CONCERTS

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

THIS MONTH’S RECOMMENDED RECORDINGS

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Jonathan Swensen beguiles in solo cello repertoire PAGE 86

Miraculous Mendelssohn from Europa Galante PAGE 89

Johnny Gandelsman muses on contemporary America PAGE 91

Bowdoin

BOWDOIN INTERNATIONAL MUSIC FESTIVAL

Kyung Sun Lee (violin), Rebecca Albers (viola), David Ying (cello) and Elinor Freer (piano) alluring in Dvořák

STUDZINSKI RECITAL HALL, BOWDOIN, MAINE 1 JULY 2022

In her opening remarks, violinist Ani Schnarch commented on how Bach influenced Honegger’s Sonata for solo violin (1940). And, in common with his most popular work, Pacific 231, this sonata has echoes of steam locomotives. Later, the audience voted on whether the composer envisioned an intercity or a mountain train. (The latter won!)

In the opening movement, Schnarch’s disciplined bow strokes kept the waves of double-stops in line, and curiously, as the second movement began, I wondered if the railway tracks had subconsciously inspired the composer’s use of two strings. Occasional solo lines seemed secondary to the almost constant, rugged twin textures. The violinist threw a brief grin to the audience before diving into the gruff, demanding finale, perhaps the most Bachian of all.

In R. Murray Schafer’s dreamy Trio for flute, viola and harp (2011), Dmitri Murrath’s full-blooded viola tone made an enticing counterpoint to the crystalline sonorities from flautist Linda Chesis and June Han on harp. The violist was especially compelling in the prayer-like simplicity of the languid second movement.

To close came Dvořák’s Piano Quartet no.2, with Kyung Sun Lee (violin), Rebecca Albers (viola) and David Ying (cello), with Elinor Freer at the piano. In the opening Allegro con fuoco, rhythmic precision merged with a keen sense of the composer’s combination of fluidity, drama and occasional playfulness before the thrilling final bars. Ying’s tenderness and lustrous tone in the second movement were captivating, amid stormy surges from his colleagues and the graceful third movement was laced with nostalgia. But then came the bracing finale, after which cheers from the audience acknowledged the foursome’s sparkle and ferocity.

BRUCE HODGES

ARIEL QUARTET MASTERCLASS

STUDZINSKI RECITAL HALL, BOWDOIN, MAINE 5 JULY 2022

During a pandemic-blighted summer, with many events around the country cancelled, the Bowdoin International Music Festival filled July with an abundance of concerts, as well as masterclasses, and early in the month, members of the Ariel Quartet coached two groups of students. The results provided intimate glimpses into the process of exploring and polishing.

ALL PHOTOS NILES SINGER/BOWDOIN INTERNATIONAL MUSIC FESTIVAL

First up: Fang-Chun Hsieh and Kim Ye Eun (violins), Mathew Lee (viola) and Joseph Kim (cello), in the opening of Ravel’s String Quartet. Initial impressions of the students’ ardour, thoughtfulness and sense of contrast – not to mention smoky timbre – were borne out by subsequent comments. Ariel cellist Amit Even-Tov (left, standing) mentioned Brahms’s quartets, and elements of painting, encouraging more colour. Violist Jan Grüning chimed in, ‘If one person leads, and the other follows, you will always be behind’, encouraging a more simultaneous partnership.

Alexandra Kazovsky, one of the Ariel violinists, emphasised more flowing phrasing, rather than taking a bar-by-bar approach. Her violin colleague, Gershon Gerchikov, echoed those thoughts and then, using Kim Ye Eun’s violin, led the group in an exercise in which the beat was subtly erased for a few minutes, emphasising not only flow but trust too. Later Even-Tov focused on dynamic changes – between piano and pianissimo – as well as the use of vibrato (perhaps narrower, perhaps faster) in each case.

The Ariel foursome later coached four more students – Gabriel Maffuz-Anker and Xingyu Guan (violins), Dominick Douglas (viola) and Benjamin Rodriguez (cello) in the opening movement of Beethoven’s String Quartet op.127, played with impressive weight and cohesion. Gerchikov noted: ‘For one week, this was incredible.’ Then he encouraged the players to examine their conceptions about working together, both as individuals, or – as he brought forth in an analogy – like the organs in the human body. After subsequent comments on crescendos, timing, upbows, and other issues, the happy results were audible.

