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BEIJING MUSIC FESTIVAL 12–14 OCTOBER 2020

Last October the 23rd Beijing Music Festival contrived both to negotiate round the pandemic and celebrate Beethoven’s 250th anniversary with 240 hours of non-stop online and live music making. It included three concerts in which ten up-and-coming violinists each performed one of Beethoven’s violin sonatas. I saw and heard them on YouTube, recorded live in front of an occasionally noisy audience. The setting was somewhat sepulchral: a black stage with a black background (save for a golden logo) with a black piano and artists clothed mostly in black. A couple of the ladies’ dresses provided the only colour.

The sound wasn’t state-of-the-art, but it was an interesting opportunity to compare ten fine artists, most of them prizewinners, back to back. In the first concert (12 October) Xie Haoming with pianist Junhui Chen performed the A major Sonata op.30 no.1 with forthright expression and rich vibrato, and vivid characterisation of the final-movement variations. In the A minor Sonata op.23 Yige Chen with Xin Xin played with an effective balance of delicacy and energy, with just the right amount of wit in the central Andante. Minjia Zhu with Jonie Qiuning Huang was particularly impressive in the G major Sonata op.30 no.3, with great vitality, subtlety and sheer beauty, and happy bravura in the finale. Wendi Wang and Junhui Chen performed the C minor Sonata op.30 no.2 with deft melodic shaping and appropriate drama in the finale.

In the second concert (13 October) Runyin Zhang with Jonie Qiuning Huang produced silky-toned playing, full of personality, in the A major Sonata op.12 no.2, caressing the melodies in the slow movement, happy in the finale. There was fine pacing in the E flat major Sonata op.12 no.3 from Huali Dang and Junhui Chen, whether spacious or vivacious, with graceful languor in the second movement. Of course, someone had to get the great A major ‘Kreutzer’ Sonata op.47: Paloma So with Junhui Chen played a blinder, in a performance powerful, dramatic and compelling, the slow movement lilting and jaunty, and the finale joyful.

Ming Liu with Shao Lu opened the final concert on 14 October with a stylish account of the D major Sonata op.12 no.1, with some light, dancing moments in the central variation movement. Zhen-Yang Jimmy Yu with Xin Xin gave a delicate, understated performance of the G major Sonata op.96, and deftly melded the many tonal shifts of the finale. Finally, Lin Ruifeng with Shao Lu gave a superb account of the F major ‘Spring’ Sonata op.24 with beautiful melodic shaping, particularly in the slow movement, and a sparkling, energetic finale.

They were all first-rate, and it is perhaps invidious to single out one; but the ‘Kreutzer’ was awfully good.

TIM HOMFRAY

Style and colour from Ming Liu and Shao Lu in Beijing

COURTESY BEIJING MUSIC FESTIVAL

Philadelphia

CATALYST QUARTET AND HARLEM QUARTET BENJAMIN FRANKLIN HALL 30 OCTOBER 2020

Combining magnificently into a single forceful octet, the Catalyst and Harlem quartets reached a climax at this concert’s conclusion with Mendelssohn’s classic in the genre. Presented by the Philadelphia Chamber Music Society, the group boasted elegance, reverence and rich timbres in the opening movements. In the ticklish Scherzo I wondered, ‘How can anyone not like this music?’ And the final Presto roared like a vintage convertible, cruising down the highway.

In the spare formality of Philadelphia’s Benjamin Franklin Hall (for a Covid-limited audience, with the performers wearing masks), the ensemble’s luminosity was evident from the opening work, Jessie Montgomery’s Strum (2006, rev.2012). Amid luscious chords, strumming eventually takes centre stage, and the warm vibe continues in an exuberant race to the finish line.

To preface the still, small voice – a world premiere by composer Kenji Bunch – author Lorene Cary gave a carefully paced reading of the late Walt Whitman poem that inspired the composer, ‘Election Day, November 1884’. The score’s opening finger snaps set a metronomic rhythm for a restless, scurrying figure, which expands into a voluptuous bloom. Later the snaps return, with subdued, wordless vocalising from the ensemble.

Shostakovich wrote his rarely played Two Pieces for String Octet when he was a teenager, studying at the Petrograd Conservatory in St Petersburg. The eight players rejoiced in its youthful hijinks, from the sombre clouds and skeletal textures of the Prelude to the shrieking precocity of the Scherzo.

BRUCE HODGES