La Bretagna all'Italiana - or La Serenissima in Cambridge (Part II)

A review of La Serenissima's concert, performing with Mhairi Lawson at Trinity College, Cambridge

More views of - or before - Cambridge Film Festival 2014 (28 August to 7 September)
(Click here to go directly to the Festival web-site)

17 November

This is the companion-piece to an (over)lengthy review of a Cambridge Early Music concert given by La Serenissima, with soprano Mhairi Lawson, in the chapel of Trinity College, Cambridge, on Monday 13 October

Italians in Britain, Brits/Scots writing Italian style with stellar soprano #MhairiLawson tonight @CambsEarlyMusic http://t.co/xyeugGINA4
— La Serenissima(@LaSerenissimaUK) October 13, 2014

Second half

Programme

5. Due Canzoni da Battello ~ Anon. (c. 1730)

6. Sonata in B Flat for harpsichord, HWV 434 ~ George Frederic Handel (1685–1759)

7. Sonata VIII for violin and continuo in G ~ Giovanni Stefano Carbonelli (1699 / 1700–1773)

8. Un’alma inamorata, HWV 173 ~ Handel


The two further (5) Canzoni began with one that, as a pastoral lute-song (Al prato e al cale o ninfe), would not sound out of place transmuted in Igor Stravinsky’s ballet Pulcinella* (1920), not least since named composers in John Walsh’s three volumes do, Adrian Chandler’s notes tell us, include Giovanni Pergolesi. It was succeeded by No stè a condanarme, which was much more dramatic, with high notes and an emotional quality that suited Mhairi’s vibrato-less soprano voice.


In the introduction, from the stage, to (6) Handel’s Sonata in B Flat for harpsichord, we were advised to listen out for the piece’s elements of toccata, with improvisatory scales, and promised an eventual return to B Flat Major, as well as music that sounds like that from Rinaldo.

The Prelude felt exploratory of scales and tonality, but with ‘mellow’ moments, and nothing too outré. By contrast, the Allegro was passionate, at the pace of ‘The Arrival of The Queen of Sheba’ (from Handel’s oratorio Solomon) and using repeated notes, yet with a feeling of elegance, albeit of a restrained character.

The Aria con Variazioni presented as beautifully refined, with confident, clear articulation from Robert Howarth, and space left for the variations to breathe between times – one of which (almost in anticipation of Schumann’s Kinderszenen) seemed to have the quality of a nursery-rhyme.

This was engaging solo music-making, in confirmation of which, as Adrian sat at the side of the chapel (to be out of the way), his head could be seen, irresistibly dancing away to it : as the set of variations built up from an apparent pleasing simplicity, it challenged us, and, when it came to the last variation, the richness of both manuals made a highly satisfying conclusion.


If the ‘Manchester’ sonata** in the first half had been a winning combination of dedicated scholarship, musicianship and compositional skill, no less so was the (7) Sonata by Carbonelli – to whom, as Adrian observed, the passage of time has not been kind.

Maybe this was despite – or because of ? – the assimilation into life in Canterbury, under the name of John Stephen Carbonell, of which Adrian told us, and of Carbonell's business, latterly and by royal appointment, of importing wine ? In any event, we were made aware that, in this Sonata numbered VIII from the set of Sonate da Camera, we would spot connections with what is also the eighth of Corelli’s Concerti Grossi, Op. 6, and its Siciliana :

The opening tune of the Largo section of the first movement had an ‘easy’ quality to it, and, in combination with held notes for cello, gave rise to the effect of a drone (whence the reminder of Corelli and of shepherds with bagpipes). A modulating Andante section took us back to the Largo, and it was full of sweetness, as well as multiple stopping and sweeps across Adrian’s instrument.

Here, he ensured that his playing was serving Carbonelli’s music, and that, where it had character and made a statement, there was virtuosity with ego : the Allgero was musical enjoyment itself, and took its own shape, and ventured from being grand to urbane and back again, as well as taking time to be thoughtful, but finally expressive. If not the birds from the trees, in this piece made immediate that we did not know before, then Adrian’s approach to the closing Allegro – Largo was guaranteed to charm us, with slurs, bowing and accents performed to perfection.

And, as Carbonelli also knew that we could not have too much of a good thing, he brought back, in restrained form, that winning tune from the sonata’s opening. The piece delighted the audience, and was met with very keen applause.


