OXFORD CHAMBER MUSIC FESTIVAL
2016
Oxford Chamber Music Festival, Holywell Music Room and elsewhere, Oxford, 28 September to 1 October 2016.
In 2015 the Oxford Chamber Music Festival subtitled From a Tender Age presented early works of the great composers. This year the subject was Coda: Last Works focussed on the masterpieces of maturity. Of the ten concerts, I had intended to report on the four evening concerts given in the Holywell Music Room but unfortunately I was unable to attend the first of these, held on Wednesday 28 September.
As with the population as a whole, the lifespans of composers cover many eventualities, from premature death (Mozart and Schubert) to physical or mental decline (Beethoven’s deafness, Schumann’s insanity) with lifestyles ranging from family men (JS Bach) to confirmed bachelors (Handel, Brahms), to those dying from purported sexual disease, to those infatuated by much younger women (Janáček), to the gay (Britten). The question raised by the fascinating, thought provoking programme put together by Artistic Director, the violinist Priya Mitchell, is to what extent life experiences influence composers’ outputs and whether the listener (or for that matter, the performer) needs to know in order to fully appreciate their music. Are Mozart’s scatological letters of any relevance to appreciation of his music? My a priori answer to these questions would have been ‘very little’ but now I am uncertain. I shall return to this question throughout.
The first concert Beyond the Abyss, contained two works I was extremely sorry to miss: the Schubert Fantasy in F minor for piano four hands and Bartók’s sonata for solo violin with its formidable fugue in the second movement. The former, I understand, received a great performance from Natacha Kudritskaya and Julius Drake; it is a life-affirming work which transcends the tragic circumstances of its composition (I disagree with the writer of the programme note). The Bartók performed by Korean Yura Lee. This work was written for Yehudi Menuhin and received an early performance on BBC Third Programme, now celebrating its seventieth anniversary, which left a profound impression. Other works in the first concert were by Olivier Messiaen and John Tavener (These I was not sorry to miss: Messiaen’s work is too mystical and Tavener’s too derivative for my taste.)
The second day’s programme contained a concert with late works by Fauré and Shostakovich followed by one with Debussy and Schubert’s last Piano sonata played by Julius Drake. The evening concert In Memoriam was an eclectic mixture from John Dowland to Alfred Schnittke. It opened with a Dowland song played on the violin by Mitchell, accompanied on the guitar by Alberto Mesirca – sheer beauty. The guitarist then played nine pieces by Benjamin Britten Nocturnal after John Dowland, another very fine, warm performance. There followed Schnittke’s Piano Quintet. This was preceded by a lengthy analysis by violist Vladimir Mendelssohn who explained the tragic circumstances of its composition and the sources of its thematic material, including a monotone thumping of a piano key taken up by foot tapping, representing the composer’s heart condition. These explanations did not add any conviction to the music. After the interval, Imogen Cooper introduced and gave a very sensitive performance of Schumann’s Ghost Variations, written around the time of the composer’s final descent into madness. Surprisingly uncomplicated in nature in comparison with much of his late writing. The concert concluded with an invigorating performance of Tchaikovsky’s sextet Souvenir de Florence in which David Cohen substituted, arriving by taxi at the very last minute, for an indisposed cellist (as he had done in Shostakovich Piano Quintet on a previous occasion).
The Friday evening concert, following daytime performances including Mozart’s Clarinet Quintet, Bach Art of Fugue Contrapunctus XIV and Haydn, Seven Last Words of Christ, was entitled Intimate Letters. This contained two works inspired by the composers’ love for a much younger woman. The first was Janáček’s String Quartet No. 2 Intimate letters preceded by the reading of letters written in the winter of 1927, 28 which were distilled into the work. They were selected and read by the polymath Graham Topping. To me, the quartet stands on its own. Betraying the intimacy by reading the letters is akin to a pre-internet age equivalent of spreading images on social media. The second work was César Franck’s Piano Quintet, possibly inspired by a similar infatuation. Later there was an impromptu candlelit recital in the University Church.
On the final day there was a midday concert including silent movies by Lotte Reiniger. The closing concert, Coda, contained four substantial works. The concert was dedicated to the memory of the late Hugh Vickers, to whom I would like to add my own personal tribute. I met him many times, both at the New Theatre and the Holywell Music Room when he was opera and music critic of The Oxford Times. His cogent insights into the performances were an inspiration. The concert opened with the Grosse Fuge from Beethoven’s late String Quartet led by Hugo Ticciati. I have to be frank: this was awful. A fugue is a work for several equal voices. Here it came over as a piece for violin with string trio accompaniment, roughly played with exaggerated pauses. If it was intended as a fresh look at this great masterpiece, it was totally misconceived. Elsewhere, Ticciati’s leading was impeccable, no less so than in the final item in the Festival. The Beethoven was followed by a magical performance by Mitchell and Kudritskaya of Schumann Grand Sonata Op. 121, in perfect rapport. After the interval we first heard Adagietto from Mahler’s Fifth Symphony arranged for piano and seven strings by Vladimir Mendelssohn and conducted by him. The Festival ended with a version of Richard Strauss’ Metamorphosen edited for string septet by Rudolf Leopold. Having recently heard the full twenty-three string version filling with sound the spacious Choir of Southwell Minster at the Southwell Music Festival, this could not be but a pale echo of that performance. Nevertheless, the group, led by Ticciati, drew us into the deep sound-world of the work, opening with the lower strings, leading to the sequence of orgasmic climaxes which characterise it. A worthy finish to a Festival devoted to late works, some familiar, some less so or unknown all played with superb musicianship, making the best case for even the weakest material. But where were the woman composers? Surely Ethel Smythe, Germaine Tailleferre and the Boulanger sisters, not to mention Fanny and Clara had something to contribute from their later years?
The organisation this year, under the charming informal Director Hanne Abndroth, was not without idiosyncrasies. The main lighting consisted of four standard lamps across the back of the stage provided little illumination for the players who had to rely on unstable attachments to the music stands. The audience was kept in almost complete darkness even between numbers so it was impossible to consult the excellent, detailed programme book, edited by Hilary Laurie with notes by Graham Topping. The lack of a dress code was sometimes a distraction. Topping read the intimate letters in casual dress and a cellist appeared in flowery upper garment. On one evening we were kept outside the hall until ten minutes before the start due to a missing cash box. A mislaid part delayed the closing item.
But overall this was a tremendous success again for Priya Mitchell, whose tremendous efforts paid off with full houses for most of the concerts. Of all that preceded it this was the most thought-provoking Festival. I return once more to the second paragraph. I once heard someone say he could not listen to Brahms without thinking of him composing in an armchair, sitting opposite to Clara Schumann knitting.
Next year’s OCMF is entitled Fata Morgana: nothing is as it seems will be held 27-30 September 2017. Support it now; www.ocmf.net,
.
In 2015 the Oxford Chamber Music Festival subtitled From a Tender Age presented early works of the great composers. This year the subject was Coda: Last Works focussed on the masterpieces of maturity. Of the ten concerts, I had intended to report on the four evening concerts given in the Holywell Music Room but unfortunately I was unable to attend the first of these, held on Wednesday 28 September.
As with the population as a whole, the lifespans of composers cover many eventualities, from premature death (Mozart and Schubert) to physical or mental decline (Beethoven’s deafness, Schumann’s insanity) with lifestyles ranging from family men (JS Bach) to confirmed bachelors (Handel, Brahms), to those dying from purported sexual disease, to those infatuated by much younger women (Janáček), to the gay (Britten). The question raised by the fascinating, thought provoking programme put together by Artistic Director, the violinist Priya Mitchell, is to what extent life experiences influence composers’ outputs and whether the listener (or for that matter, the performer) needs to know in order to fully appreciate their music. Are Mozart’s scatological letters of any relevance to appreciation of his music? My a priori answer to these questions would have been ‘very little’ but now I am uncertain. I shall return to this question throughout.
The first concert Beyond the Abyss, contained two works I was extremely sorry to miss: the Schubert Fantasy in F minor for piano four hands and Bartók’s sonata for solo violin with its formidable fugue in the second movement. The former, I understand, received a great performance from Natacha Kudritskaya and Julius Drake; it is a life-affirming work which transcends the tragic circumstances of its composition (I disagree with the writer of the programme note). The Bartók performed by Korean Yura Lee. This work was written for Yehudi Menuhin and received an early performance on BBC Third Programme, now celebrating its seventieth anniversary, which left a profound impression. Other works in the first concert were by Olivier Messiaen and John Tavener (These I was not sorry to miss: Messiaen’s work is too mystical and Tavener’s too derivative for my taste.)
The second day’s programme contained a concert with late works by Fauré and Shostakovich followed by one with Debussy and Schubert’s last Piano sonata played by Julius Drake. The evening concert In Memoriam was an eclectic mixture from John Dowland to Alfred Schnittke. It opened with a Dowland song played on the violin by Mitchell, accompanied on the guitar by Alberto Mesirca – sheer beauty. The guitarist then played nine pieces by Benjamin Britten Nocturnal after John Dowland, another very fine, warm performance. There followed Schnittke’s Piano Quintet. This was preceded by a lengthy analysis by violist Vladimir Mendelssohn who explained the tragic circumstances of its composition and the sources of its thematic material, including a monotone thumping of a piano key taken up by foot tapping, representing the composer’s heart condition. These explanations did not add any conviction to the music. After the interval, Imogen Cooper introduced and gave a very sensitive performance of Schumann’s Ghost Variations, written around the time of the composer’s final descent into madness. Surprisingly uncomplicated in nature in comparison with much of his late writing. The concert concluded with an invigorating performance of Tchaikovsky’s sextet Souvenir de Florence in which David Cohen substituted, arriving by taxi at the very last minute, for an indisposed cellist (as he had done in Shostakovich Piano Quintet on a previous occasion).
The Friday evening concert, following daytime performances including Mozart’s Clarinet Quintet, Bach Art of Fugue Contrapunctus XIV and Haydn, Seven Last Words of Christ, was entitled Intimate Letters. This contained two works inspired by the composers’ love for a much younger woman. The first was Janáček’s String Quartet No. 2 Intimate letters preceded by the reading of letters written in the winter of 1927, 28 which were distilled into the work. They were selected and read by the polymath Graham Topping. To me, the quartet stands on its own. Betraying the intimacy by reading the letters is akin to a pre-internet age equivalent of spreading images on social media. The second work was César Franck’s Piano Quintet, possibly inspired by a similar infatuation. Later there was an impromptu candlelit recital in the University Church.
