CONCERTS

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

THIS MONTH’S RECOMMENDED RECORDINGS

Our pick of the new releases

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Handel meets Szymanowski in James Ehnes’ scintillating recital PAGE 115

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A Scandinavian discovery from the Nordic Quartet PAGE 116

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Nils Økland: a joyous partnership of Hardanger fiddle and harmonium PAGE 123

Oslo

NORWEGIAN CHAMBER ORCHESTRA/ PEKKA KUUSISTO (VIOLIN)

OSLO OPERA HOUSE 6 JUNE 2023

Pekka Kuusisto’s NCO on surreal form

MAGNUS SKREDE

How best to describe the Norwegian Chamber Orchestra’s performances at the Oslo Opera, DSCH? Imagine an opera chorus, acting and dancing on stage in costume, but playing stringed instruments from memory rather than singing. It was a play without words, whose opaque narrative hinted at the totalitarianism of Soviet Russia but otherwise invited us to project individual stories on to it.

Across 90 minutes of Shostakovich’s music we heard the entire Chamber Symphony as scored, and excerpts from assorted chamber works and concertos mostly arranged by the NCO’s own Øystein Sonstad. Accordionist Bjarke Mogensen, the only non-string player on stage, adeptly stepped in to shape-shift his versatile instrument into a piano or woodwind choir.

Some passages from director Mikkel Harder Munck-Hansen communicated with more focus than others. There was a memorable scene in a railway carriage set to a knotty fugue. During a solo in the Chamber Symphony, there was a lone cellist being interrogated by torchlight. Against the nervous energy of the Allegretto from the First Cello Concerto, NCO artistic director Pekka Kuusisto strode across the stage in a ludicrous hat whacking a bass drum.

It was unfailingly evocative, and drew laughter and shock from the audience. Just as interesting was how dramatic, choreographed physical gestures had a direct and bolstering effect on phrasing and ensemble unity, amplifying the NCO’s muscular sound rather than obscuring it. Something was released – freed – in its players. Certainly, this could be the start of something.

ANDREW MELLOR

To browse through more than a decade of The Strad’s recording reviews, visit www.thestrad.com/reviews

New York

CURTIS STEWART (VIOLIN)

KAUFMAN MUSIC CENTER, MERKIN CONCERT HALL 1 JUNE 2023

Violinist and composer Curtis Stewart presented a profound and deeply moving evening as a part of the Ecstatic Music Series at the Kaufman Music Center this June, sharing the stage with a number of musicians and dedicating the performance to the memory and legacy of his mother.

Stewart began the programme with excerpts from his new album Of Love / of time and his solo violin playing was brilliant and passionate; he often accompanied himself by utilising electronics and a loop pedal, as well as singing and speaking in a performance that reached an impassioned climax before dissolving away into tenderness. Pianist Aaron Diehl joined him for several numbers to close the first half of the concert.

A large string orchestra then joined Stewart for his own improvisation on Take the ‘A’ Train, which also included electronics, rap and projections. The world premiere of Embrace, ‘a violin concerto for strings and community conversation’ followed, and Stewart played this work inspired by his mother with poignancy and precision. Three selections from 24 Negro Melodies by Coleridge-Taylor brought luscious string sound and virtuosic violin playing. KNIGHT Music, a piece by Stewart based on Joseph Bologne’s Ninth Violin Concerto, was a brilliant mix of Bologne and Stewart: the combination of wit, flair and wild abandon was impressive. The evening ended with a poignant and profound work that was part spoken (‘a prayer to my mom’, Stewart said), part solo violin, part electronics. I’m not sure if I found the concert self-indulgent or utterly brilliant, but the enthusiastic audience was in no doubt.

LEAH HOLLINGSWORTH

FRANK HUANG (VIOLIN) NEW YORK PHILHARMONIC/JAAP VAN ZWEDEN

DAVID GEFFEN HALL 3 JUNE 2023

Sweet tone and tasteful vibrato from Frank Huang

CHRIS LEE

Playing in front of one’s own colleagues is perhaps the most challenging of feats, and concertmaster of the New York Philharmonic Frank Huang handled it with grace and poise, performing Sibelius’s Violin Concerto to a packed house three nights in a row. His opening violin cadenza had a careful attention to timing and a beautifully sustained sound thanks to silky smooth bow changes and impressive control. Long phrases in the Adagio soared above the rich orchestral sound and Huang’s sweet tone and tasteful vibrato enchanted. Huang brought whimsy and a nice spirit to the final Allegro, and, while I wondered if the tempo was exactly his choice, he brought flair and dynamism to the music, concluding a reading that proved him not just capable of leading one of the world’s greatest orchestras, but also more than capable of standing before it too.