Dating to the first decade of the eighteenth century, and, as Adrian said, now in the form recitative – aria, recitative – aria, recitative – aria, this (8) operatic recitativo demonstrated the clarity of Mhairi’s diction and the depth of her voice. In the first aria, at times we had a prominent accompaniment, at others obbligato violin, at others yet intermediate instrumental material – Handel’s vocal writing is superb, and alternated with the violin-led passages, which were performed with assurance and grace.

The second aria was marked by a good melody, full of variety and in which one could see where more mature Handel would come from, with a nicely judged balance between rhythm and harmony. Here, the violin acted as a second voice, an echo to the chirpy good-humour of Mhairi’s delivery, in a part whose tessitura she handled with ease – and with an agreeably falling figure in the harpsichord part, which then migrated to the violin. The aria ended simply, with violin.

The finale, by contrast, was in ‘summing-up’ style, the text full of sententiae, and the feeling unalloyed. A delight to see all the musicians listening to, and communicating with, each other – right up to the close !


End-notes

* That said, either scholarship has moved on since The Agent first heard a recording, or Wikipedia® is being fertile in telling the tale, because the latter asserts that Diaghilev not only connived at Stravinsky basing his composition on Pergolesi, but urged it, even providing further scores of what was thought to be Pergolesi’s music.

Since (as the mid-1980s told us) Stravinsky did not acknowledge his sources, which then still appeared to be in Pergolesi, it seemed that he was disguising his plagiarism. Yet, if he did not reveal his sources, it follows that it is relatively unimportant (to Pulcinella and the various Suites made from it) whether the attributions in them were correct.


** By chance, since writing that first part of the review, the Central Library in Manchester has been visited, where staff in the Henry Watson Library confirmed that Adrian Chandler is personally known to them as a visitor…

And on the day of writing (10 November), though not with Adrian playing, Radio 3’s (@BBCRadio3blog’s) programme ‘In Tune’ is about to celebrate both the fact and history of the sonatas’ discovery and the music itself : 'listening again' (at 7:05 to 19:29), a week on, violinist Lucy Russell (accompanied by Peter Seymour) is, sadly, not a patch on Adrian's performance for musicality or expressiveness.


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

La Bretagna all'Italiana - or La Serenissima in Cambridge (Part I)

A review of La Serenissima's concert, performing with Mhairi Lawson at Trinity College, Cambridge

More views of - or before - Cambridge Film Festival 2014 (28 August to 7 September)
(Click here to go directly to the Festival web-site)

27 October

This (over)lengthy review is of a Cambridge Early Music concert given by La Serenissima, with soprano Mhairi Lawson, in the chapel of Trinity College, Cambridge, on Monday 13 October

The programme for the evening was entitled La Bretagna all’Italiana, and La Serenissima (@LaSerenissimaUK) was led (and introduced), as ever, by violinist Adrian Chandler (@AdeSerenissima), with Mhairi Lawson (soprano), Gareth Deats (cello), Robert Howarth (harpsichord), and Eligio Quinteiro (theorbo) – the ensemble’s full complement of players, on which Adrian calls for Vivaldi concerti and the like, is given on the beautifully presented web-site, at http://laserenissima.co.uk/about/*


Introductory

For the purposes of this review (NB This gushing overdue posting is just for the first half), Adrian Chandler is styled ‘Adrian’, because one simply must do so after having been to The Eagle on a couple of occasions with Gareth (and Robert ?) and him…


The first of which was after those three, as a trio, gave their Pisendel recital during one Cambridge Summer Music Festival, material founded in the original ‘Per Monsieur Pisendel’ album (which now has a tempting-looking sequel – Santa, please note !) : an intriguing story, fascinatingly told by Adrian between the pieces (and in the CD booklet), of the expert violinist who turned composer with the help of Antonio Vivaldi, one Johann Georg Pisendel, who rightly deserves – as La Serenissima believes – to be better known.

At Trinity, @LaSerenissimaUK was in reduced format, but nothing else was smaller : musicality, energy, freshness, plus MhairiLawson's voice
— THE AGENT APSLEY (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) October 13, 2014

On that occasion, La Serenissima was not, as it has sometimes done, giving an all-Vivaldi performance (though he is ever present), and that was a link with this recent Cambridge recital – along with Adrian’s continuing search for rarities, star works by other composer / violinists (Pisendel being but one) that we may not otherwise (tend to) hear.