On the final day there was a midday concert including silent movies by Lotte Reiniger. The closing concert, Coda, contained four substantial works. The concert was dedicated to the memory of the late Hugh Vickers, to whom I would like to add my own personal tribute. I met him many times, both at the New Theatre and the Holywell Music Room when he was opera and music critic of The Oxford Times. His cogent insights into the performances were an inspiration. The concert opened with the Grosse Fuge from Beethoven’s late String Quartet led by Hugo Ticciati. I have to be frank: this was awful. A fugue is a work for several equal voices. Here it came over as a piece for violin with string trio accompaniment, roughly played with exaggerated pauses. If it was intended as a fresh look at this great masterpiece, it was totally misconceived. Elsewhere, Ticciati’s leading was impeccable, no less so than in the final item in the Festival. The Beethoven was followed by a magical performance by Mitchell and Kudritskaya of Schumann Grand Sonata Op. 121, in perfect rapport. After the interval we first heard Adagietto from Mahler’s Fifth Symphony arranged for piano and seven strings by Vladimir Mendelssohn and conducted by him. The Festival ended with a version of Richard Strauss’ Metamorphosen edited for string septet by Rudolf Leopold. Having recently heard the full twenty-three string version filling with sound the spacious Choir of Southwell Minster at the Southwell Music Festival, this could not be but a pale echo of that performance. Nevertheless, the group, led by Ticciati, drew us into the deep sound-world of the work, opening with the lower strings, leading to the sequence of orgasmic climaxes which characterise it. A worthy finish to a Festival devoted to late works, some familiar, some less so or unknown all played with superb musicianship, making the best case for even the weakest material. But where were the woman composers? Surely Ethel Smythe, Germaine Tailleferre and the Boulanger sisters, not to mention Fanny and Clara had something to contribute from their later years?
The organisation this year, under the charming informal Director Hanne Abndroth, was not without idiosyncrasies. The main lighting consisted of four standard lamps across the back of the stage provided little illumination for the players who had to rely on unstable attachments to the music stands. The audience was kept in almost complete darkness even between numbers so it was impossible to consult the excellent, detailed programme book, edited by Hilary Laurie with notes by Graham Topping. The lack of a dress code was sometimes a distraction. Topping read the intimate letters in casual dress and a cellist appeared in flowery upper garment. On one evening we were kept outside the hall until ten minutes before the start due to a missing cash box. A mislaid part delayed the closing item.
But overall this was a tremendous success again for Priya Mitchell, whose tremendous efforts paid off with full houses for most of the concerts. Of all that preceded it this was the most thought-provoking Festival. I return once more to the second paragraph. I once heard someone say he could not listen to Brahms without thinking of him composing in an armchair, sitting opposite to Clara Schumann knitting.
Next year’s OCMF is entitled Fata Morgana: nothing is as it seems will be held 27-30 September 2017. Support it now; www.ocmf.net,
.
2015
There are several reasons to mark this year’s Oxford Chamber Music Festival (OCMF) by looking back over the fifteen years since the first in 2000 still organised by the Founding Artistic Director, violinist Priya Mitchell and now established internationally as a contribution to the cultural scene. Apart from the anniversary itself, the theme of this year’s Festival From a Tender Age invites a retrospective glance over earlier years. But it also marks the recent passing of Lord Moser who as Chairman of the OCMF Patrons had from its conception had provided support, encouragement and advice after a youthful Priya had put to him the idea of a festival in Oxford dedicated to performance of chamber music of the highest standard. This standard has been amply sustained, though the nature of the Festival has evolved over the years. The early festivals were mainly of superb performances of known chamber music by like-minded young professionals from around the world. The concerts were held in a variety of places, the first in St Anthony’s College, Wolfson College and the JdP Music Room at St Hilda’s College as well as in the Holywell Music Room and the Sheldonian Theatre. Many helpers provided sumptuous buffet suppers during the interval. Many of these evenings have stayed in the mind, with first of all in 2000 a performance of the Beethoven septet in St Anthony’s College and a definitive performance of Schuman’s Dichterliebe by the youthful Mark Padmore in Wolfson. The first phase culminated in a magical evening at St Edward’s School in 2007. Following a first half entertainment by veteran violinist Ivry Gitlis in the recently opened North Wall and supper, we moved to the candlelit Chapel where the violinist Henning Kraggerud played all six of Ysaye’s Sonatas for solo violin.
After 2007 the format changed. Instead of themes centred on the classical repertoire, programmes introduced us to less familiar music with interesting and challenging juxtapositions always stimulating to the audience. The first of this new style in 2008 was devoted to Latin music from South America, Spain and Italy. This introduced us to the Argentinian composer Piazzola and the strange instrument, the bandoneón and the not entirely successful attempt to adapt both instrument and the tango into the chamber music genre.
The standard of performance has for the most part been outstanding. Occasionally there have been indications of under- rehearsal, perhaps it is kinder to say refreshing spontaneity. A feature has been performances on a higher level, led by Priya Mitchell, among them and specially notably: in 2000 the Beethoven septet but more recently, in 2006 Mozart’s String Quintet K581, in 2007 Verklärte Nacht, in 2008 Vivaldi’s Quattro Stagionei, in the University Church; in 2009 Schubert’s late, great C major String Quintet, and in 2010 the mammoth Tchaikovsky Piano Trio. In 2012, most memorable was an arrangement for nine strings by Tabakova of Franz Schubert’s F minor Fantasie for piano duet and last year Schubert’s C major String Quintet again. But these were the peaks; to single them out is somehow to miss the point. The Festival is a friendly celebration of music enjoyed by both performers and audience, covering the whole repertoire from the well-known o the esoteric.
I report here highlights of the only two concerts I was able to attend this year, just touching the surface of what by all accounts was one of the best festivals ever. In eleven concerts over four days covering all aspects of the title from early works by the great composers to works written for those of tender age such as Peter and the Wolf to Ravel’s Mother Goose suite to the final work of the Festival, the Mendelssohn Octet a totally mature work written at a tender age.
The concert on the second day Jeunehomme/Dame was special being dedicated in memory of Lord Moser. There were four works: Shostakovich first piano trio, Prokofiev Suite from Romeo and Juliet for virtuoso violin and piano, Suk Piano Quartet Op 1 ending with Mozart’s Piano Concerto No 9, sometimes known as Jeunehomme and a favourite of Lord Moser. The Shostakovich, written at the age of sixteen, shows the composer’s unique style gradually emerging. The performance was dominated by the cello playing of Swedish Torlief Thedeén on his 1711 Techler cello with an ethereal sound. The work is characterised by the cello playing calmly and lyrically, oblivious to the argumentative interchanges between violin (Ilya Gringolts) and piano (Natacha Kudritskaya).
The Mozart Concerto must be the high point of the 2015 Festival. The pianist was fantastically talented Armenian Marianna Shirinyan, accompanied by two horns, oboe, flute and seven strings. Unusually, the performance was led by the first violin rather than conducted from the keyboard. This was a full-blooded virtuoso performance played with Busoni’s ‘fingers of steel and wrists of india-rubber’. It was strange how well this nineteenth century interpretation came over in the eighteenth century surroundings of the Holywell Music Room.
The final concert From Promise to Genius featured early works by Rachmaninov, Britten, Sibelius, Richard Strauss and Mendelssohn showing different stages of musical maturity. Rachmaninov’s Trio élégique written at the age of seventeen in homage to the recently deceased Tchaikovsky. It has an important piano part, very much looking forward to the Piano Concertos in technical demands and spirit. It was played impeccably by Shrinyan. Britten was represented by an elegy for unaccompanied viola, which gave no inkling of things to come. Sibelius composed his Water Drops for pizzicato violin and cello at the age of ten, the first of his output of representations of Nature. The Richard Strauss’ Piano Quartet Op 13, although clearly an early work, already shows characteristics of his mature style.
By contrast, the Mendelssohn Octet written at the age of sixteen is already a fully mature work. It was a good performance. apart from a slight blip at the beginning of the Scherzo, which fully merited the semi standing ovation at the end.
My regret is that I was only able to attend these two concerts. I am sure the rest were equally fascinating illustrations of the theme of the Festival. As usual the organisation was impeccable thanks to the efforts of Hanne Abendroth, returning from last year, and Rhian Hughes, together with many helpers. Hanne edited the programme booklet, comprehensively informative and easy to read – a model other festivals should follow. But, of course, most credit goes to Priya Mitchell for assembling so many outstanding musicians, for the inspiration of the theme and for the organisation of such a complex programme.
Next year’s Festival will be held from 28 September to 1 October.
There are several reasons to mark this year’s Oxford Chamber Music Festival (OCMF) by looking back over the fifteen years since the first in 2000 still organised by the Founding Artistic Director, violinist Priya Mitchell and now established internationally as a contribution to the cultural scene. Apart from the anniversary itself, the theme of this year’s Festival From a Tender Age invites a retrospective glance over earlier years. But it also marks the recent passing of Lord Moser who as Chairman of the OCMF Patrons had from its conception had provided support, encouragement and advice after a youthful Priya had put to him the idea of a festival in Oxford dedicated to performance of chamber music of the highest standard. This standard has been amply sustained, though the nature of the Festival has evolved over the years. The early festivals were mainly of superb performances of known chamber music by like-minded young professionals from around the world. The concerts were held in a variety of places, the first in St Anthony’s College, Wolfson College and the JdP Music Room at St Hilda’s College as well as in the Holywell Music Room and the Sheldonian Theatre. Many helpers provided sumptuous buffet suppers during the interval. Many of these evenings have stayed in the mind, with first of all in 2000 a performance of the Beethoven septet in St Anthony’s College and a definitive performance of Schuman’s Dichterliebe by the youthful Mark Padmore in Wolfson. The first phase culminated in a magical evening at St Edward’s School in 2007. Following a first half entertainment by veteran violinist Ivry Gitlis in the recently opened North Wall and supper, we moved to the candlelit Chapel where the violinist Henning Kraggerud played all six of Ysaye’s Sonatas for solo violin.
After 2007 the format changed. Instead of themes centred on the classical repertoire, programmes introduced us to less familiar music with interesting and challenging juxtapositions always stimulating to the audience. The first of this new style in 2008 was devoted to Latin music from South America, Spain and Italy. This introduced us to the Argentinian composer Piazzola and the strange instrument, the bandoneón and the not entirely successful attempt to adapt both instrument and the tango into the chamber music genre.
The standard of performance has for the most part been outstanding. Occasionally there have been indications of under- rehearsal, perhaps it is kinder to say refreshing spontaneity. A feature has been performances on a higher level, led by Priya Mitchell, among them and specially notably: in 2000 the Beethoven septet but more recently, in 2006 Mozart’s String Quintet K581, in 2007 Verklärte Nacht, in 2008 Vivaldi’s Quattro Stagionei, in the University Church; in 2009 Schubert’s late, great C major String Quintet, and in 2010 the mammoth Tchaikovsky Piano Trio. In 2012, most memorable was an arrangement for nine strings by Tabakova of Franz Schubert’s F minor Fantasie for piano duet and last year Schubert’s C major String Quintet again. But these were the peaks; to single them out is somehow to miss the point. The Festival is a friendly celebration of music enjoyed by both performers and audience, covering the whole repertoire from the well-known o the esoteric.
I report here highlights of the only two concerts I was able to attend this year, just touching the surface of what by all accounts was one of the best festivals ever. In eleven concerts over four days covering all aspects of the title from early works by the great composers to works written for those of tender age such as Peter and the Wolf to Ravel’s Mother Goose suite to the final work of the Festival, the Mendelssohn Octet a totally mature work written at a tender age.