BRUCE HODGES

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FACULTY RECITAL

STUDZINSKI RECITAL HALL, BOWDOIN, MAINE 18 JULY 2022

Members of the Ying and Jupiter Quartets joined forces for a night of remarkable chamber music at the Bowdoin Festival. Nelson Lee, first violin of the Jupiter, brought real sweetness of sound and clarity of articulation to Mozart’s G minor String Quintet K516. The darkness of Liz Freivogel’s rich viola sound, combined with her thoughtful phrasing, lent appropriate solemnity to the work. In the muted Adagio, Lee drew long, flowing lines that wove delicately in and out of the other voices. The final movement was appropriately sombre but energetic, and I appreciated the depth of sound that the ensemble revealed. Dan Visconti’s Eternal Breath followed; Meg Freivogel explained that it was commissioned by her parents for their 40th anniversary and boasted an instrumentation that allowed her, her siblings and their spouses to perform together. The musicians conveyed the impression of a single eternal breath passed on from person to person (and perhaps generation to generation) as the initial phrase evolved over the course of the work. The group found a sustained, well-balanced blend of sound throughout and gave a moving performance of this intimate piece.

Dvořák’s A major String Sextet concluded the programme and the warmth of the introduction by the Ying Quartet’s leader Robin Scott set the stage for a wonderful performance. Phillip Ying played the viola solo with a brightness of sound and lightness of character that easily cut through the layers of music. The Dumka was imbued with an apt rhythmic energy, with the players stylishly balancing the classical and folk-like elements, and the finale was engaging and well-paced.

LEAH HOLLINGSWORTH

Two is better than one, as the combined forces of the Ying and Jupiter quartets proved

FACULTY RECITAL

STREAMED LIVE FROM THE STUDZINSKI RECITAL HALL BOWDOIN, MAINE 22 JULY 2022

Three faculty members of the Bowdoin Music Festival brought elegance, passion and stunning music making to the students of the festival this month – and to an even larger public than normal, thanks to a livestream of the performance. The dark opening of Rebecca Clarke’s Piano Trio (1921) was beautifully executed and gave way to playing of tremendous warmth and depth in the second theme. Edward Arron’s masterful cello playing captivated the ear and Pei-Shan Lee approached the piano part with finesse and beauty, complementing well the power of violinist Meg Freivogel. The latter’s muted opening of the slow movement was very fine and the musical interplay between her and Arron in this Andante was magnificent. The Allegro vigoroso was played with precision and impressive energy.

Next came two short pieces by Augusta Read Thomas: Capricci – written as a wedding gift for friends and inspired by hummingbirds – was performed well by students Nicolas Rodriguez (flute) and JuHyun Lee (clarinet). Next, faculty members Denise Djokic, cello, and Tao Lin, piano, brought Thomas’s Cantos for Slava to life, a piece composed using only pizzicato.

Brahms’s glorious Sextet no.2 finished the programme, with the faculty ensemble expertly led by violinist Ian Swensen, the richness of textures never overpowering the often meandering melodic lines. The mysterious Scherzo had a few intonation issues in the unison lines but the Presto giocoso was despatched with fantastic articulation. The final movement opened with a lovely warmth from Swensen and a notable first cello solo by Djokic, setting the seal on a refined performance.

LEAH HOLLINGSWORTH

Adventurous programming from the Kuss Quartet at Hitzacker

KAY-CHRISTIAN HEINE / SOMMERLICHE MUSIKTAGE HITZACKER

Hitzacker

HITZACKER SUMMER MUSIC DAYS

VERDO CONCERT HALL 30 JULY–7 AUGUST 2022

The opening concert of the Hitzacker Summer Music Days’ 77th season was a tour de force from the Kuss Quartet, of which the festival’s artistic director Oliver Wille is a member. Individually and in various constellations, the players took the audience on a breathtaking ride through music ranging from Haydn to – literally – yesterday. Central to the interval-less concert was POST by Óscar Escudero, a work that used AI in an intriguing way: the computer had been fed the complete works of Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven, and was seemingly taken with the latter’s op.95 Quartet as it quoted from it almost literally!

The real Haydn’s op.20 no.2 received a thrilling interpretation from the Kuss, with flexible rubato and lively repartee. Thomas Adès’s O Albion provided a haunting background to a monologue by slam poet Bas Böttcher, a veritable ‘Paganini of language’, such is the virtuosity with which he delivered the most punningly intricate texts. Violist William Coleman started the proceedings with an achingly beautiful rendition of George Benjamin’s Lullaby for Lalit, while Wille dealt with the almost inaudible percussive effects of Helmut Lachenmann’s Toccatina. A Bach Sarabande from Jana Kuss and an Armenian song from cellist Mikayel Hakhnazaryan were cannily placed after pieces of a more extrovert demeanour from percussionist Johannes Fischer.

