Reviews

Your monthly critical round-up of performances, recordings and publications

CONCERTS

THIS MONTH’S RECOMMENDED RECORDINGS

Our pick of the new releases

Fauré, Liszt and Hahn: Proustian musical delights PAGE 87

Trio Wanderer: Elegant Schumann piano trios PAGE 89

Supreme Ysaÿe sonatas from James Ehnes PAGE 90

Live streams: USA

Superb technique and gorgeous characterisation from Randall Goosby

COURTESY YOUNG CONCERT ARTISTS

RANDALL GOOSBY (VIOLIN) ZHU WANG (PIANO) MORGAN LIBRARY & MUSEUM, GILDER LEHRMAN HALL, NEW YORK, 7 APRIL 2021

Violinist Randall Goosby’s sweet sound and thoughtful use of his warm vibrato made for a wonderful Ravel Sonata no.2 in G major. The Allegretto was wonderfully tender, his articulation was masterful (with superb pianissimo spiccato) and his technical ability superb. The ‘Blues’ movement was tasteful and characterful, never overdone. I especially appreciated his sultry slides and precisely swung rhythm. The final movement showcased Goosby’s bow arm, and while technically he was in complete control of the movement, I wished for a clearer sense of architecture among all the many notes here.

Goosby next presented two memorable pieces by Coleridge-Taylor Perkinson (1932–2004) for solo violin. The first, Blue/s Forms, like a bluesy Ysaÿe, was marvellous in every way: intonation, character, sound quality, emotion. The performance was compelling and heartfelt. Louisiana Blues Strut:

A Cakewalk was a fun piece, more reminiscent of a fiddle tune, and he played with joy and pizzazz. It was a delight to hear Goosby present these two works.

The programme concluded with Brahms’s D minor Violin Sonata, which Goosby started at a moderate, thoughtful tempo with a beautifully gentle approach. I did wish for more sense of the emotion of the intervals, though – you don’t want Brahms to sound too easy, in my book. That said, I thoroughly enjoyed his interpretation of the work: he performed with gorgeous characterisation and colours, lovely vibrato use, pristine articulation and thoughtful phrasing – and he delivered a passionate Presto.

LEAH HOLLINGSWORTH

MIRANDA CUCKSON (VIOLIN) CONOR HANICK (PIANO) NATIONAL SAWDUST, NEW YORK 16 APRIL 2021

At National Sawdust, a venue known for its pristine sound, the Fromm Players at Harvard presented violinist Miranda Cuckson and pianist Conor Hanick in four works, starting with Duo (1996/99) by Rebecca Saunders – with every delicate gesture audible. But the more aggressive sequences also registered: Cuckson’s grating glissandos, along with Hanick reaching inside to strum the piano strings

To browse through more than a decade of The Strad ’s recording reviews, visit www.thestrad.com/reviewsin pleasantly caustic counterpoint. Languid phrases from the violin were often in contrast to courtly tiptoes on the piano, intertwining as the mood grew ever calmer.

Renowned for her contemporary programming, the violinist followed with the premiere of Jeffrey Mumford’s fl eeting cycles of layered air (2020), packed with nervous gestures, rapidly changing filigree and double-stops. Pizzicatos play a strong role, including the forceful array that ends the exercise.

Composer Dongryul Lee was enthralled with Cuckson’s playing and wrote her the virtuosic microtonal exercise A finite island in the infinite ocean (2020). Given the title, passages sound like dense reefs of exotic corals. In the first section, arpeggios and double-stops abound, and as the tension escalates, a stratospheric note ends it all. The second part is quieter, more like a lullaby. In an appealing illusion, the violinist created a faint echo effect, as if subtly enlarging the space.

Hanick returned for the closing work, Natasha Barrett’s Allure and Hoodwink (2014), with electronics adding to the complex timbres – as if radiating out from the violin and piano. As the ‘hoodwink’ ensued, agitation increased. Scratchy glissandos left electronic debris in their wake. Near the end, in a striking sequence, the electronics came crashing in, only to devolve into quiet clicking. Cuckson’s implacable control only underlined the contrasts.

BRUCE HODGES

ROBERT MCDUFFIE (VIOLIN) ATLANTA SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA/ROBERT SPANO ASO CONCERT HALL, ATLANTA, 29 APRIL 2021

At 45’09”, McDuffie and Spano’s account of the Brahms Violin Concerto was more lyrical than dramatic. In general, tempos were leisurely, and the relaxed playing frequently grew deficient in phrasal tension. I found it odd that McDuffie downplayed the dramatic impact of Brahms’s many trills and suspensions. The highlight of the Allegro non troppo was his playing of what sounded like an abbreviated Kreisler cadenza. Overall, he played expressively and used a wide dynamic compass. Unfortunately, his most delicate effects were often covered by the winds in an orchestral mix that seemed to move the solo violin back and forth in the texture unnaturally.