The concert on the second day Jeunehomme/Dame was special being dedicated in memory of Lord Moser. There were four works: Shostakovich first piano trio, Prokofiev Suite from Romeo and Juliet for virtuoso violin and piano, Suk Piano Quartet Op 1 ending with Mozart’s Piano Concerto No 9, sometimes known as Jeunehomme and a favourite of Lord Moser. The Shostakovich, written at the age of sixteen, shows the composer’s unique style gradually emerging. The performance was dominated by the cello playing of Swedish Torlief Thedeén on his 1711 Techler cello with an ethereal sound. The work is characterised by the cello playing calmly and lyrically, oblivious to the argumentative interchanges between violin (Ilya Gringolts) and piano (Natacha Kudritskaya).
The Mozart Concerto must be the high point of the 2015 Festival. The pianist was fantastically talented Armenian Marianna Shirinyan, accompanied by two horns, oboe, flute and seven strings. Unusually, the performance was led by the first violin rather than conducted from the keyboard. This was a full-blooded virtuoso performance played with Busoni’s ‘fingers of steel and wrists of india-rubber’. It was strange how well this nineteenth century interpretation came over in the eighteenth century surroundings of the Holywell Music Room.
The final concert From Promise to Genius featured early works by Rachmaninov, Britten, Sibelius, Richard Strauss and Mendelssohn showing different stages of musical maturity. Rachmaninov’s Trio élégique written at the age of seventeen in homage to the recently deceased Tchaikovsky. It has an important piano part, very much looking forward to the Piano Concertos in technical demands and spirit. It was played impeccably by Shrinyan. Britten was represented by an elegy for unaccompanied viola, which gave no inkling of things to come. Sibelius composed his Water Drops for pizzicato violin and cello at the age of ten, the first of his output of representations of Nature. The Richard Strauss’ Piano Quartet Op 13, although clearly an early work, already shows characteristics of his mature style.
By contrast, the Mendelssohn Octet written at the age of sixteen is already a fully mature work. It was a good performance. apart from a slight blip at the beginning of the Scherzo, which fully merited the semi standing ovation at the end.
My regret is that I was only able to attend these two concerts. I am sure the rest were equally fascinating illustrations of the theme of the Festival. As usual the organisation was impeccable thanks to the efforts of Hanne Abendroth, returning from last year, and Rhian Hughes, together with many helpers. Hanne edited the programme booklet, comprehensively informative and easy to read – a model other festivals should follow. But, of course, most credit goes to Priya Mitchell for assembling so many outstanding musicians, for the inspiration of the theme and for the organisation of such a complex programme.
Next year’s Festival will be held from 28 September to 1 October.
Click above for 2014 programme. Scroll down for reviews of 2012, 2010,2009,2008, 2007, 2006
2014
Creation
Oxford Chamber Music Festival 2014, Phoenix Picturehouse 30 September and Holywell Music Room, 1-4 October.
The Oxford Chamber Music Festival was started by the Oxford –born violinist Priya Mitchell in 2000. The first, held in St Anthony’s College, is unforgettable for the performance of the Beethoven Septet. Now sadly reduced in scale, the Festival continues to produce performances of the highest quality, exploring a wide repertoire. The theme of the 2014 Festival was ‘Creation’ and consisted of eight concerts of music with programmes illustrating different aspects of the process of creation starting with First light, and ending with Silence. This followed the pattern of the Festival in recent years in linking an eclectic selection of musical works classical and modern, European, Eastern and Western under some overall heading. I review here some of the highlights starting with a prologue in the showing of the 2009 film Creation based on the life of Charles Darwin.
This is a very strange movie, a very romanticised, one might say over-sentimentalised, version of the period in Charles Darwin’s life in which he is struggling to produce for publication The Origin of the Species while living an apparently happy domestic life in the English countryside (Down House – still open to the public). In fact, he is portrayed as a totally insecure serial hypochondriac. The cause of his malaise is the problem he is having in reconciling his scientific observations with the existence of a God. His reluctance to publish is in part a fear that it will deepen the wedge between himself and his deeply religious wife Emma. He ducks out of the decision by allowing Emma to read the manuscript and giving her the option to destroy it. Shots of her burning papers on a bonfire fade to Darwin handing the packaged manuscript to the carter. Throughout he is haunted by his daughter Annie, first, alive, as a questioning disciple, then after her death as a spirit adviser. Whether or not one regards this as a load of hokum, there is no doubt that it is compelling cinema. A bizarre touch was the array of faces familiar from television playing the minor roles: Benedict Cumberbatch, as Joseph Dalton Hooker, Toby Jones as Thomas Henry Huxley, Bill Paterson as Dr Gully among others. The principal roles are taken by Paul Bettany as Charles Darwin, Jennifer Connelly as Emma and Martha West as Annie. I wonder what Richard Dawkins made of it?
Of the four concerts I attended, the first on the Thursday evening, was a very unusual and challenging experience. Entitled Message from Earth, It simulated a journey into outer space, broadcasting sounds and images of our civilisation. We were invited to listen to the interspersed music contributions with innocent ear. I recognised most of them however: starting and ending with Richard Strauss (Capriccio and Morgen in a version for solo violin and piano quartet), they encompassed slow movements from great chamber works by Beethoven, Brahms, and Fauré. Included were sensational performances of Rameau by Natacha Kudritskaya, a demure figure with formidable technique known from previous Festivals, the clarity of her part playing slightly marred by a tendency to over-pedal, by Erica Eloff belting out the Queen of the Night’s first Aria with incredible power and accuracy and a very modern work by George Crumb Vox Balaenae. The last, scored for flute (Tom Hancox) and cello (Julian Arp), sharing a percussion instrument, and piano (Dirk Mommertz). I was asked how I listen to unknown music. My reply is to pose the questions ‘Am I enjoying it? Would I like to listen to it again?’ In this case my answers are ‘Yes, up to a point and No’. It was too long and the sound of the cello playing very high and very quietly became tedious. Of the whole journey I was left wondering whether The Beatles or even Miley Cyrus would not be more appealing to little green men! Hoever I have since been informed that the muscians had chosen the music as that which they themselves would most like to listen to on the journey.
One of the great treats of the Festival was the arrangement for string trio (Priya Mitchell, Meghan Cassidy and Julian Arp) by Sitkovetsy of JS Bach’s Goldberg Variations. As one might have expected, not all variations translated as well as others from the keyboard version; the ornaments were a little tentative. Most successful were the finger-knitting fast, two-keyboard variations 5, 8 and so on; the least were those requiring the plangent tones of the harpsichord. Surprisingly, the canons lacked clarity in the part-playing, making them difficult to follow. Repeats were random, sometimes none sometimes the first part only, sometimes both parts. There was no interval but a short pause before plunging into the French Ouverture, Variation 16. It is a pity we did not have the decorated repeat of the first part, and a balancing repeat of the second to give the full French flavour. Nevertheless this was an awesome performance well-deserving of the ovation at its end.
The Friday evening concert entitled Heavenly Bodies started with Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata, followed by Orion by Takamitsu, Debussy Cello Sonata and a version of Clair de Lune and concluded with its main attraction, a piano trio arrangement by Steuerman of Schoenberg’s Verklärte Nacht. The Beethoven was played by Kudritskaya in an amazing interpretation, calm and sensitive in the first two movements but the last played with virtuoso fire and power, not everyone’s style but an astonishing tour de force (in spite of one near lapse). Orion is an attractive piece for piano, keyboard and plucked strings, and cello which I would certainly like to hear again. The story behind Verklärte Nacht, of a woman confessing to her lover that she is carrying another’s child, could have come out of Eastenders but, as the title implies, it is transfigured by the poet Dehmel and the composer into a deep passionate affirmation of life and love. In its string sextet version it was performed at the 2007 OCMF and again in 2012. The piano trio version is not satisfactory, the piano’s timbre is out of place in the luscious intensity of the string sound. But the interpretation was great in recalling memories of the previous Festival performances. It was good to hear this rarity.
The final concert, entitled Silence and Celebration, opened with John Cage 4’33’’ of silence first performed in 1952 and previously experienced at the 2009 Festival in its solo piano version. This year it was given in a version for cello and piano by Kudritskaya and Matthew Barley. The only sound was the turning of pages between movements. I am still waiting to hear the string quartet version but perhaps that is too expensive. The second item was Bach’s first cello suite played by Julian Arp. I am probably out of date with modern interpretations of Bach, but this was not to my taste. I missed a firm pulse to the music; the idea that the suite is a collection of dance movements was lost. There followed an innocuous piano piece by Bruckner and Schnittke’s send-up version of the carol Silent Night, excruciating variations for piano-accompanied violin played by Priya Mitchell (not to be played in Vienna!).
The final work was Schubert’s String Quintet in C major. As in most previous Festivals this final item was in a class way above what had come before. Led by a Norse goddess Vilde Frang, with Priya playing second fiddle, the indefatigable but self-effacing viola-playing Vladimir Mendelssohn and cellists Matthew Barley and Jamie Walton, this was a mind-blowing experience. Played with great individual freedom and yet perfect synchronisation and balance it was a performance which concentrated on the dialogues between the instruments resolving into climactic unisons, particularly between violins and cellos in the first movement, giving new insights. A long moment of silence at the end followed by a standing ovation says it all. This should give this performance before all a place on the Voyager!
This was a memorable Festival. What, apart from outstanding performances, were the images to take away? First, the elegance of the mainly black-clad players including some stunning ladies’ gowns; the exception was Natacha Kudritskaya in casual jacket and grey trousers more appropriate to her style of playing. Second, the efficiency of the platform staff in handling the complex changes of ensemble, juggling music stands in restricted space. Last but far from least, the newly introduced Festival Manager Hanne Abendroth who won all hearts introducing the concerts with charming informality in her just-about understandable charming German accent, disguising her firm control over the whole proceedings.
***
This Festival was artistically a great success but this year in spite of considerable financial difficulties. Having lost a major business sponsor, many of the artists were prepared to play for reduced or even no fees. Playing to nearly full houses, it is not fair that the players should bear the full brunt of the wave of philistinism sweeping over the Arts. Followers of OCMF who wish to see it prosper and to continue to hear performances of the highest world standard should search their consciences and most seriously consider enrolling as OCMF Friends or preferably Angels. Details on website.
9 October 2014
In
2014
Creation
Oxford Chamber Music Festival 2014, Phoenix Picturehouse 30 September and Holywell Music Room, 1-4 October.
The Oxford Chamber Music Festival was started by the Oxford –born violinist Priya Mitchell in 2000. The first, held in St Anthony’s College, is unforgettable for the performance of the Beethoven Septet. Now sadly reduced in scale, the Festival continues to produce performances of the highest quality, exploring a wide repertoire. The theme of the 2014 Festival was ‘Creation’ and consisted of eight concerts of music with programmes illustrating different aspects of the process of creation starting with First light, and ending with Silence. This followed the pattern of the Festival in recent years in linking an eclectic selection of musical works classical and modern, European, Eastern and Western under some overall heading. I review here some of the highlights starting with a prologue in the showing of the 2009 film Creation based on the life of Charles Darwin.