In another adventurous piece of programming, music by Mozart and Elliott Carter alternated to fascinating effect. At a pre-concert Listeners’ Academy pianist Pierre-Laurent Aimard gave a helpful introduction to Carter’s immensely intricate Piano Quintet. The elusive Epigrams for piano trio – written shortly before his death at the age of 103 – were persuasively rendered by Aimard and members of the Kuss Quartet. The ensemble also contributed a concentrated reading of Mozart’s ‘Dissonance’ Quartet, featuring some virtuoso passagework from Jana Kuss in the finale.

Performing on a 1756 Guadagnini violin (on loan as part of his prize at the 2021 Joseph Joachim Competition), the Spanish newcomer Javier Comesaña conjured many beautiful moments, though they didn’t always add up. Too free a rubato in the Franck Sonata blurred the underlying rhythm, and there were some mood-killingly long pauses between movements. Comesaña could expand his tonal palette to include more unashamedly sensuous sounds à la Toscha Seidel, but the Falla and Korngold suites were beautifully done.

Another Guadagnini instrument turned up the same evening, in the hands of violist Kim Kashkashian. Displaying a close rapport with pianist Péter Nagy, she gave sparky accounts of her own virtuoso arrangements of Stravinsky’s Suite italienne (based on both the violin and cello versions) and Schumann’s Stücke im Volkston. The duo then ventured into the esoteric sonorities of Lera Auerbach’s Arcanum before letting their hair down in soulful readings of Argentinian and Armenian songs. My much-too-short stay in Hitzacker ended on a high, with Kashkashian joining the Kuss Quartet for Brahms’s op.111. At the Listeners’ Academy, she spoke of finding ‘a balance between song and speech’, which she proceeded to demonstrate with beautifully inflected phrases at the start of the slow movement.

CARLOS MARÍA SOLARE

London

ANTHONY MARWOOD (VIOLIN) JAMES CRABB (CLASSICAL ACCORDION)

WIGMORE HALL 10 JULY 2022

In the hands of these two musicians, violin and accordion made a splendid sound together at this Wigmore Hall recital. The versatility of the latter came across effectively as James Crabb took on the keyboard part of Bach’s E major Sonata BWV1016, its bass strong and resonant as Marwood played with elegance and freedom. Admittedly, the fugal opening of the second movement did bring disconcerting thoughts of a sea shanty, but that aside, there was counterpoint in contrasting colours and a nice ebb and flow of dynamics. The interwoven dialogues and duets of the Adagio were supple and the final Allegro was bright-toned and energetic, with great clarity and articulation from Marwood.

In the Divertimento from Stravinsky’s The Fairy’s Kiss they seemed to enter the sound world of Piazzolla, with bursts of vivid theatre and Marwood powerful on the G string. They neatly negotiated Stravinsky’s quirky shifts of direction, and Marwood handled its considerable technical demands with style. To the first movement of the Suite from Much Ado about Nothing – Korngold’s decidedly gemütlich take on Shakespeare – Marwood brought a suppleness that was very engaging, while his tone was full-bodied in the gruff March; the Garden Scene yielded from him gorgeous lyricism, underpinned by the richness of the accordion, before a joyous final Hornpipe.

TIM HOMFRAY

Elena Urioste and Ben Goldscheider championing Ethel Smyth at the Proms

BBC/MARK ALLAN

ELENA URIOSTE (VIOLIN) BEN GOLDSCHEIDER (HORN) CITY OF BIRMINGHAM SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA/KAZUKI YAMADA

PROM 14 ROYAL ALBERT HALL 25 JULY 2022

Ethyl Smyth was well served at this season’s Proms, with her Mass and her opera The Wreckers being featured, as well as her Concerto for violin and horn, written in 1927 and dedicated to Proms founder Henry Wood. It has a forthright and energetic orchestral opening, followed quickly by the first entries of the soloists, with flowing melody in the violin and comments from the horn. Violinist Elena Urioste was suitably deft in the roulades and episodes of rhythmic dance that ensued and the sense of constantly shifting character and colour was well caught by both soloists, with Urioste intimate and musing one moment and in great lyrical flow the next.

Goldscheider opened the gentle second movement, mingling tenderness and nobility; the horn role here was often contemplative, with Urioste weaving fluent arabesques above. The finale was jaunty and dancing with Urioste a nimble flibbertigibbet, before a drumroll heralded a joint, rather comic cadenza, taking Goldscheider into the depths as the pair engaged in an eccentric conversation. Smyth makes considerable unflashy demands throughout the concerto, which Urioste and Goldscheider met with deceptive ease. They were well partnered by the CBSO and Kazuki Yamada, who had opened the concert with a breakneck and dazzling account of Glinka’s Ruslan and Lyudmila Overture, and ended with a magnificent performance of Rachmaninoff’s Second Symphony.

TIM HOMFRAY