CONCERTS

New York

Smooth-as-silk Dvorak from (left-right) Kristin Lee, Jon Kimura Parker, Clive Greensmith and Cynthia Phelps

CHAMBER MUSIC SOCIETY OF LINCOLN CENTER

ALICE TULLY HALL 10 JULY 2019

The Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center presented a lovely concert of less familiar works by familiar composers this month. Schubert’s String Trio in B flat major D581 opened with some beautiful moments, especially in the artists’ colouring of the harmonic changes. The Andante boasted tender playing not just from violinist Kristin Lee, but also in the way violist Richard O’Neill and cellist Clive Greensmith approached the accompaniment. Each supportive note had direction and was played with care; nothing was casual or tossed off. The sunny opening of the third movement gave way to an imaginative and characterful viola solo by O’Neill and the piece finished with a surprising bit of passion in the midst of a charming Rondo.

Dvořák’s Piano Quartet in D major op.23 followed. The captivating cello solo at the beginning set the stage for a delightful performance by four artists who each possess gorgeous and rich individual sounds but who came together to create a beautiful, smooth-as-silk ensemble blend. I thoroughly enjoyed the many characters of the Andantino movement and was quite taken with Lee’s nostalgic and elegant approach in the opening of that movement. The quirky Finale was convincingly done and played with much poise; all the artists came together to create long phrases despite the score.

Sextets abound in summer festival programmes, but Mendelssohn’s Piano Sextet op.110 was a delight to hear. I loved the depth of the bass paired with the two violas and cello and balanced by the grace and agility of the piano. The performance was jubilant and joyous, and I particularly enjoyed the effusive and effervescent piano playing by Jon Kimura Parker in the Allegro vivace, as well as the overall approach of the ensemble – the performance was thoughtful but not overwrought, and precise but not fussy.

LEAH HOLLINGSWORTH

MATT HOLLER

ULYSSES QUARTET

BARGEMUSIC 14 JULY 2019

In a preview of its August appearance at the Banff International String Quartet Competition (see next issue), the Ulysses Quartet (right) opened its sold-out Bargemusic appearance with the Allegro molto moderato movement from Schubert’s String Quartet no.15 in G major D887. (At Banff each of the competition’s ten quartets performs a challenge called ‘Schubertplus’, stitching together Schubert with movements from other composers.)

Rather than playing Schubert conventionally, the Ulysses unearthed a composer more athletic and aggressive – buoyed by fleet tempos, with spot-on intonation. And although one longed to hear the group in the entire work, the players had other plans in mind. The Adagio from Shostakovich’s Tenth String Quartet followed, with the players carefully letting the sombre mood unfold. Then, attacca, came the striking opening movement – ‘Landscape’ (Krajina) – of Pavel Haas’s String Quartet no.2 op.7 ‘From the Monkey Mountains’. Capturing its vivid quirkiness, the foursome deployed – as they often did during the hour – close to immaculate phrasing and the kind of chemistry many quartets long for, but rarely achieve.

BRUCE HODGES

VILDE FRANG (VIOLIN) MOSTLY MOZART FESTIVAL ORCHESTRA/ANDREW MANZE

DAVID GEFFEN HALL 24 JULY 2019

Vilde Frang plays with an almost unimaginably refined sense of style, and her elegant approach to the violin makes Beethoven’s Violin Concerto a perfect match. Despite the intricacies of the writing, she managed to produce long, silkily spinning lines in the mammoth first movement, never seeming to tire of the little notes, but always loving each one into a greater warmth and a longer line.

Her piano dynamics were captivating, and her understated power was supported beautifully by the orchestra, whose tuttis were emphatic, well-shaped and rich – yet never overpowered Frang.

I especially appreciated Frang’s judicious use of vibrato – it was never too much or overly romantic, but added beautiful colour and depth to her sound. Her phrasing was clear and carefully constructed, and her cadenza (Kreisler’s) was transformative: the audience waited, breathless, for each note, and it seemed at times impossible that sound so elegant could come from an instrument played with so little movement – so gracefully controlled and yet expressive was her playing. The Larghetto was absolutely sublime, and Manze beautifully crafted the orchestral tuttis to match and support Frang’s conception of the work. The Rondo was playful and poignant without sounding trite or cute, and Frang made the acrobatics of the movement seem like the proverbial walk in the park, she played with such ease.