This is a very strange movie, a very romanticised, one might say over-sentimentalised, version of the period in Charles Darwin’s life in which he is struggling to produce for publication The Origin of the Species while living an apparently happy domestic life in the English countryside (Down House – still open to the public). In fact, he is portrayed as a totally insecure serial hypochondriac. The cause of his malaise is the problem he is having in reconciling his scientific observations with the existence of a God. His reluctance to publish is in part a fear that it will deepen the wedge between himself and his deeply religious wife Emma. He ducks out of the decision by allowing Emma to read the manuscript and giving her the option to destroy it. Shots of her burning papers on a bonfire fade to Darwin handing the packaged manuscript to the carter. Throughout he is haunted by his daughter Annie, first, alive, as a questioning disciple, then after her death as a spirit adviser. Whether or not one regards this as a load of hokum, there is no doubt that it is compelling cinema. A bizarre touch was the array of faces familiar from television playing the minor roles: Benedict Cumberbatch, as Joseph Dalton Hooker, Toby Jones as Thomas Henry Huxley, Bill Paterson as Dr Gully among others. The principal roles are taken by Paul Bettany as Charles Darwin, Jennifer Connelly as Emma and Martha West as Annie. I wonder what Richard Dawkins made of it?
Of the four concerts I attended, the first on the Thursday evening, was a very unusual and challenging experience. Entitled Message from Earth, It simulated a journey into outer space, broadcasting sounds and images of our civilisation. We were invited to listen to the interspersed music contributions with innocent ear. I recognised most of them however: starting and ending with Richard Strauss (Capriccio and Morgen in a version for solo violin and piano quartet), they encompassed slow movements from great chamber works by Beethoven, Brahms, and Fauré. Included were sensational performances of Rameau by Natacha Kudritskaya, a demure figure with formidable technique known from previous Festivals, the clarity of her part playing slightly marred by a tendency to over-pedal, by Erica Eloff belting out the Queen of the Night’s first Aria with incredible power and accuracy and a very modern work by George Crumb Vox Balaenae. The last, scored for flute (Tom Hancox) and cello (Julian Arp), sharing a percussion instrument, and piano (Dirk Mommertz). I was asked how I listen to unknown music. My reply is to pose the questions ‘Am I enjoying it? Would I like to listen to it again?’ In this case my answers are ‘Yes, up to a point and No’. It was too long and the sound of the cello playing very high and very quietly became tedious. Of the whole journey I was left wondering whether The Beatles or even Miley Cyrus would not be more appealing to little green men! Hoever I have since been informed that the muscians had chosen the music as that which they themselves would most like to listen to on the journey.
One of the great treats of the Festival was the arrangement for string trio (Priya Mitchell, Meghan Cassidy and Julian Arp) by Sitkovetsy of JS Bach’s Goldberg Variations. As one might have expected, not all variations translated as well as others from the keyboard version; the ornaments were a little tentative. Most successful were the finger-knitting fast, two-keyboard variations 5, 8 and so on; the least were those requiring the plangent tones of the harpsichord. Surprisingly, the canons lacked clarity in the part-playing, making them difficult to follow. Repeats were random, sometimes none sometimes the first part only, sometimes both parts. There was no interval but a short pause before plunging into the French Ouverture, Variation 16. It is a pity we did not have the decorated repeat of the first part, and a balancing repeat of the second to give the full French flavour. Nevertheless this was an awesome performance well-deserving of the ovation at its end.
The Friday evening concert entitled Heavenly Bodies started with Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata, followed by Orion by Takamitsu, Debussy Cello Sonata and a version of Clair de Lune and concluded with its main attraction, a piano trio arrangement by Steuerman of Schoenberg’s Verklärte Nacht. The Beethoven was played by Kudritskaya in an amazing interpretation, calm and sensitive in the first two movements but the last played with virtuoso fire and power, not everyone’s style but an astonishing tour de force (in spite of one near lapse). Orion is an attractive piece for piano, keyboard and plucked strings, and cello which I would certainly like to hear again. The story behind Verklärte Nacht, of a woman confessing to her lover that she is carrying another’s child, could have come out of Eastenders but, as the title implies, it is transfigured by the poet Dehmel and the composer into a deep passionate affirmation of life and love. In its string sextet version it was performed at the 2007 OCMF and again in 2012. The piano trio version is not satisfactory, the piano’s timbre is out of place in the luscious intensity of the string sound. But the interpretation was great in recalling memories of the previous Festival performances. It was good to hear this rarity.
The final concert, entitled Silence and Celebration, opened with John Cage 4’33’’ of silence first performed in 1952 and previously experienced at the 2009 Festival in its solo piano version. This year it was given in a version for cello and piano by Kudritskaya and Matthew Barley. The only sound was the turning of pages between movements. I am still waiting to hear the string quartet version but perhaps that is too expensive. The second item was Bach’s first cello suite played by Julian Arp. I am probably out of date with modern interpretations of Bach, but this was not to my taste. I missed a firm pulse to the music; the idea that the suite is a collection of dance movements was lost. There followed an innocuous piano piece by Bruckner and Schnittke’s send-up version of the carol Silent Night, excruciating variations for piano-accompanied violin played by Priya Mitchell (not to be played in Vienna!).
The final work was Schubert’s String Quintet in C major. As in most previous Festivals this final item was in a class way above what had come before. Led by a Norse goddess Vilde Frang, with Priya playing second fiddle, the indefatigable but self-effacing viola-playing Vladimir Mendelssohn and cellists Matthew Barley and Jamie Walton, this was a mind-blowing experience. Played with great individual freedom and yet perfect synchronisation and balance it was a performance which concentrated on the dialogues between the instruments resolving into climactic unisons, particularly between violins and cellos in the first movement, giving new insights. A long moment of silence at the end followed by a standing ovation says it all. This should give this performance before all a place on the Voyager!
This was a memorable Festival. What, apart from outstanding performances, were the images to take away? First, the elegance of the mainly black-clad players including some stunning ladies’ gowns; the exception was Natacha Kudritskaya in casual jacket and grey trousers more appropriate to her style of playing. Second, the efficiency of the platform staff in handling the complex changes of ensemble, juggling music stands in restricted space. Last but far from least, the newly introduced Festival Manager Hanne Abendroth who won all hearts introducing the concerts with charming informality in her just-about understandable charming German accent, disguising her firm control over the whole proceedings.
***
This Festival was artistically a great success but this year in spite of considerable financial difficulties. Having lost a major business sponsor, many of the artists were prepared to play for reduced or even no fees. Playing to nearly full houses, it is not fair that the players should bear the full brunt of the wave of philistinism sweeping over the Arts. Followers of OCMF who wish to see it prosper and to continue to hear performances of the highest world standard should search their consciences and most seriously consider enrolling as OCMF Friends or preferably Angels. Details on website.
9 October 2014
In
Click above for 2014 programme. Scroll down for reviews of 2012, 2010,2009,2008, 2007, 2006
2012
After missing a year, I am able again to comment on the Oxford Chamber Music Festival, albeit only to review in detail two of the concerts. The creation of Oxford born violinist Priya Mitchell its Artistic Director, this year’s eleventh season consisted of nine concerts, the first of which was in association with Oxford Philomusica. In recent years the Festival has been on a more modest scale than at its zenith with concerts devoted to a specific theme rather than ranging widely over the repertoire, often including buffet suppers with a chance to meet the artists. Nevertheless they have retained their special atmosphere of informal music making by a talented group of friends, a core involved since the beginning, others have passed on to full time international careers, replaced by younger, equally talented musicians. Some of the performances stand comparison with the best, others rely more on the freshness of spontaneity (sometimes leading to last minute programme changes).
This year the theme was Fairytale and Fantasy. I report on the last two evenings. The penultimate evening concert, entitled Dusk to Dawn opened with a reading by Philip Pullman of The Moon from his recently published retelling of Grimm fairytales. There followed Ravel’s formidable Gaspard de la Nuit. This is heard these days mainly played by young aspiring virtuosi at piano competitions showing off their amazing techniques. It was very refreshing to hear it live, played by an established pianist able to do full justice to Ravel’s music where we could, admiringly, not worry about the technical problems. The pianist was the demure and modest Natacha Kudritskaya from Oxford’s Twin City of Perm. She gave a wonderful performance, distinguishing the character of the three sections with an overwhelming outpouring of delicate runs and chords, notable for clarity and phrasing.
For the second work there was a change of programme owing to a late cancellation. Instead of Schubert’s Fantasie in C major for violin and piano, barely known to me, we had the tenth and last of Beethoven’s sonatas. We had mixed feelings. Festivals are an opportunity to hear and reassess little known works to judge whether the neglect is justified. To hear a great and much-studied work instead, without warning, requires an adjustment. The Sonata was played by Priya Mitchell with pianist Alasdair Beatson with little preparation time. As a result this was a slightly ragged performance without full rapport between the players. The pianist had a habit of slightly breaking the chords at the beginning of the bar. Mitchell displayed here (even more in the Schoenberg) a mannerism of stamping her foot, reminiscent of the vocal reflexes of some tennis players, possibly not unacceptable provided it does not hide the underlying artistry but distorting the musical line when it replaces a beat’s rest at the beginning of a bar.
After the interval we heard a piece entitled Midnight by this year’s composer in residence, Bulgarian Dobrinka Tabakova. This was another very Ravellian work, played by Katya Apekisheva. As explained by the composer, the music represented a period of restless waking and dreaming, beginning and ending with the regular clock-beat of undisturbed sleep. Very impressive.
The final item was a performance of the string sextet version of Arnold Schoenberg’s densely written and intensely moving tone-poem Verklärte Nacht. This work was the memorable finale of the 2007 Chamber Music Festival. The opportunity to hear it again was unmissable. On this occasion the players were arranged on the floor of the Music Room. Seated in the front row behind the second violin, I had the advantage of being able to follow her score. This was again a very fine and well-balanced performance, again firmly under the controlled leadership of Priya Mitchell. The violist Vladimir Mendelssohn, missing from the programme, also played in 2007. My recollection is that that performance was a more intense experience but both commanded the utmost concentration rom the listener.
At the final concert, Farewells, there was a cuckoo in the nest in the form of a BBC recording team for a Radio 3 broadcast in January, keeping the audience out while the piano was tuned to their standards and delaying the start and forcing the evacuation of the auditorium during the interval while the piano was retuned. Fortunately this led to the dropping of the first item which would have made the concert excessively long. Instead it started with an unelegaic performance of Fauré’s Élégie. This was followed by a virtuoso performance of Mussorgsky’s mammoth Pictures at an Exhibition by Katya Apekisheva. Within the limitations of her characteristic percussive style of playing (the retuning afterwards was perhaps necessary) this was a real tour de force giving a vivid interpretation of the characteristics of each picture on a peripatetic tour around the gallery.