Julia Wolfe’s New York Philharmonic commission unEarth received its world premiere after the interval; this was a profound and complex experience featuring singers (a children’s chorus, a men’s chorus and soprano soloist Else Torp), projections, choreography and a full stage of musicians. The piercing purity of Torp’s voice was arresting in the second movement and the orchestra played with power, commitment and vibrancy throughout – even if it sometimes served as a bit of a backdrop to the work’s other elements. The message of the dangers of climate change and our role and responsibility to tend to our planet were powerfully clear, and bravo to the Philharmonic for taking on such an important project and multifaceted work.

LEAH HOLLINGSWORTH

Bowdoin

AYANO NINOMIYA, PETER WINOGRAD (VIOLINS) DIMITRI MURRATH, PHILIP YING (VIOLAS) STEVEN DOANE (CELLO) JEREMY MCCOY (BASS) LINDA CHESIS (FLUTE), PEI-SHAN LEE (PIANO)

STUDZINSKI RECITAL HALL 28 JUNE 2023

A few minutes after violist Philip Ying – an artistic director of the Bowdoin International Music Festival, now in its 59th year – introduced this evening, he joined bassist Jeremy McCoy and flautist Linda Chesis for Schulhoff’s Concertino. It’s a delightful work that deserves wider exposure. Starting with the opening low rumblings for viola and bass, the ingenious orchestration highlights pairs of instruments, sometimes with a modal, primitive feel, like an ancient chant. For the Furiant, the two strings provided a handsome backdrop for the high-lying piccolo, and all three musicians contributed raucous energy in the folk-infused finale.

The evening began with another unusual trio, the Serenade by Kodály, for violinists Ayano Ninomiya and Peter Winograd with violist Dimitri Murrath. Its folk elements were also strongly characterised and the rollicking final movement brought cheers and whoops from the audience.

But for some, the real comfort food came last: Schubert’s Piano Trio no.1, with Winograd joined by cellist Steven Doane and pianist Pei-Shan Lee. With all three players in exquisite balance, the composer’s rivers of melody seemed effortless and, especially in the second movement, Doane’s tonal bloom was most alluring. The prim third movement exuded a winsome air, with the two strings insouciantly following the piano’s lead. And the finale, elegant in its proportions, alternated ferocity and grace, utterly confident in its gallop to the end.

BRUCE HODGES

ANI SCHNARCH, KURT SASSMANNSHAUS, AYANO NINOMIYA (VIOLINS) NATALIE BRENNECKE, DIMITRI MURRATH (VIOLAS) JEFFREY ZEIGLER (CELLO) JEREMY MCCOY (BASS) JUNE HAN (HARP) LINDA CHESIS (FLUTE) PEI-SHAN LEE, TAO LIN (PIANO)

STUDZINSKI RECITAL HALL, BOWDOIN 30 JUNE 2023

For Bloch’s Baal Shem, violinist Ani Schnarch offered passionate advocacy, especially in the second movement (‘Nigun’), showing her violin’s hearty lower register, synchronised with Tao Lin’s ominous piano rumblings.

Charming in its sophistication, Florent Schmitt’s Suite en rocaille engaged a trio of strings – Kurt Sassmannshaus, Natalie Brennecke and Jeffrey Zeigler – with added embroidery from Linda Chesis on flute, and June Han on harp. The quintet was particularly enchanting in the graceful thirdmovement minuet.

Perhaps the evening’s most intriguing rarity was the Fantasia on themes of Marais by John Tartaglia (1932–2018), a former violist with the Minnesota Orchestra, who was also a teacher and luthier. With Dimitri Murrath and Jeremy McCoy in sometimes-languid, sometimes-insouciant rapport, the duo brought the composer’s pensive study to life, with glimpses of the 18th century flickering like a candle.

To end an eclectic evening, violinist Ayano Ninomiya and pianist Pei-Shan Lee plunged into the lush world of Richard Strauss’s Violin Sonata, in which Ninomiya’s long bow strokes contrasted with Lee’s glittering counterpoint. Apart from the magnificent finale, I was moved by the middle movement – sensuous, tender and luminous.