Opening half

Programme

1. Due Canzoni da Battello ~ Anon. (c. 1730)

2. Sonata Scozzese ~ Francesco Maria Veracini (1690–1768)

3. A Scots Cantata ~ William Boyce (1711–1779)

4. Sonata II in D Major (‘Manchester’), RV. 12 ~ Antonio Vivaldi (1678–1741)


Mhairi Lawson began by singing two (1) Canzoni da Battello – and two further ones began the Closing half (write-up in progress), all thought to date to around 1730. At this time (and from the late seventh century until 1797), Venice was still a Republic : Serenissima Repubblica di Venezia – or just La Serenissima, from where the band takes its name**.

In the solo violin introduction to Si la gondola avere, Adrian brought out a sweetness of tone, which heralded richness in Mhairi’s voice, itself a contrast to the robust, yet delicate theorbo, before a close with violin again. In the second piece, Cara Nina el bon to sesto, Mhairi gave us more lightness, and the overall impression, with theorbo accompaniment, was less formal than in the opening song.


Neither of these Canzoni is attributed (please see next paragraph), and they typically have texts in Venetian dialect (as Adrian tells us in his programme-notes). Since he is necessarily mentally and historically rooted in Venice, Adrian provided much detail in the programme, but one also wanted to heed these short numbers – and their lyrics, fleeting as the may-fly, for there was little or none of the ruminative word-setting that we know from Handel or Bach. (And one knew that one could read over his notes later, in serene tranquillity !)


Afterwards, Adrian told us that these pieces survive, both in collections in manuscript form (in libraries, music colleges, etc.), and because they made their way into three volumes published, in London, by John Walsh (in the 1740s). (The notes tell us that there are occasional, usually sole, compositions that give Hasse, Pergolesi or Lampugani as their author.)


Adrian introduced the (2) Sonata Scozzese by outlining how Veracini migrated to London from Florence in the 1730s, and, through playing in the Entr’acte of John Gay’s The Beggar’s Opera, came to write this piece, with its Scotch snaps, and its variations on Tweeside.

Scored for the quartet of instrumentalists, the sonata is led by the violin (rather than its having a solo part), and opens with what sounds like Scottish intonation, before becoming more Italianate – quite an extended movement, reminiscent of the dance.

Formally, there is an Adagio between the Allegro moderatamente and the final Scozzese, but it appeared to be run together with the latter, and was – not least in comparison with the Allegro – fairly brief. The Scozzese is marked Un poco andante e affettuoso – Largo – Un poco andante e affettuoso :

Before the Scots tune was stated, the movement was characterized by deft down-strokes in, and hesitancy about, the violin-writing, and it then developed with the feel of ‘The Pipes’, and with the bow skating on Adrian’s strings. In the Largo section, a little akin to that in Vivaldi’s Concerto No. 4 in F Minor***, Op. 8 (RV 297, ‘Inverno’ (‘Winter’)), there was an inward, reflective mood given by the solo violin, before we moved back to the opening theme proper at the work’s close.

In and through hearing these pieces, and seeing – if quick enough – Adrian’s agile finger- and bow-work, we witnessed how a variety of techniques and effects for violin are part of this repertoire. As, in different ways, no doubt Béla Bartók places demands on his soloist in, say, his Violin Concerto No. 2 (BB 117) – or Johann Sebastian Bach in his Partita No. 3 in C Major (whose works in this set of Sonatas and Partitas for solo violin, BWV 1001–1006, partly inspired Bartók’s own Sonata for Solo Violin, Sz. 117, BB 124). However, of course, delving around in and then interpreting eighteenth-century (or earlier ?) treatises on string-playing is all part of the groundwork for what we hear in performance…


Mhairi stepped up again from sitting at the side of the chapel for Boyce’s (3) A Scots Cantata – maybe, when Tom Stoppard was giving us Vienna in a craze for things Scots in his adaptation On the Razzle, that seemed a little unlikely (albeit a century later, in 1842). However, it is clear from what is in this programme that something Caledonian was afoot in London in the first half of the eighteenth century****, which the local and (as Adrian puts it) ‘imported’ composers strove to serve.

Having duly referenced the recent vote ‘north of the border’, Adrian observed that the form is essentially recitative / aria – twice. Although being Scottish may have made Mhairi’s construing her text easier, it was the least of her qualifications to perform this piece when singers’ meat and drink is conveying meaning through a tongue that is likely to be unfamiliar to much of the audience – and many may relish settings of, for example (for this is not), Burns without being able to understand every nuance.

Even so, these central words (set in the second section of recitative), probably deliberately, pose no problem to following what is happening :

These tender notes did a’ her pity move, with melting heart she listened to the boy;
o’ercome she smil’d and promis’d him her love; he in return thus sang his rising joy.

