Festival report : Sarbacanes, in Beverley Minster, at Beverley and East Riding Early Music Festival
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28 May
Festival report : Sarbacanes, in Beverley Minster, at Beverley and East Riding Early Music Festival - Music for Garden and Table on Saturday 28 May at 11.00 a.m. (uncorrected proof)
Personnel (alphabetical order) :
* Gabriel Dambricourt ~ horn
* Neven Lesage ~ principal oboe
* Alejandro Pérez Marin ~ bassoon
* Félix Roth ~ principal horn
* Martin Roux ~ oboe
* Lucile Tessier ~ principal bassoon
[NB The designations of the principals have been inferred. Judging on what could be seen and heard in performance]
Programme :
1. Haydn - Divertimento in D Major
2. Mozart - Divertimento in F Major
3. Mozart – Three piece from Twelve Duos for Two Horns
4. Haydn - Divertimento in G Major
5. Salieri - Trio for Two Oboes and Bassoon
6. Mozart - Divertimento in B Flat Major
(1) Franz Joseph Haydn (1732 - 1809) - Divertimento in D Major, Hob. deest
The line-up of Sarbacanes was, left to right on the staging at Beverley Minster (which had been occupied the night before by Florilegium), two bassoons (Alejandro Pérez Marin and Lucile Tessier (principal)), two oboes (Neven Lesage (principal) and Martin Roux) and two horns (Gabriel Dambricourt and Félix Roth (principal)).
They began their recital with a Divertimento by Haydn, in which we could hear calls and responses, the bassoons, for example, in response to the oboes and horns : in a good way, a reedy and celebratory opening Allegro di molto, with virtuoso writing for principal bassoon (Tessier) and oboe (Lesage). In the Menuet, marked Allegretto, we heard the oboes and then the other instruments before tutti passages, and a duet of horn and bassoon in the Trio, in what is a perfect little miniature.
There is a certain grandiosity of style in the writing for the Poloneso (marked Adagio), but that for oboe was charmingly appealing, underplaying the ostensible 'grandeur'. Perhaps, in a reference now lost, there is Haydnesque joke in this movement, preparing us for the more obvious folly of the extremely short Presto finale ?
A humorous and lively start to this concert, which was clearly very pleasing to those present, and after which Neven Lesage, from the stage, introduced Sarbacanes, and what we could expect in the programme as a whole and in the next piece, another Divertimento, but this time by Mozart.
Birdsong, especially linnets, in a garden - and your favourite piece of cake ! ~ Neven Lesage
(2) Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756 – 1791) - Divertimento in F Major, K. 253
A lovely and sensitively played opening theme, led by the bassoons, in what the words of introduction (and our programme-notes) made us aware was to be a set of variations on it :
More to come...
At the end, the brilliance of the oboes and the bassoons, and the sounding of the horns
(3) Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756 – 1791) - Duos for Two Horns, K. 487, Nos 2, 10 and 1
Two French horns, played by two French persons ~ Félix Roth
Before these pieces, Félix Roth told us not only that, as a French person, it is a puzzle to him that the English language calls his instrument 'a French horn', but also that these Duos for Two Horns are celebration pieces - yet the central heart of the first one that we were played is deeply felt. The second even more closely resembled a proper human conversation, echoing the inflections of speech.
What was striking, here, were the subtlety of the sound and of the composition – how the duo instruments talk as one, as a quiet fanfare, in the third Duo, but with reflective (perhaps semi-humorous ?) moments.
(4) Haydn - Divertimento in G Major, Hob. deest (1670)
By way of oral introduction (by Neven Lesage again ?), we were told that this composition dates to 1670, so it is Classical, but that we would also find that it was Baroque.
It was, in fact, a little more like a Concerto Grosso in the initial Allegro, played with restraint and grace : in that movement and the Menuet, it contains bold statements of themes that yet do not seem overly bold, and then (without the horns) a different landscape emerged, before we were taken back to, maybe, some quiet 'Papa Haydn jokes' ?
In the Andante, Haydn very definitely presents his calling-card, setting out the material effectively, but with brevity, and well knowing how he will use its possibilities for euphony and to evoke a mood – he adds the sound of the horns to the bassoons, then the oboes, and next both, with a nice interplay between principal horn and bassoon.
The repeated Menuet calmly makes its return, and then, in the Presto, Haydn gives us another 'throw-away' manner of whisking us away at the end – 'Back to Reality'... ?
Such a delight, in a lively and vivid way, to hear this beautiful miniature in performance !
(5) Antonio Salieri (1750 – 1825) - Trio for Two Oboes and Bassoon***, in C Major :
Not exactly a blending of voices in these movements for Trio, since - in the Larghetto - the writing for bassoon seems subservient to the parts for the oboes.
The same was partly true in the Presto, although Pérez Marin had more licence there, with subdivided ornamentation and note-patterns in the harmonizing of what the other instruments were playing. A highly agreeable and affecting combination of sounds.
(6) Mozart - Divertimento in B Flat Major, K. 270
This second Divertimento by Mozart, and the final piece in the hour-long programme¹ was the jewel in the crown of this repertoire – although it may need saying, by way of explanation, that the relative lack of review-notes made during it in no way reflects, directly, on the quality of the music or its playing².
The scope of the work's conception is evident from the start, even if it was also likely to be a familiar, as well as elegant, piece of musicianship. (This impression may, in part, be an artefact of performance practice, in that we know what to expect. Even so, by any measure, does it not feel like a supremely and sublimely organic whole ?)
After its technical demands, the ensemble's sense of relief was plain at the end of the opening Allegro molto (not least in the light of our still understanding that they had a train to catch* - and to an extent were therefore, we believed, playing 'against the clock').
Mechanical clock, Lesage interpolated before the Andantino - the movement appears to speak through the oboe
With reference to the second Divertimento by Haydn that we had heard, Lindsay Kemp's programme-notes³ also alert us to the fact that 'The slow movement [...] seems determined to involve as many instrumental shadings as it can squeeze into 24 bars' – in which case, in the light of Neven Lesage's comment here about a Mozartian clock [unless he was instead, or as well, alluding to the chimes of noon having sounded in the Minster ?], perhaps not a wholly inapt number of bars, or coincidental that Tafelmusik might make unnoticed allusions to the passing of time... ?
More to come...
Both a good and spirited performance and piece of programming from a young group of players !
End-notes :
¹ The Festival's opening announcement, before the members of Sarbacanes materialized and made their way on stage, had made some suggestion that they had a train to catch and needed to start promptly at 11.00 a.m. – their being around afterwards, in a leisurely way, to talk to members of the audience means that their plans had changed (or we had been wrongly informed) :
Unlike some venues or events, the interaction with the performers has always been a feature of the Beverley and East Riding, and York, Festivals, which makes for a much more friendly and rounded experience.
² Rather, hearing the work played so beautifully, the original intention had been to re-listen to comment on it in detail, since a different type of concentration, especially at this time of the day, is required for listening to live performance of this quality (even during a music festival) : indeed, the playing was having the effect that the work's title indicates it should, with the result that the role of writer had simply slipped away, succumbing in favour of being a seduced member of the audience !
³ As Lindsay Kemp's programme-notes made us aware, here we were being played 'the dignified Larghetto from Trio No. 1, followed by the scurrying Presto from No. 3'.
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Unless stated otherwise, all films reviewed were screened at Festival Central (Arts Picturehouse, Cambridge)