BRUCE HODGES

Potsdam

DOROTHEE OBERLINGER (RECORDERS) NILS MÖNKEMEYER (VIOLA)

ORANGERIE 21 JUNE 2023

The ears of the audience at the Orangerie of Sanssouci Palace were first tickled by bourdon notes from Nils Mönkemeyer’s viola, invisibly arriving from the back of the auditorium. Meanwhile, Dorothee Oberlinger walked in from the elongated hall’s opposite end, bringing forth some strangely percussive sounds from her recorder. As both musicians reached the stage, their improvisatory gestures gradually grew into Hildegard von Bingen’s hymn, O Ecclesia. These beautifully vocalised medieval strains segued seamlessly into Konstantia Gourzi’s messages between trees II, an evocative piece written only last year for the present performers. Here the bourdon was taken over by a pre-recorded tape, while recorder and viola shared music inspired by the sounds of nature. The sound effects Oberlinger extracted from her array of recorders contrasted impressively with Mönkemeyer’s trademark sweetness of tone. Later in the programme, the pair introduced another Gourzi commission: dance for two makes most effective use of Greek folk music’s irregular rhythms while welding together the sounds of viola and recorder through cunning harmonics.

In the imitative phrases of Bach’s Inventions and Canons, Oberlinger and Mönkemeyer seemed to dare each other to ever more intricate embellishments, but they were most moving in the static Adagio e piano from the Trio Sonata BWV1039, its missing third voice uncannily suggested by the consonance of the other two. On his own, Mönkemeyer contributed the Prelude from the G major Cello Suite, indulging in abundant rubato that arguably threatened the piece’s momentum. Conversely, his free imagination seemed ideally attuned to Nicola Matteis’s Phantasy. Some folk dances, running the gamut from Irish reels to Bartók’s Romany-inspired duets, brought the recital to an exhilarating end.

CARLOS MARÍA SOLARE

London

MODIGLIANI QUARTET

WIGMORE HALL 7 JUNE 2023

A hugely imaginative programme from Nils Mönkemeyer and Dorothee Oberlinger

WIGMORE PHOTO SIMON WEIR. POTSDAM PHOTO STEFAN GLOEDE

The Modigliani Quartet, 20 years old this year, opened with a lively account of Haydn’s G major Quartet op.54 no.1. Its playing of the first movement was bright, brisk and colourful, and in the Allegretto the quiet playing of leader Amaury Coeytaux over metronomic quavers blossomed into rich, full sound. Cellist François Kieffer provided a fine, shapely quaver obbligato (and a smile) in the Trio of the Menuetto, and the players captured Haydn’s humour in the vivacious finale.

In the UK premiere of Jean-Frédéric Neuburger’s High altitude the Modigliani’s glistening, vibrato-less playing in the opening high chorale impressed; Wolf ’s Italian Serenade was filled with irrepressible high spirits.

After the interval came a remarkable account of Beethoven’s B flat major Quartet op.130. The first movement was as often delicate as it was robust, with a strong narrative line running through its many abrupt stops and starts. After the lightness and bustle of the Presto, the Andante con moto offered a graceful, urbane conversation. The Alla danza tedesca had an easy flow (without exaggeration of the hairpins) and the Cavatina was sublime. The players opted for the original Grosse Fuge finale, which had impressive contrapuntal clarity amid the fire of the opening section – played with ferocious energy – spectral playing in the meno mosso section and fervent intensity to follow. It was an astonishing performance.

TIM HOMFRAY

BORLETTI-BUITONI TRUST 20TH ANNIVERSARY WEEKEND: CLOSING CONCERT

WIGMORE HALL 11 JUNE 2023

Playful Ravel from Quatuor Ébène

It’s a lofty list of almost 200 artists and ensembles who have received early-career support from the Borletti-Buitoni Trust since its 2003 inception by Ilaria Borletti-Buitoni, her late husband Franco Buitoni and their friend Mitsuko Uchida. Strings players alone include Alina Ibragimova, Augustin Hadelich, Gautier Capuçon and the Jerusalem, Heath and Pavel Haas quartets. Hence a weekend-long anniversary celebration whose final concert line-up was stellar even by Wigmore standards. Further BBT names were in the audience, some of whom had already performed, such as Timothy Ridout, and some who had not, such as recorder player Lucie Horsch. Essentially, the music world turned out to pay homage.

Quatuor Ébène opened the night with a Purcell Fantasia – warm, free, with subtle vibrato – and closed it with a spontaneous and unpredictablefeeling account of Ravel’s String Quartet. Playful sparkle, febrile shimmering and throaty ardency: this reading had it all. Prolonged stillness reigned after the ‘Très lent’ third movement, and not even the between-movement retuning – the Wigmore aircon eased rather than obliterated London’s heatwave – broke the overall mood. As Raphaël Merlin was unavailable, the younger Ukrainian cellist Aleksey Shadrin took his place, looking nervous, but visibly supported by the others.

Add a warmly received Schubert Rondo in B minor D895 from violinist Itamar Zorman and Uchida herself, and guitarist Sean Shibe and mezzo Ema Nikolovska bringing the house down with their English duo set from Dowland to Adès, and BBT’s flag flew high.

CHARLOTTE GARDNER