Manze’s enthusiastic but poised approach led the orchestra in a characterful, dynamic performance of Beethoven’s ‘Eroica’ Symphony no.3 after the interval. In particular, the third movement boasted sparkling spiccato from the violins, and Manze did a credible job of holding the tempo back so that the movement felt perfectly in control. In a demanding programme, the musicians of the Mostly Mozart Festival Orchestra remained dedicated until the end, finishing with energy, clarity and joy.

LEAH HOLLINGSWORTH

PEKKA KUUSISTO (VIOLIN) KNUT ERIK SUNDQUIST (DOUBLE BASS)

KAPLAN PENTHOUSE AT LINCOLN CENTER 27 JULY 2019

After provocatively reinventing Bartók’s Romanian Folk Dances and Vivaldi’s Four Seasons, again with the Mostly Mozart Festival Orchestra under Andrew Manze, Pekka Kuusisto and Knut Erik Sundquist adjourned to the glamorous Kaplan Penthouse across the street for a hilarious and moving latenight concert. (If they ever decide to stop playing, a comedy show might be on the cards.)

For their concept, the violinist and bassist lined up Bach, European folk tunes and a soupçon of Tallis and others – all arranged for the two instruments, and prefaced by a deadpan introduction: ‘We have a set of extremely sad music, a set of joyful music – and a set of music that will make you want to go home.’ But the humour would have fallen flat if the results that followed weren’t so adroitly managed.

For the ‘sad’ part, the two Menuets from Bach’s Third Partita (BWV1006) surrounded a traditional Finnish minuet, often with Kuusisto bowing in delicately pale colours, with Sundquist in sober pizzicato counterpoint. After more amusing banter, the ‘joyful’ segment began with Memories from Ischgl, inspired by an arrangement for three clarinets.

And after the Largo from Bach’s C minor Violin and Harpsichord Sonata came the evening’s apex, En smuk Aftensang, a plaintive Norwegian melody enhanced by Kuusisto’s pristine whistling.

For the final set (and from the applause, no one wanted to go home) four folk tunes (including a wistful tango by Zbigniew Korepta) prefaced the last work, a touching arrangement of the Aria that opens Bach’s Goldberg Variations. As Kuusisto turned to gaze at the Manhattan skyline through the floor-toceiling windows, his elaborate ornamentation contrasted with Sundquist’s gentle pulses.

BRUCE HODGES

Vigour and tenderness from Alexi Kenney

YANG BAO

London

ALEXI KENNEY (VIOLIN) ORION WEISS (PIANO)

WIGMORE HALL 17 JULY 2019

The young Californian violinist Alexi Kenney opened this concert with his compatriot Charles Ives’s Fourth Violin Sonata of 1916, ‘Children’s Day at the Camp Meeting’. It was written for a twelve-year-old but, as Ives observed, it would have been too difficult for the child’s teacher. Kenney, clearly better than that teacher, gave a spirited account of it, increasingly rambunctious in the first movement, where he was almost drowned out during energetic interplay with the pianist Orion Weiss, and producing fluid, shapely melody in the second. In the last movement he played the quoted song ‘Shall We Gather at the River’ with great enthusiasm.

After Ives, Kenney gave life to the birds in Stravinsky’s ‘Chants du rossignol et Marche chinoise’. There was felicitous, gently flowing passagework in the first movement of Beethoven’s G major Sonata op.96. The Adagio was contemplative but with considerable drama within its long-sustained lines. The Scherzo bounced happily along, and there was tenderness in the finale.

In the world premiere of Paul Wiancko’s sevenmovement X Suite for Solo Violin, which draws on Bach for its structure, Kenney was adept in restless string-crossing, showed vigour in the springing rhythms of the double-stopped Courante, and generally executed with panache. After a plaintive arrangement of Barbara Strozzi’s L’Eraclito amoroso, the two musicians played Enescu’s Third Violin Sonata with subtlety and colour, catching the folk idioms in their melodic nuances and rhythmic flexibility.