This only underscored some moments of imperfect intonation between him and the winds.

The Castalian Quartet presents an intense programme

MATTHEW BRODIE/POLYPHONIC CONCERT CLUB

The Adagio allowed his lyrical approach to the score to shine successfully, but the Allegro giocoso finale was short on both zest and humour, and passages here and there sounded both uncertain and effortful. I was surprised by the orchestra’s slack articulation, which did nothing to enrich the phrases; otherwise, seated in the expanded fashion mandated by Covid-19, their ensemble was excellent. However, a persistent stolidity produced a very kapellmeisterisch effect, including some imprecise ensemble with the solo on attacks.

In the early Serenade in A major op.16, pairs of woodwinds, violas, cellos, and basses produce a mellifluous texture in which the winds predominate. It received a thoroughly pleasing performance to conclude the all-Brahms programme.

DENNIS ROONEY

Live streams: UK

CASTALIAN QUARTET STOLLER HALL, MANCHESTER, 8 APRIL 2021

The Polyphonic Concert Club’s charge of £95 for six chamber recitals filmed around the UK may look stiff, but subscribers got the nearest thing to a concert-hall experience streamed to their phone or computer, in high-definition sound and musically intelligent camerawork. There was every impression of live risk-taking about the Castalian Quartet’s performance of a dense and demanding hour-long programme, beginning with the high contrasts imparted to Haydn’s C major Quartet op.20 no.2.

Cross-string arabesques flew off the bow of leader Sini Simonen, and the music’s capacity for tension and surprise was stressed at the cost of some over-projection and tiny moments of rhythmic insecurity which only served in context to underline the sense of a one-off event as much as the stern unisons and vaulting improvisations of the secondmovement recitatives.

Playing with the safety catch off also reaped dramatic rewards in Janáček –a fierce, fierily rhetorical account of the ‘Kreutzer Sonata’ Quartet to close – and in The Four Quarters of Adès. Now a decade old, this compression of a diurnal cycle seems destined to join the composer’s Arcadiana as a modern classic of the repertoire, unnerving and satisfying in equal measure, eliciting a rare moment of peace from the Castalian in the opening ‘Nightfalls’ movement. The rhythmic complexity of the ‘25th Hour’ finale was negotiated with self-effacing brilliance, the eerie Purcell-meets-Janáček sound world yielding to a closing D major chord of exquisite fragility.

PETER QUANTRILL

TIMOTHY RIDOUT (VIOLA) JAMES BAILLIEU (PIANO) WIGMORE HALL, LONDON, 25 MARCH 2021

All the composers represented in this concert were viola players, of which the earliest, William Flackton, may well have written the first English music for viola. His C minor Sonata of 1770 is firmly set in Baroque soil, with four movements alternating slow and fast. Ridout, gentle in the opening Adagio, danced through the Allegro Moderato with clean staccato playing and burst into vigorous life in the final Minuetto. He soared at the centre of Cecil Forsyth’s Chanson Celtique, and was suitably melancholic in Vaughan Williams’s Six Studies in English Folk Song before dashing off the jolly final number with élan – after which his shoulder rest fell off.

The Waltz from Britten’s Suite for violin and piano (arranged, like the previous work, by the composer) was Ridout’s first chance to demonstrate his virtuosic flair, rattling off double-stops and down-bow spiccato with theatrical timing and a leavening of humour.

The major work here was Rebecca Clarke’s Sonata. Ridout and Baillieu took the opening Impetuoso instruction seriously, playing with drive and rhythmic flexibility, which lent Ridout’s playing a feeling of improvisation as he moved through Clarke’s shifting emotional landscape. The Vivace was feather-light, there was tender, pliant lyricism in the Adagio, and Ridout let rip with power and joy in the finale. Baillieu, too, was superb.

