dissonant, and one could imagine the marking being espressivo. It concluded quietly, with chimes from Gunnell on vibes.
The Rondeau in Honor of Fragonard opened with ostentatious deployment of, now, a pentatonic scale in the string-writing. However, operating in sonata form, Harrison next gave us, for piano, what sounded like pastiche in the French style : a juxtaposition that, as both moods felt like stereotyped fakes, seemed neither quite a yoking, nor yet pointing up differences. In retrospect, it seemed a little as if it were a foil for the concluding Dance (just as the first two movements had been for the third) :
The restrained feel to the start was not at the expense of a very definite rhythmic quality, which accentuated the writing’s extreme oriental character. The noise of cooking-pans being struck was as of thunder, and Messiaen’s Quatuor pour la fin du temps, with its ‘Danse de la fureur, pour les sept trompettes’ as its sixth movement, was strongly evoked in the writing. The piece as a whole, though, ended with a simple rising cadence (up a third, then a fifth).
Well-executed though the work was, one could not imagine that revisiting it was likely to reward in the way that would the compositions by Roukens, and certainly Shostakovich. By being, even so, an introduction to those other works, it set up points of contrast, which was hardly an unworthy role to have played.
End-notes
* Shostakovich had Ivan Ivanovich Sollertinsky, his 'closest friend', on his mind at the time of writing his Piano Trio No. 2, Op. 67, as we read (in Jo Kirkbride's helpful programme-note) in a letter to Sollertinsky's widow from February 1944.
** In 1960, with his Opus 110, the celebrated String Quartet No. 8, which Shostakovich wrote in just three days (12 to 14 July) when visiting Dresden.
Unless stated otherwise, all films reviewed were screened at Festival Central (Arts Picturehouse, Cambridge)