After the interval, there was one of those unexpected revelatory moments casting new light on a well-known masterpiece This was an arrangement for nine strings by Tabakova of Franz Schubert’s F minor Fantasie for piano duet, an elusive work, celebrated in poetry and prose, to which no single interpretation can do full justice. The judge of the merits of such adaptations is the extent to which they bring new insights into the work. Examples are the arrangements of Bach’s The Art of Fugue, written in open score, for various instrumental groups (my own favourite being that for piano duet) and Schoenberg’s arrangement for orchestra of Brahms’ G minor Piano Quartet. Expecting just a curiosity, this new version of Schubert’s work turned out to be very close to being a definitive arrangement of the notes with a delicate division of the four hands among the nine strings. In particular, the last fugal section gains immensely in clarity of texture with one instrument to each voice bringing out every little detail of the counterpoint (often muddied in piano duet). This version cannot be ignored in any comparison of interpretations of the Fantasie.
The concert and the Festival ended, as traditionally, with a major work from the chamber music repertoire. This year the choice was for the César Franck Piano Quintet, a great lumbering work, lesser in musical depth than the masterpieces of Mozart, Schubert and Brahms which have preceded it – or indeed Verklärte Nacht. But it is, for me, the Schubert Fantasie which will be the enduring landmark of this year’s Festival.
8 October 2012
2012
After missing a year, I am able again to comment on the Oxford Chamber Music Festival, albeit only to review in detail two of the concerts. The creation of Oxford born violinist Priya Mitchell its Artistic Director, this year’s eleventh season consisted of nine concerts, the first of which was in association with Oxford Philomusica. In recent years the Festival has been on a more modest scale than at its zenith with concerts devoted to a specific theme rather than ranging widely over the repertoire, often including buffet suppers with a chance to meet the artists. Nevertheless they have retained their special atmosphere of informal music making by a talented group of friends, a core involved since the beginning, others have passed on to full time international careers, replaced by younger, equally talented musicians. Some of the performances stand comparison with the best, others rely more on the freshness of spontaneity (sometimes leading to last minute programme changes).
This year the theme was Fairytale and Fantasy. I report on the last two evenings. The penultimate evening concert, entitled Dusk to Dawn opened with a reading by Philip Pullman of The Moon from his recently published retelling of Grimm fairytales. There followed Ravel’s formidable Gaspard de la Nuit. This is heard these days mainly played by young aspiring virtuosi at piano competitions showing off their amazing techniques. It was very refreshing to hear it live, played by an established pianist able to do full justice to Ravel’s music where we could, admiringly, not worry about the technical problems. The pianist was the demure and modest Natacha Kudritskaya from Oxford’s Twin City of Perm. She gave a wonderful performance, distinguishing the character of the three sections with an overwhelming outpouring of delicate runs and chords, notable for clarity and phrasing.
For the second work there was a change of programme owing to a late cancellation. Instead of Schubert’s Fantasie in C major for violin and piano, barely known to me, we had the tenth and last of Beethoven’s sonatas. We had mixed feelings. Festivals are an opportunity to hear and reassess little known works to judge whether the neglect is justified. To hear a great and much-studied work instead, without warning, requires an adjustment. The Sonata was played by Priya Mitchell with pianist Alasdair Beatson with little preparation time. As a result this was a slightly ragged performance without full rapport between the players. The pianist had a habit of slightly breaking the chords at the beginning of the bar. Mitchell displayed here (even more in the Schoenberg) a mannerism of stamping her foot, reminiscent of the vocal reflexes of some tennis players, possibly not unacceptable provided it does not hide the underlying artistry but distorting the musical line when it replaces a beat’s rest at the beginning of a bar.
After the interval we heard a piece entitled Midnight by this year’s composer in residence, Bulgarian Dobrinka Tabakova. This was another very Ravellian work, played by Katya Apekisheva. As explained by the composer, the music represented a period of restless waking and dreaming, beginning and ending with the regular clock-beat of undisturbed sleep. Very impressive.
The final item was a performance of the string sextet version of Arnold Schoenberg’s densely written and intensely moving tone-poem Verklärte Nacht. This work was the memorable finale of the 2007 Chamber Music Festival. The opportunity to hear it again was unmissable. On this occasion the players were arranged on the floor of the Music Room. Seated in the front row behind the second violin, I had the advantage of being able to follow her score. This was again a very fine and well-balanced performance, again firmly under the controlled leadership of Priya Mitchell. The violist Vladimir Mendelssohn, missing from the programme, also played in 2007. My recollection is that that performance was a more intense experience but both commanded the utmost concentration rom the listener.
At the final concert, Farewells, there was a cuckoo in the nest in the form of a BBC recording team for a Radio 3 broadcast in January, keeping the audience out while the piano was tuned to their standards and delaying the start and forcing the evacuation of the auditorium during the interval while the piano was retuned. Fortunately this led to the dropping of the first item which would have made the concert excessively long. Instead it started with an unelegaic performance of Fauré’s Élégie. This was followed by a virtuoso performance of Mussorgsky’s mammoth Pictures at an Exhibition by Katya Apekisheva. Within the limitations of her characteristic percussive style of playing (the retuning afterwards was perhaps necessary) this was a real tour de force giving a vivid interpretation of the characteristics of each picture on a peripatetic tour around the gallery.
After the interval, there was one of those unexpected revelatory moments casting new light on a well-known masterpiece This was an arrangement for nine strings by Tabakova of Franz Schubert’s F minor Fantasie for piano duet, an elusive work, celebrated in poetry and prose, to which no single interpretation can do full justice. The judge of the merits of such adaptations is the extent to which they bring new insights into the work. Examples are the arrangements of Bach’s The Art of Fugue, written in open score, for various instrumental groups (my own favourite being that for piano duet) and Schoenberg’s arrangement for orchestra of Brahms’ G minor Piano Quartet. Expecting just a curiosity, this new version of Schubert’s work turned out to be very close to being a definitive arrangement of the notes with a delicate division of the four hands among the nine strings. In particular, the last fugal section gains immensely in clarity of texture with one instrument to each voice bringing out every little detail of the counterpoint (often muddied in piano duet). This version cannot be ignored in any comparison of interpretations of the Fantasie.
The concert and the Festival ended, as traditionally, with a major work from the chamber music repertoire. This year the choice was for the César Franck Piano Quintet, a great lumbering work, lesser in musical depth than the masterpieces of Mozart, Schubert and Brahms which have preceded it – or indeed Verklärte Nacht. But it is, for me, the Schubert Fantasie which will be the enduring landmark of this year’s Festival.
8 October 2012
2010
White Nights: 9th Oxford Chamber Music Festival, 29 September – 2 October
The Oxford Chamber Music Festival (OCMF) is now a well established fixture in Oxford’s musical calendar which cannot be ignored by any serious lover of music. This year it was devoted, though not exclusively, to ‘music from lands of fire and ice’ – the Nordic countries and Russia – in eight events spread over four days. In the event the programme was dominated by the Russians, Tchaikovsky, Shostakovich, Glazunov, Borodin … , various circumstances having brought about unforeseen changes, principally the absence of the cellist from the Finnish Meta4 Quartet, diluting the Nordic component. The main casualties were the Sibelius Intimate Voices Quartet and the String Octet of Svendsen; these, with the Piano Quintet of Shostakovich and Tchaikovsky's Piano Trio were the anticipated highlights of the Festival. The remainder of the programme was an eclectic mix of near-salon music, novelty items and minor masterpieces. Hovering over the proceedings, as in previous years, was the presence of the veteran violinist Ivry Gitlis, who entertained us with a Victor Borge –like performance of Tchaikovsky’s Valse Sentimentale Op. 51 No. 6, recalling his legendary recording of that work. This presented a real challenge to his pianist Katya Apekisheva, magnificently met.
Owing to unforeseen circumstances I was able to attend only three of the events, missing the opening (where the Mendelssohn Octet replaced Svendsen) and the first afternoon concert, particularly sorry to miss Lindberg’s Clarinet Quintet coupled with that of Mozart, the Nordic connection being in the performers. The printed programme for the third concert on the Thursday evening mentioned only two works, Intimate Voices having been withdrawn, but the concert opened with pianist Bengt Forsberg playing four pleasant short pieces by the Russian Anatol Liadov (1855-1914), of whom he is an admirer, telling us of the composer’s laziness and love of alcohol. This was followed by a violin solo in folk style by the Norwegian composer Bjarne Brustad (b1895) played by Atle Spondberg. Then Forsberg was joined by Mitchell and cellist Bjørg Værnes Lewis, spouse of pianist Paul Lewis, in a very persuasive performance the first Trio élégiaque by Sergei Rachmaninov. The main work of the evening was one of the greatest of all piano quintets, that of Shostakovich. I feel that justice was not done to the subtleties of this marvellous work with its mind-blowing central Scherzo contrasted with the surrounding calmer movements including the sublime fugue. The performance was given by Forsberg with three members of the Meta4 Quartet, David Cohen replacing the absent cellist. It had nowhere near the impact of the one given at the 2006 Festival where pianist Katya Apekisheva stood in at a few hours notice (OM No.254). The problem was a lack of balance between piano and strings. For example, in the Scherzo the melodic line although hammered out on the piano was almost drowned out by the percussive string accompaniment (a reversal of the usual complaint about pianists in chamber music!).
The following evening provided a rare opportunity to hear the mammoth Tchaikovsky Piano Trio. It was another in the series of memorable musical experiences characteristic of the OCMF given by Priya Mitchell and her coterie of talented contemporaries, demanding the complete concentration of the listener. The performers on this occasion were a perfectly matched team of Priya Mitchell, Natalie Clein and Katya Apekisheva. The extended variations of the central movement were played with a bitter-sweet quality as if putting a brave face on the death of his friend the pianist Nikolai Rubinstein which they commemorate.
The traditional Brunch Concert, held on the last day of the Festival, presented a light and varied programme. This followed a Nordic smorgasbord prepared as usual by Marianne Bruel of The Rose in the High. A Norwegian companion revealed a cultural divide: in Norway sliced beetroot goes with the herring, not with the ham. The music consisted of an early, posthumously published Sibelius String Trio, followed by a free arrangement of a Handel Passacaglia violin and cello by Johan Halvorsen. The latter came over as duel between the instruments in the form of a set of Corelli-like variations, played with immaculate timing and virtuosity by Atle Sponberg and David Cohen. There followed an improvisatory piece for double bass played by Zoran Marković and, in conclusion, an immaculate performance of Glazunov’s String Quintet, a delightful work notable for a haunting pizzicato second movement. The players were Minna Pensola and Antti Tikannen (violins), Vladimir Mendelssohn (viola) and Værnes Lewis and David Cohen (cellos). .
The Brunch Concert was held in the Jacqueline du Pré Music Building where the height of the stage focuses attention on the often eccentric and exotic footwear of many players. On this occasion we were dazzled by the awesome brightly-coloured stilettos worn by the leader Minna Pensola.
The OCMF has developed a special atmosphere of its own of communication between musicians and audience. This year was no exception. As usual the programme booklet, designed by Franks and Franks, contained a mine of information about the music, the musicians, their instruments and their views on the music. Only figuring out who actually played what by whom was sometimes difficult! Congratulations to the editor Hilary Laurie.
The 2011 Festival, the tenth, will be from 28 September to 1 October. Audiences are invited to recall their favourite moments from earlier Festivals for inclusion in the programme. Mail your suggestions to [email protected]. In the meanwhile, players and singers among my readers may not be aware that OCMF in cooperation with St Hilda’s College operates a Players’ Network which meets on Wednesdays at the JdP Music Building for two hours of informal music making. I am told they are at the moment looking for violinists in particular. Details can be obtained from [email protected].