TIM HOMFRAY

LANA TROTOVSEK (VIOLIN) MARIA CANYIGUERAL (PIANO)

WIGMORE HALL 22 JULY 2019

The Slovenian violinist Lana Trotovsek bracketed this recital with A major sonatas by Beethoven. She opened with the op.12 no.2, in which the very Vivace first movement almost fell over itself; great fun but with details blurred. The slow movement had simple grace, and the melodic lines of the finale were made alive with accents. Lucijan Marija Škerjanc’s 1934 Intermezzo romantique is romantic indeed, a beautiful bon-bon with the instruments swapping fragments of phrases.

The opening Andante assai of Prokofiev’s First Sonata was severe and forceful, and the melody of the following Allegro brusco had a heroic swagger, followed by some almost brutal dialogue between violin and piano. In the Andante, subtle, warm playing promised bewitching beauty, but by the end it was hard and uncompromising. There was more brutality at the heart of the finale before the bleak return of the ‘graveyard’ music and desperate yearning on the G string. This was a remarkable performance. Beethoven’s ‘Kreutzer’ Sonata was theatrical, with extrovert, hall-filling soliloquy turning instantly to confessional whisper. In the variations of the central Andante there were many characters, with touches of humour, and the dialogue between instruments in the finale had the true feel of live intuitive performance.

TIM HOMFRAY

Charismatic soloist Nemanja Radulovic

PHOTOS CHRIS CHRISTODOULOU

The characteristically rich-voiced James Ehnes

BBC PROMS PROM 4: NEMANJA RADULOVIC (VIOLIN) BOURNEMOUTH SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA/ KIRILL KARABITS

ROYAL ALBERT HALL 21 JULY 2019

PROM 6: JAMES EHNES (VIOLIN) ORCHESTRA OF THE ROYAL ACADEMY OF MUSIC AND THE JUILLIARD SCHOOL/EDWARD GARDNER

ROYAL ALBERT HALL 22 JULY 2019

John Adams’s Short Ride in a Fast Machine – explosive and dramatic – made the perfect prelude to the BBC Proms debut of charismatic soloist Nemanja Radulović on 21 July, with the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra. The Franco–Serbian violinist looked very much the wild child with his flowing locks, black jeans and tail coat. Yet his performance of Barber’s Violin Concerto was delicacy itself, under the decisive baton of Kirill Karabits.

In the feather-light opening, the violin’s dreamy wanderings were spun with ease and expressive flair.

The hall’s patchy acoustic meant that, for me, Radulović was occasionally in danger of being overwhelmed by the forces of the orchestra in the most reflective moments, but he was undaunted, laying into the second movement’s rich themes with ardour, and keeping up the frantic pace of the final helter-skelter Presto with exhilarating urgency and passion. In a gorgeously theatrical encore, Radulović joined the orchestra’s front desks for a scampering, foot-stomping Serbian folk dance.

A gripping performance of Holst’s Planets in the second half formed a perfect counterbalance to the opening of the Prom on 22 July – the UK premiere of Metacosmos, by Icelandic composer Anna Thorvaldsdottir. This mesmerising piece, exploring the ideas of black holes, powerlessness and beauty, was vast in scope, with its intricate, grinding textures and sorrowful melodies.

James Ehnes was on characteristically rich-voiced form in Britten’s Violin Concerto, a work much influenced by Berg. Under the powerful direction of Edward Gardner, Ehnes captured just the right degree of sweetness and underlying menace in the music, and the Orchestra of the Royal Academy of Music and the Juilliard School played with freshness coupled with impeccable precision. Ehnes’s cadenza was fiendish and lovely, and the steely power of the final movement underlined the violinist’s reputation as a player of real expressive eloquence.

After the tumultuous Britten, the clean lines of the encore – the third movement of Bach’s Sonata no.2, played with the utmost attention to detail – were deliciously refreshing, Ehnes showing his mastery in teasing out its deceptively simple lines.

A riotous Rite of Spring gave the youthful orchestra further opportunity to demonstrate its unfailing mix of fastidiousness and fire.

CATHERINE NELSON