Jeanny’s reaction, then, is the pivotal moment, the impetus for Jonny’s vigorous rejoicing in the second aria, where the scoring for voice dwelt on the phrase ‘dear enchanting bliss’ as the undulating accompaniment held the tune.


Regarding why the work that closed the first half, Vivaldi’s (4) Sonata for Violin and Continuo, RV 12, is numbered amongst what are called The ‘Manchester’ Sonatas, Adrian was quick to say that Vivaldi never came to England, but that the third largest collection in the world has ended up in that city, in the Henry Watson Library (for reasons that his notes and he went into…).

It opened tenderly, with a Preludio – Largo, but became spiky and quasi-military, before seeming to resemble the counter-tenor aria ‘Erbarme dich’ from Bach’s St Matthew Passion***** (BWV 244). Next, the Corrente – Allegro, full of energy from the off, with accents and a rising scale. Later, a falling figure and highly fluid solo writing in this movement left one feeling full of excitable emotion.

The following Giga – Allgero repeated and developed its initial phrase, progressing a bit as an eight-bar blues might. Yet what was most noticeable, other than Vivaldi’s typical employment of a driving violin style, was his use of ornament and emphasis. Throughout the movement, Gareth and Adrian were in visual interplay to give and receive cues, a noticeable feature of the close ensemble of La Serenissima (as well as seeing pleasure shared on Gareth’s face in reaction to some turn, or phrasing).

To close, the Gavotta – Presto was firmly in il prete rosso’s rhythmic style, and seemed to revisit the theme from the first movement. Not beyond being crafty with our expectations, and after laying a false trail as to where he was going, Vivaldi used the note that he had set up to springboard a coda in conclusion of the piece.


Audience reception and interval

Music this good (score and playing) is infectious ! One need not just have judged the effect of this performance by the applause, for the CD stall – with Adrian taking almost no break before signing – was very busy, and with an impressive range of titles (at least one per year since the group started).

Adrian was heard to say about a very good relationship with Avie Records, and that, in almost all cases, La Serenissima itself owns rights to the recordings, and can thus keep them in circulation (i.e. it could prevent titles being deleted).

Some time soonish, a companion posting will attempt to complete a write-up of the second half without being so novelistic...


End-notes

* Through elision, a URL that looks for all the world, on a quick glance, as though it is for some dubious suppository that involves lasers ?!

** Unless one has been there, it is hard to describe how glorious it is.

*** From, of course, a set of twelve concerti in all, Il cimento dell'armonia e dell'inventione (The Contest Between Harmony and Invention), Op. 8 – of which, Concerto No. 7 in D Minor, RV 242, is known as Per Pisendel.

**** From the Internet, it seems that Boyce was not alone in setting this material, for we have one Signior Lorenzo Bocchi’s composition, ‘The Tune after an Italian Manner’.

***** Asked in the interval, Adrian could not place Ebarme dich (which one dared not try to hum / whistle), but said that it must be coincidence, on the basis that he understands that Bach did not know the Vivaldi piece.


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

Redemptive washing

This is a Festival review of La redempció dels peixos (The Redemption of the Fish) (2013)

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21 September

This is a Festival review of La redempció dels peixos (The Redemption of the Fish) (2013)

The Redemption of the Fish (La redempció dels peixos) (2013)* had its UK premiere at the Festival to-night. As we learnt afterwards, it was filmed on almost no budget and was really only achievable because director Jordi Torrent (who was with us for a Q&A, along with lead actor Miquel Quer) has friends in Venice, where all the filming took place : avoiding the popular locations, and unbelievably having a three-week shoot in August, it did what was needed, but with a change of wind-direction and temperature that adorned the very final scene.

The film is stunning, not just because Venice is a glorious city, but because Torrent gave it the space to breathe and be itself, without the picture-postcard mentality that others might have brought to making a film there. It does not matter whether one's view is that Venice was the actor at the heart of this film, it fed the action, and the action subsisted so naturally there. I say that, because Venice is one of my loves, but the heart of the film is how it shows contemporary relationships and communication in this centuries-old place.

Quer (Marc) has gone to Venice from Barcelona for reasons that only became apparent with time, and, as he tries to follow a man when he closes a bookshop and leaves, he loses him in the confusion that is this city (and which twice, on a first visit there, caused me to stray into the Naval Dockyards and meet men with guns). (Here, there are hints of Don't Look Now (1973).) They had last seen each other when Marc was nearly two, because Paco, the other man, is his father.