8 October 2010
2009
Iconography
Icons: Oxford Chamber Music Festival, Holywell Music Room and elsewhere, 30 September – 3 October 2009.
Icons – Trail Blazing Masterpieces was the title given to this year’s Oxford Chamber Music Festival, the eighth to be organised since 2000 by Oxford born violinist Priya Mitchell. Each year she has assembled a group of extremely talented and like-minded musicians to give outstanding, memorable performances of chamber music both familiar and unfamiliar in a friendly and informal atmosphere. This year has been no exception; packed into seven concerts in four days of intensive listening, we had the opportunity to hear many of the major landmarks of the chamber music repertoire, both masterpieces in their own right as well as those which have had ground-breaking significance.
In writing this opening paragraph I have avoided the use of the title word icon, preferring to spell out what it is intended to convey. The meaning of the word has migrated from the original, ‘early Christian religious image’, through its use to describe a symbol to click on to give an instruction to a computer, to a meaning which entered dictionaries only in the nineteen-nineties (though occurrences in the fifties are referenced) of ‘a person or thing worthy of veneration’. Nowadays it is a vogue word debased to mean ‘anything which stands out among others of its kind’. This Festival was devoted to chamber music all in some degree ‘worthy of veneration’. With so many masterworks concentrated into such a short period and receiving such persuasive interpretations, it was very tempting to attempt a ranking. For example, it was difficult not to conclude that of the three quintets played, Brahms was ‘out-iconned’ by Schubert and Mozart, or, indeed, that, outside the string quartet repertoire, Schubert is supreme - with the exception of Bach who is hors de combat.
The opening concert, in the Jacqueline du Pré Music Room, consisted of three works, two well known and loved classics surrounding the first piano sonata of Alban Berg, probably little known to most of the audience. Both of the former received passionate and exuberant performances; the first, Mozart’s Dissonance string quartet, was just held together by the rapport between the players while the second, Schubert’s Octet, was firmly under the control of the leader Priya Mitchell. The first was, frankly, a bit wild with over-fast tempi in the first and last movements, missing much of the subtle detail and delicacy of the work. The Octet performance, its second in Oxford this year, having been given in the Holywell Music Room by The Fibonacci Sequence as part of Oxford May Music, benefitted from the more spacious stage at the JdP Music Room. It was revelatory, bringing out the extreme subtlety of Schubert’s instrumentation, establishing a perfect balance between strings and wind. Particularly entrancing was the delicacy of the string quartet playing when in an accompanying role. I know it is bad form to single out individuals from an ensemble but I must mention the part played by the ‘cellist Bjørg Værnes Lewis, both in her solo passages and in support, and the beautiful horn tone produced by Zora Slokar.
The Berg sonata, composed a hundred years ago, was played by the German pianist Alexander Lonquich who turned out to be the star of the Festival, talented, versatile and indefatigable. His performance of this formidable work showed it to be (in the context of the Festival’s theme) literally iconoclastic, interrupting passages of late romanticism with the percussive chords of the twentieth century. Lonquich followed this at an afternoon concert the next day playing Schubert’s Piano Sonata in G major, D894. This is one of the composer’s most discursive works for the piano, requiring, if it is to hold the attention, a delicate and limpid piano combined with precisely graded forte to fortissimo. This performance had echoes of the greatest interpreters and held us spell-bound. The concert, entitled Solo Icons, was preceded by a talk by Sister Wendy Beckett on her search and discovery of the few icons which survived the destruction of religious images in the ninth century, the original iconoclasm. The first work was Bartok’s 1944 Sonata for solo violin, written for Yehudi Menuhin and heard first in Britain in a broadcast at the end of the war. It so impressed that it was one of the very first LPs I acquired, in the 1953 recording by Ivry Gitlis. Playing this again, I found it to have much more musical coherence than in the performance here by Daniel Rowland, technically impressive though this was. It is a great work. A piece by Luciano Berio for oboe (Nicholas Daniel) with a monotone B natural from the audience completed the programme.
The same evening Lonquich played Bach’s Goldberg Variations but this was preceded by a performance of Beethoven’s Kreutzer Sonata together with the legendary veteran violinist Ivry Gitlis, whose attendance has been an enlivening feature of previous Festivals (and who may be regarded, I suppose, as the icon in residence, also offering master classes). The concert began with Janáček’s String Quartet No. 1 inspired by Tolstoy’s novella, The Kreutzer Sonata, preceded by an introduction and a reading from Tolstoy given by Gitlis. These three performances demonstrated the power of chamber music to challenge the whole range of the emotions and the intellect. The first, a powerful rendering, given by Daniel Rowland, Katharine Gowers (violins), Lise Berthaud (viola) and David Cohen (cello) left us emotionally drained. The second, given an unashamedly wayward and virtuostic interpretation, was totally exhilarating, firing an inspired pianist to match the fiddler’s fireworks after just one rehearsal; a repeat of the third movement, even more wayward and virtuostic, raised the excitement even further. After the interval we returned to our seats for something completely different. Played from memory, the Goldberg Variations were given an immaculate and majestic treatment which could stand comparison with any pianoforte interpreter of the work. The part playing was of impeccable clarity, negotiating unfalteringly the finger-knitting complexities of the two-keyboard variations on the piano. Emulating the original instrument, the harpsichord, the attention of the listener was held by contrasting tempi and phrasing rather than by dynamic variation. Held it was, despite an unfortunate and inexplicable intervention. For some reason the performance was accompanied by a video projection on the back wall behind the player. This was intrusive and presumptuous. We were there to listen to Bach. If the intention was to provide distraction for those bored with the music, it only succeeded in destroying the concentration of those who were not, until they learnt to close their eyes, opening only occasionally to watch the pianist’s hands. Whatever aesthetic theory lay behind this, it was an incredible and inexcusable mistake.
Lonquich appeared again the following morning, this time partnering his wife Cristina Barbuti in Schubert’s F minor Fantasie for piano duet. This was preceded by impeccable performances of Mozart’s G minor String Quintet and the String Quartet No 8 of Shostakovich. The Fantasie is one of the most elusive works in all music, a challenge to players of all standards who aspire to an ideal which is unattainable in a single performance, such is its multi-facetted nature. The simple opening bars for secondo present an insoluble problem, the few notes playable and pedalled in an infinite number of ways. On this occasion they were played without pedal (though I believe I detected it when the opening returned at the beginning of the final section). The work got underway in rather a mannered fashion with much rubato but soon settled down as Schubert’s flow of melody, from contemplative to dramatic, took over. The performance came to its exciting final fugal climax, enhanced by the careful observance of dynamic markings, which characterised the Schubert sonata the previous day.
The final day of the festival started with the traditional brunch buffet at the Jacqueline du Pré Music Building, followed by a concert entitled From the Ridiculous to the Sublime. The first work was John Cage’s 4’ 33” of silence performed at the piano by Balbuti. This was itself sublime; it held the audience totally rapt, not even a cough disturbing our attention or interrupting our own thoughts (such as my wondering about the string quartet version). There followed a second work by Cage, which was truly ridiculous and a Mozart piano duet sonata (hardly iconic) and I was left wondering why the space had not been used to fit in a work or works by Haydn, a composer woefully and shamefully neglected in this Festival, not only as the father of modern chamber music but also in his anniversary year and with his Oxford associations.
This penultimate concert concluded with one of those outstanding and deeply moving interpretations by Priya Mitchell and friends, the memories of which have been enduring legacies of the Oxford Chamber Music Festivals: in 2000 the Beethoven septet in St Anthony’s College, and, in recent years, in 2006 Mozart’s String Quintet K581, in 2007 Verklärte Nacht, and in 2008 Vivaldi’s Quattro Stagioni in the University Church. This year it was Schubert’s late, great C major String Quintet played with supreme rapport and intensity by Gowers, Mitchell, Berthaud, Cohen and Værnes Lewis.
The final concert, held again in the University Church, consisted of two works, Brahms’ Piano Quintet and 14 year-old Mendelssohn’s concerto for violin, piano and strings. The former received, to my mind, a slightly ragged performance, as if, perhaps, the church acoustics prevented the players hearing each other well or was it just that they were, like many of the audience, emotionally exhausted by the intensity of what had gone before? It certainly lacked the bite of most of the other performances we had heard. Lonquich was again the pianist. By contrast, the Mendelssohn revived everyone’s spirits and provided a fitting, exhilarating finale, rounding off the personal triumph of Priya Mitchell as Artistic Director who played violin solo with Polina Leschenko on piano with the other string players we had heard providing brilliant support, to the merited ovation.
The running of the Festival was impeccable. This year we were spared obtrusive piano tuners, over-running rehearsals and unfinished compositions. The programme editor Hilary Laurie deserves special mention for the detailed notes, including players' comments and biographies, which made a big contribution to our appreciation, though the second viola player, Maya Rasuli, was missing. The ninth Festival, it is announced, will be held between 29 September and 2 October 2010; the theme will no doubt be equally ingenious. May I beg that it include Zora Slokar in Brahms’ Horn Trio? And some Haydn!
Most of the concerts were held in the Holywell Music Room still undergoing Phase I of the renovation (which should have been completed); we had to contend with wet paint and, at lunchtime concerts, hammering which started up as soon as the music stopped. The alterations are a great success, opening up more space in the entrance hall with a user-friendly box office. One will have to get accustomed to the new dark grey-green colour of the doors (can it be authenticated?) but the installation of handrails on the outside steps will be welcomed by many of the more senior patrons. So far the Appeal has raised £112,000 of the £165,000 required for Phase I. Revised proposals for Phase II will be discussed at Wadham at a meeting in Second Week. I will attempt to keep readers informed.
7 October 2009
Iconography
Icons: Oxford Chamber Music Festival, Holywell Music Room and elsewhere, 30 September – 3 October 2009.
Icons – Trail Blazing Masterpieces was the title given to this year’s Oxford Chamber Music Festival, the eighth to be organised since 2000 by Oxford born violinist Priya Mitchell. Each year she has assembled a group of extremely talented and like-minded musicians to give outstanding, memorable performances of chamber music both familiar and unfamiliar in a friendly and informal atmosphere. This year has been no exception; packed into seven concerts in four days of intensive listening, we had the opportunity to hear many of the major landmarks of the chamber music repertoire, both masterpieces in their own right as well as those which have had ground-breaking significance.
In writing this opening paragraph I have avoided the use of the title word icon, preferring to spell out what it is intended to convey. The meaning of the word has migrated from the original, ‘early Christian religious image’, through its use to describe a symbol to click on to give an instruction to a computer, to a meaning which entered dictionaries only in the nineteen-nineties (though occurrences in the fifties are referenced) of ‘a person or thing worthy of veneration’. Nowadays it is a vogue word debased to mean ‘anything which stands out among others of its kind’. This Festival was devoted to chamber music all in some degree ‘worthy of veneration’. With so many masterworks concentrated into such a short period and receiving such persuasive interpretations, it was very tempting to attempt a ranking. For example, it was difficult not to conclude that of the three quintets played, Brahms was ‘out-iconned’ by Schubert and Mozart, or, indeed, that, outside the string quartet repertoire, Schubert is supreme - with the exception of Bach who is hors de combat.