TIM HOMFRAY

CHIAROSCURO QUARTET WIGMORE HALL 14 APRIL 2021

There was drama before this concert even started, as Hélène Clémont, violist with the Doric Quartet, raced to Wigmore Hall on her motorbike to replace Emilie Hörnlund, who couldn’t make it. Needless to say, it didn’t show. They opened with Haydn’s ‘Bird’ Quartet op.33 no.3, played with expressive freedom of dynamics, an easy rubato, pointed acciaccaturas and occasionally impish humour. After the rich sotto voce of the Scherzando allegretto, first violinist Alina Ibragimova trilled her way splendidly through the trio as her fellow violinist Pablo Hernán Benedi pecked away below. There was warm legato playing in the Adagio before the exhilarating finale, dancing staccato semiquavers clipped and precise as it dashed along.

Exhilarating drama from the Chiaroscuro Quartet

COURTESY WIGMORE HALL

The exuberant Hanslip and Driver

HANSLIP PHOTO WIGMORE HALL. KOPATCHINSKAJA PHOTO VIRTUAL CIRCLE

Their performance of Schubert’s A minor Quartet D804 was marked by vivid contrasts. Passages of the first movement, not least the opening, were hushed and caressed, as if infinitely precious and delicate, giving way to fierce, driven playing. Ibragimova lovingly shaped the theme of the Andante, which proceeded with poise and gentle majesty. Close observance of Schubert’s accents brought little stings to the Menuetto, played with autumnal warmth of tone, and gave sometimes asymmetrical impetus to the finale.

TIM HOMFRAY

CHLOË HANSLIP (VIOLIN) DANNY DRIVER (PIANO) WIGMORE HALL, LONDON, 19 APRIL 2021

This concert of Russian and French music opened with an extra touch of Mediterranean colour in Stravinsky’s Suite italienne. Chloë Hanslip maintained her focused tone through the spiccato demands of the Tarantella, which was expressive as well as rhythmically precise, and the Scherzino. She was seductive in the Serenata, sprightly in the Gavotta, and brought controlled flamboyance to the Finale, with deftly dispatched double-stopping. Lili Boulanger’s Nocturne had gentle charm, and her D’un matin de printemps blossomed into rich tones and energetic high spirits. As Messiaen’s Theme and Variations became more lively, Hanslip moved into exuberant song, with ecstatic vibrato.

Danny Driver was in empathic attendance throughout. In Prokofiev’s F minor Violin Sonata they proved to be a great team. In the darkness of the opening movement Hanslip’s sound had anguish and tension as she ascended the G string, and there was something grimly inexorable in the double-stopped lines that followed. In the Allegro brusco second movement Hanslip dug and crunched into the strings, and even the sweeping eroico theme had a fervid intensity that brought little relief. There was beauty in the long coiling lines of the Andante, and ferocity in the asymmetrical rhythms of the finale.

TIM HOMFRAY

Live stream: Bern

CAMERATA BERN/ PATRICIA KOPATCHINSKAJA (VIOLIN) REITSCHULE BERN 27 MARCH 2021

Patricia Kopatchinskaja’s concept-album arrangement of the ‘Death and the Maiden’ Quartet made startling but insightful companions of Schubert, Dowland and Kurtág when Alpha released a live-recorded audio version with the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra. Five years on, the project has been transferred to film, although it was presented here as a one-off live-streamed performance.

It brings gains and losses.

The theme of a medieval Totentanz – dance of death – is established from the outset by a lot of shrieking and cackling as the members of Camerata Bern run into an old warehouse by a railway line.

The Quartet begins in Kopatchinskaja’s signature style with the kind of rhetorical tempo shifts and extreme rhetoric that would turn many modern listeners’ hair white if perpetrated by an old Romantic like Willem Mengelberg.

Confirmation arrives that the violinist has finally jumped the shark with her crooning of Schubert’s little Death and the Maiden song like an out-take from Pierrot lunaire (mercifully absent from the original album). The technical accomplishment and tight-knit ensemble on show – Kopatchinskaja seems to have full buy-in from the Camerata members – can’t (for me) disguise or redeem the sense that Schubert (and the others) have been abducted to take part in a gothic rite of death decked out in black make-up.

In fact the interludes are accorded more respect than poor Schubert. A Gesualdo madrigal hardly misses its text when played with such purity and refinement by one-to-a-part strings. At the film’s still point –night being darkest when dawn is near – the Ligatura- Message to Frances-Marie (Uitti, the American cellist) by Kurtág is an exquisite triumph of refinement, at least until Kopatchinskaja emerges from a sarcophagusturned-costume to play the celesta’s final notes. Somewhere, choked by acres of white tulle and the clatter of passing trains, a meditation on life’s transitory nature is struggling to be heard.

PETER QUANTRILL

Patricia Kopatchinskaja: dressed to kill