An inner core of others who are connected with Paco peoples Marc's time there, and he comes into association with them, thinking (or maybe wanting to think) that there is a meaningful link between each of them and him. One tells him to look at how The Grand Canal divides the city into two fish, one of which is trying to eat the other - he is reminded that he used to say the opposite, or that he said that the fish represent other things, but he says that the Fish of Science is gobbling up the Fish of Ethics. Beautiful shots of the water, with buildings coming in and out of flux, had prefaced all of this, and, as Venice is La Serenissima and married to the sea, it had been a delight to realize that this unattainable, unmasterable place was our setting.

Saying little more about what happens or why, the film is a cinematic joy for its acting and for how it has been made (all, we were told, with available light, and a light crew of five or six) - Paco seems not to trust Marc or his motives, and maybe we do not like the feeling that Marc is on a mission at the behest of his grandmother and reporting back to her and to his girlfriend, but we grow out of relying on one, and into what brings Marc to find his father.

This represents the present high-point this year, and I hope to make it to the repeat screening at 10.45 a.m. on Sunday 29th September (the closing day of the Festival).


End-notes

* As an English title, it feels cumbersome, because is the fish what is redeemed, or is it what carries out the redemption ? Maybe that ambiguity is fecund, but I wonder whether something else might do better :

The Fish Swallows Whole, or

Venice the Redeemer


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

Watch out for Louisa-Rose Staples ! : A report from Thaxted Festival 2012

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Watch out for Louisa-Rose Staples ! : A report from Thaxted Festival 2012

14 July (revised 13 April 2023)

Watch out for Louisa-Rose Staples ! : A report from Thaxted Festival 2012

Malcolm Singer, who introduced the performance by The Yehudi Menuhin School Orchestra of the so-called Four Seasons (one violin soloist per season), told me afterwards that each player had had the Concerto in question allocated to him or her – it had not been, as I imagined, a selection made between the younger musicians themselves, and, as Malcolm was at pains to stress, there had been group work by the orchestra and the teachers, as well as by him, in shaping what we heard for each season.

That said, the allocation had been, as he suggested, on the basis of what would suit the individual violinist, and the result, in this first half, was a varied quartet of Concerti, whose character had not just been directed by an unchanging soloist. (A contrast, for me, with Adrian Chandler giving a unified performance with La Serenissima, this work’s last outing.)


Quite a clever approach, because, although we all know that recordings of this famous 'work' (considering it as a whole*) differ enormously, we do not think, say, to mix and match Mutter’s Spring with Heifetz’s Summer, and so on. We were asked to applaud each departing soloist, and greet the new one, with all four taking to the stage at the end. To hear the same string orchestra (plus harpsichord) sound so differently nicely brought out the instrumentalists’ adaptability as an ensemble, as well the variation that came from each soloist’s interpretation.

Although there was not one of the soloists whom I did not enjoy hearing, I have singled out Louisa-Rose Staples, because she played the second Concerto (Summer) with great poise, and, though I might have guessed from her stature that she was the youngest (she was born in 2000), it was not evident from the expressiveness of her violin-playing : it gave me shudders down the spine, because her tone was so good, and she phrased everything so well.

Otoha Tabata, playing Spring, seemed more integrated into the sound of the orchestra, to be emerging from it and then falling back into it, than Tanja Roos, who, as Winter, came last : Tanja seemed to make more of her Concerto as a virtuoso piece, and to feel apart from the rest of the texture, whereas Otoha used her fluency and technique within a different range. With such relatively new performers, although many of them have been playing since three, it is necessarily hard to know how much was direction from Malcolm and the other staff.

For example, the well-known opening of Winter (I believe that I am thinking of Winter, not Autumn) had a spiky angularity to the orchestral string-playing, which I do not recall having heard before, and which transformed not only the impression, but how the notes within the chords appeared to interrelate. In Autumn, which Sao Soulez-Lariviere seemed to have moulded into another different sound-world, not least in a central movement in a quite slow tempo, it was the overall shape of the Concerto that was laid bare, in a way that many a recording might not dare to do.


I have no idea what is ahead of all of these musicians (we had the benefit of four double-basses, and there must be competition), but, if she maintains her self-assurance as a performer with age and puberty, I would still tip Louisa-Rose Staples as a star for the future, though not to suggest that her fellow soloists might not be ones, too.


End-notes :
* The Concerti were, at least, published as a set of twelve - others will know better by far about the history of performance-prcatice.


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