The opening concert, in the Jacqueline du Pré Music Room, consisted of three works, two well known and loved classics surrounding the first piano sonata of Alban Berg, probably little known to most of the audience. Both of the former received passionate and exuberant performances; the first, Mozart’s Dissonance string quartet, was just held together by the rapport between the players while the second, Schubert’s Octet, was firmly under the control of the leader Priya Mitchell. The first was, frankly, a bit wild with over-fast tempi in the first and last movements, missing much of the subtle detail and delicacy of the work. The Octet performance, its second in Oxford this year, having been given in the Holywell Music Room by The Fibonacci Sequence as part of Oxford May Music, benefitted from the more spacious stage at the JdP Music Room. It was revelatory, bringing out the extreme subtlety of Schubert’s instrumentation, establishing a perfect balance between strings and wind. Particularly entrancing was the delicacy of the string quartet playing when in an accompanying role. I know it is bad form to single out individuals from an ensemble but I must mention the part played by the ‘cellist Bjørg Værnes Lewis, both in her solo passages and in support, and the beautiful horn tone produced by Zora Slokar.
The Berg sonata, composed a hundred years ago, was played by the German pianist Alexander Lonquich who turned out to be the star of the Festival, talented, versatile and indefatigable. His performance of this formidable work showed it to be (in the context of the Festival’s theme) literally iconoclastic, interrupting passages of late romanticism with the percussive chords of the twentieth century. Lonquich followed this at an afternoon concert the next day playing Schubert’s Piano Sonata in G major, D894. This is one of the composer’s most discursive works for the piano, requiring, if it is to hold the attention, a delicate and limpid piano combined with precisely graded forte to fortissimo. This performance had echoes of the greatest interpreters and held us spell-bound. The concert, entitled Solo Icons, was preceded by a talk by Sister Wendy Beckett on her search and discovery of the few icons which survived the destruction of religious images in the ninth century, the original iconoclasm. The first work was Bartok’s 1944 Sonata for solo violin, written for Yehudi Menuhin and heard first in Britain in a broadcast at the end of the war. It so impressed that it was one of the very first LPs I acquired, in the 1953 recording by Ivry Gitlis. Playing this again, I found it to have much more musical coherence than in the performance here by Daniel Rowland, technically impressive though this was. It is a great work. A piece by Luciano Berio for oboe (Nicholas Daniel) with a monotone B natural from the audience completed the programme.
The same evening Lonquich played Bach’s Goldberg Variations but this was preceded by a performance of Beethoven’s Kreutzer Sonata together with the legendary veteran violinist Ivry Gitlis, whose attendance has been an enlivening feature of previous Festivals (and who may be regarded, I suppose, as the icon in residence, also offering master classes). The concert began with Janáček’s String Quartet No. 1 inspired by Tolstoy’s novella, The Kreutzer Sonata, preceded by an introduction and a reading from Tolstoy given by Gitlis. These three performances demonstrated the power of chamber music to challenge the whole range of the emotions and the intellect. The first, a powerful rendering, given by Daniel Rowland, Katharine Gowers (violins), Lise Berthaud (viola) and David Cohen (cello) left us emotionally drained. The second, given an unashamedly wayward and virtuostic interpretation, was totally exhilarating, firing an inspired pianist to match the fiddler’s fireworks after just one rehearsal; a repeat of the third movement, even more wayward and virtuostic, raised the excitement even further. After the interval we returned to our seats for something completely different. Played from memory, the Goldberg Variations were given an immaculate and majestic treatment which could stand comparison with any pianoforte interpreter of the work. The part playing was of impeccable clarity, negotiating unfalteringly the finger-knitting complexities of the two-keyboard variations on the piano. Emulating the original instrument, the harpsichord, the attention of the listener was held by contrasting tempi and phrasing rather than by dynamic variation. Held it was, despite an unfortunate and inexplicable intervention. For some reason the performance was accompanied by a video projection on the back wall behind the player. This was intrusive and presumptuous. We were there to listen to Bach. If the intention was to provide distraction for those bored with the music, it only succeeded in destroying the concentration of those who were not, until they learnt to close their eyes, opening only occasionally to watch the pianist’s hands. Whatever aesthetic theory lay behind this, it was an incredible and inexcusable mistake.
Lonquich appeared again the following morning, this time partnering his wife Cristina Barbuti in Schubert’s F minor Fantasie for piano duet. This was preceded by impeccable performances of Mozart’s G minor String Quintet and the String Quartet No 8 of Shostakovich. The Fantasie is one of the most elusive works in all music, a challenge to players of all standards who aspire to an ideal which is unattainable in a single performance, such is its multi-facetted nature. The simple opening bars for secondo present an insoluble problem, the few notes playable and pedalled in an infinite number of ways. On this occasion they were played without pedal (though I believe I detected it when the opening returned at the beginning of the final section). The work got underway in rather a mannered fashion with much rubato but soon settled down as Schubert’s flow of melody, from contemplative to dramatic, took over. The performance came to its exciting final fugal climax, enhanced by the careful observance of dynamic markings, which characterised the Schubert sonata the previous day.
The final day of the festival started with the traditional brunch buffet at the Jacqueline du Pré Music Building, followed by a concert entitled From the Ridiculous to the Sublime. The first work was John Cage’s 4’ 33” of silence performed at the piano by Balbuti. This was itself sublime; it held the audience totally rapt, not even a cough disturbing our attention or interrupting our own thoughts (such as my wondering about the string quartet version). There followed a second work by Cage, which was truly ridiculous and a Mozart piano duet sonata (hardly iconic) and I was left wondering why the space had not been used to fit in a work or works by Haydn, a composer woefully and shamefully neglected in this Festival, not only as the father of modern chamber music but also in his anniversary year and with his Oxford associations.
This penultimate concert concluded with one of those outstanding and deeply moving interpretations by Priya Mitchell and friends, the memories of which have been enduring legacies of the Oxford Chamber Music Festivals: in 2000 the Beethoven septet in St Anthony’s College, and, in recent years, in 2006 Mozart’s String Quintet K581, in 2007 Verklärte Nacht, and in 2008 Vivaldi’s Quattro Stagioni in the University Church. This year it was Schubert’s late, great C major String Quintet played with supreme rapport and intensity by Gowers, Mitchell, Berthaud, Cohen and Værnes Lewis.
The final concert, held again in the University Church, consisted of two works, Brahms’ Piano Quintet and 14 year-old Mendelssohn’s concerto for violin, piano and strings. The former received, to my mind, a slightly ragged performance, as if, perhaps, the church acoustics prevented the players hearing each other well or was it just that they were, like many of the audience, emotionally exhausted by the intensity of what had gone before? It certainly lacked the bite of most of the other performances we had heard. Lonquich was again the pianist. By contrast, the Mendelssohn revived everyone’s spirits and provided a fitting, exhilarating finale, rounding off the personal triumph of Priya Mitchell as Artistic Director who played violin solo with Polina Leschenko on piano with the other string players we had heard providing brilliant support, to the merited ovation.
The running of the Festival was impeccable. This year we were spared obtrusive piano tuners, over-running rehearsals and unfinished compositions. The programme editor Hilary Laurie deserves special mention for the detailed notes, including players' comments and biographies, which made a big contribution to our appreciation, though the second viola player, Maya Rasuli, was missing. The ninth Festival, it is announced, will be held between 29 September and 2 October 2010; the theme will no doubt be equally ingenious. May I beg that it include Zora Slokar in Brahms’ Horn Trio? And some Haydn!
Most of the concerts were held in the Holywell Music Room still undergoing Phase I of the renovation (which should have been completed); we had to contend with wet paint and, at lunchtime concerts, hammering which started up as soon as the music stopped. The alterations are a great success, opening up more space in the entrance hall with a user-friendly box office. One will have to get accustomed to the new dark grey-green colour of the doors (can it be authenticated?) but the installation of handrails on the outside steps will be welcomed by many of the more senior patrons. So far the Appeal has raised £112,000 of the £165,000 required for Phase I. Revised proposals for Phase II will be discussed at Wadham at a meeting in Second Week. I will attempt to keep readers informed.
7 October 2009
Autumn Leaves
This year the two great heralds of the new Oxford Term, the Chamber Music Festival and the Lieder Festival provided an almost continuous orgy of concert-going for almost packed audiences from 1 to 25 October. Such was the quality of the artists and their music-making that both events deserve to be recorded at length
Musica Conclavis: Latin! The Oxford Chamber Music Festival, 2008, 1-4 October..
The 2008 Oxford Chamber Music Festival formed a period of intense listening concentrated in four evening and three lunchtime concerts in the first four days of October (with a launch concert in London on 17 September.) The Festival was entitled ‘Latin! Music from South America, Spain & Italy’. As usual Priya Mitchell, founder and artistic director had called on her wide network of extremely talented musicians to produce programmes, challenging to both players and listeners, so enthusiastically and impeccably performed. One can only guess at the time required from busy careers to study and rehearse new and unfamiliar works – and one can excuse the sometimes late admission to the auditorium because of overrunning rehearsals (leading to what one might call a ‘Latin’ rather than an ‘academic’ quarter)! The programme booklet (with notes by Anthony Burton) was itself a work of art, giving not only details of the works played but also the views of the performers and details of their instruments. What it did not give was who played what, only listing the artists in each concert; the lack of such details, presumably not available on going to press, added to the spirit of informality.
Space restrictions prevent me reviewing each concert in the detail deserved. I can only give my overall personal impressions and recall some of the outstanding performances. Overall, the programme fell into two overlapping parts, one, a tribute to the music of Latin countries performed by mainly Northern and Eastern European players, the other featuring the music of the Argentinean-born cosmopolitan composer Astor Piazzolla, his tango based music and his preferred instrument the originally German, Argentine-adopted, concertina, the bandoneón (all, I confess, new to me so approached with innocent ear).
The first concert, ‘Souvenir della bell’Italia’ got off to a rip-roaring start with Vivaldi’s Opus 1 La Follia Variations. This performance by violinists Priya Mitchell, Sasha Sitkovetsky with a remarkable cellist from Norway, Bjørg Vaernes Lewis with Naoki Kitaya at the harpsichord set the standard for things to come. From the first notes the performance reminded us of the characteristic of these festivals, a richness of sound produced by superb musicians playing fine instruments with individual freedom and yet perfect ensemble. After Mitchell. Sitkowetsky, if anyone, was the star of the Festival, indefatigable whether as soloist or in ensemble. With a style reminiscent of Ruggiero Ricci he tackled Kreisler’s arrangement of the Devil’s Trill Sonata, accompanied by Kitaya on the piano and Ravel’s fiendish Tzigane, partnered by Charles Owen. Kitawa gave a scintillating performance of one of Vivaldi’s many solo concerti for clavicembalo. A second outstanding performer was the oboist Nicholas Daniel, memorable for his sustained phrasing in a concerto by Marcello and in Granados. The latter was part of a concert devoted to songs by Granados, Villa-Lobos and Cinco Canciones Negras by Montsalvatge (a composer unknown to me and additional to the printed programme but very impressive). The singer was the Spanish mezzo Clara Mouriz with a beautiful authentic sound equally powerful and clear over the whole of her extended range. This concert ended with a quintet for klezmer clarinet and strings by Oswaldo Golijov a cosmopolitan composer of East European Jewish origins. This received an extended ovation from the audience; to me it was just very loud.
Two piano quintets were performed. One, by Granados with Diana Ketler as pianist, proved an attractive and not insubstantial work played with great charm. The other, Elgar’s great masterpiece, with Julius Drake, could not really be disguised as Latin; it was some time before the balance between piano and strings was established (with disagreement as to the degree of aggression in the repetitions of the motif which interrupt the opening chords) but the subsequent movements were sublime. Other, light-weight, delights included Stravinsky’s pastiche Suite Italienne played by David Cohen, another fine cellist, with Julius Drake, an eclectic clarinet trio by the film composer Nino Rota played by Chen Halevi (clarinet), Vaernes Lewis and Charles Owen (piano); a quartet by a prodigious 12-year old Rossini introduced the extrovert, virtuoso double-bass player Nabil Shehata. A third violinist, Daniel Rowland, played Soler’s Fandango and Morgan Szymanski, guitar, played in the Boccherini quintet with the same name. Less interesting was the Tchaikowsky Souvenir de Florence for string sextet which I found overlong and rather turgid, redeemed, however, by the dedication of the performers.
Astor Piazzolla (1921-1992) did for the tango what Chopin did for the mazurka and polonaise and what eighteenth century composers did for the allemande, gavotte, bourée, minuet and gigue, converting it from a dance form to music primarily for performing and listening. His music has a cult following, mainly for his recordings playing the bandoneón with the Kronos string quartet. Five Tango Sensations for this ensemble was my first exposure to Piazzolla’s music with the immediate reactions (a) that bandoneón and strings was a combination not entirely comfortable to the ear, (b) the music itself tended to the popular side of the ‘cross-over’ divide. This was not true of the music from L’Histoire du Tango in a later, brunch, concert played on violin and guitar with beautiful rapport between Mitchell and Szymanski.
The bandoneón was played by Marcelo Nisinman, this year’s composer in residence. He gave a talk about his instrument, explaining the appeal of its complexities to the Argentinean soul. The talk was preceded by extracts from a BBC film about Piazzolla and followed by the world première of Nisinman’s composition for the Festival, 4 o’clock (am) tango, an impressive work, somewhat reminiscent of the style of Pierre Boulez, which commanded the attention throughout. This, in turn, was followed by a tango demonstration.
The final concert, entitled Last Tango, was held in the University Church. It consisted of that epitome of Classic FM, Le Quattro Stagioni of Antonio Vivaldi followed by Las Cuatro Estaciones Porteñas by Astor Piazzolla. Each of the three violinists Mitchell, Rowland and Sitkowetsky as soloist led one of the Vivaldi stagione plus one movement of l’iverno with a dramatic enchantment and excitement never experienced before, enhanced by giant shadows of the players projected onto the wall of the nave. To an ear not yet sensitised to the subtleties of Piazzolla, the following performance, led by the bandoleón of Nisiman could not but be an anti-climax, leaving the impression that there can be little climatic seasonal variation in Buenos Aires. Nevertheless it provided a not unworthy finale to the Festival.
Thanks to well orchestrated pre-publicity every concert was sold out, filling the limited capacity of the Holywell Music Room, the Jacqueline du Pré Music Building and the University Church with an expectant latin buzz of anticipation before each concert. The music- making deserved a far wider audience but then it would have lost its intimacy. Those able to attend were lucky indeed!
.......
Priya’s Feast
The Oxford Chamber Music Festival, 26-29 September 2007
The 2007 Oxford Chamber Music Festival, the seventh in the series started in 2000, with the Oxford born violinist, Priya Mitchell as Artistic Director, was an event of outstanding musical significance. Appropriate to the year, the number seven guided the choice of programme. This led to a fascinating selection of works, old and new, familiar and rarely performed, packed into seven concerts. The standard of performance was uniformly unbelievably high. The music was played with such intensity that it demanded the total concentration of the audiences from the first notes of Beethoven’s seventh string quartet to the dying cadences of Schoenberg’s Verklärte Nacht which concluded the proceedings.
In seeking to convey the flavour of the occasion I must start with a confession. I did not attend the opening concert in the Sheldonian, featuring the Beethoven Septet, misguidedly not being prepared to break my self-imposed rule not to attend concerts in that place except Handel, rarely. (I have an abiding memory of a performance of the septet given in St Anthony’s College at the first Festival.) Nor did I attend the Thursday night concert, owing to an antipathy to the music of Messiaen whose Quatuor pour la fin du Temps was played, in a performance, I am assured, which might have won me over. I cannot comment, either, on the light relief of the late night jam session and the two popular afternoon concerts in the Castleyard, which contributed to all-embracing range of instrumental musical experience, a feature of these Festivals.
Savouring the Festival several days after the event, three performers stand out as creating an exceptional impression. In the first of two lunch time concerts in the Holywell Music Room, the French clarinettist Michel Berrod who impressed so much last year in Mozart, played his own seven short improvisations on Christ’s Seven Last Words. These extremely moving virtuoso works employed two clarinets, one an alto prototype under development, and exploited almost beyond the limits the possibilities of the instruments, including percussive effects and triple notes, so much that an inadvertent cough hardly seemed out of place. The concert concluded with Haydn’s seven string quartet movements The Seven Last Words, written for a Good Friday service in Cadiz in 1787. This was a profoundly moving musical experience. But where were the words? Even just the spoken declamation of the words before each movement would have transformed this into a profoundly moving spiritual experience – as it was when I first heard the work performed by The Lindsays in the baroque chapel of S Marie d’en Haut in Grenoble.
The second performer I wish to highlight is the Norwegian pianist Christian Hadland, who bore the brunt of the piano playing throughout the Festival. He has a massive technique revealed in his mastery of Michael Berkeley’s compositions, particularly the passionate Savage Messiah, but the revelation was his playing in César Franck’s piano quintet in a marvellous performance, in which the delicacy of tone he coaxed from the JdP’s Yamaha, contrasted with the robustness of the string playing, giving a new perspective of this glorious work. Hadland opened the final concert with the violinist Laurent Korcia in the sensationally mammoth Sonata No 1 by Béla Bartók, with its captivating Adagio. The other pianist was Julius Drake who with the oboist Nicholas Daniel performed Berkeley’s Fierce Tears, 1, in memoriam Janet Craxton (d 1983) and partnered Mitchell in the Elgar sonata.
The violinist, violist Henning Kraggerud, another Norwegian, was ubiquitous in the ensemble works but his remarkable achievement was the performance of all six of Eugène Ysaÿe’s Sonatas for solo violin, works rarely heard individually and mainly known now through single movements played by prodigies in music competitions. Kraggerud introduced each one, dedicated to a different violinist (friends pictured within?), explaining the works and the relevance of the dedication and the relation with the equivalent sonatas of JS Bach. He made light of the ferocious technical difficulties to bring out the considerable musical depth of these works. This magical performance was enhanced by the candle-lit setting of St Edward’s School Chapel. The standing ovation at the end was totally merited, even if prompted in part by the discomfort of the pews.
The Ysaÿe was the conclusion of an evening at St Edward’s. This had started in the new North Wall Arts Centre with a tribute to the virtuoso violinist, Ivry Gitlis, now in his eighties but remembered for his concert appearances in the years after the Second World War. At the outset he entertained us as the Viktor Borge of the violin, played a little and was interviewed by Pierre-Martin Juban about his heroes and his friends among the musical giants of his youth. The session ended with three early television tapes of his playing, concluding with a divine rendering of the last movement of the Tchaikowski concerto. It was followed by a buffet supper at which we had the opportunity to chat up some of the musicians. I found myself between the Czech harpist Jana Bouskova and the Danish flautist, Janne Thomsen. From the latter I learned that she hails from Holsterbro on the West Coast of Denmark where she has founded her own music festival. Holsterbro was the setting for the film of Karen Blixen’s story Babette’s Feast, suggesting the title of this review. The contribution of these two players, singly and together forms the final strand of my report.
Bouskova made her first appearance, accompanied by flute, clarinet and string quartet, in Ravel’s Introduction and Allegro. This charming work was played with great clarity and innocence, which was characteristic of the soloist, qualities revealed again in her duet with Thomson, the flautist, a dedicatee of the alternately aggressive and lyrical Sweet Breath by Berkeley in a UK premier. The concert also contained a persuasive performance of a Grand Septet by the Swedish composer Franz Berwald (b1795), though I rate him chronologically and as a composer of chamber music mid way between Hummel (b1778) and Reinecke (b1824).
The final concert provided a fitting conclusion to a Festival that will be long remembered by the audiences privileged to attend any of the concerts, limited in size by the choice of ideal performance venues. It epitomised the various elements which made it such a success: balanced programmes giving the opportunity to listen to works rarely heard in live performance because of the resources required, new music by the composer in residence, Michael Berkeley, virtuoso playing as well as disciplined ensemble performance by gifted musicians playing on the finest instruments. Following the Bartók sonata, there followed two works by Berkeley both calmer in tone than those preceding. The first was the neo-baroque Touch Light in an instrumental version for flute (Thomsen), violin (Mitchell) and strings. The second was Seven a haunting seven-minute piece for flute/alto flute, oboe, clarinet, harp, violin, and cello billed as a world premier, though based on earlier compositions. This work, based on a harp ground played by Buskova with perfect control punctuated by pp beats on a gong from the composer himself was a fitting finale to his contribution to the Festival. As last year the Festival concluded with a truly remarkable performance. In 2006 it was Mozart’s string quintet, K581. This year we heard the string sextet version of Verklärte Nacht played by Mitchell, Kraggerud (violins), Mendelssohn, Tomter (violas) and Brendel, Gustafssohn (cellos) with a richness of sound, unity of ensemble and common musicianship which summed up all that had gone before.
No small contribution to the sound quality, above that of the acoustics of the Holywell Music Room, the principal venue, was the awesome provenance of the instruments owned or loaned by the performers (described in the programme), not to mention the pianos there and in JdP, both of which survived tremendous batterings without the obtrusive tuning which marred last year’s event.
Most of the concerts were recorded by the BBC and will be broadcast on Radio3 at lunchtime on Tuesday 13 – Friday 16 November. Don’t miss these, though they will not be the same as the live experience. But be ready to compete for tickets for the 2008 Festival which runs from 24 to 27 September.
6 October 2007
Harmony and Invention
Handel in Oxford, 15-17 September; Oxford Chamber Music Festival, 27-30 September 2006
September and October are Festival months in Oxford. First we had the third Handel in Oxford weekend; the Oxford Chamber Music Festival ran from 27 to 30 September, a ‘triptych’ of music by Mozart, Schumann and Shostakovich. At the time of writing we look forward to the annual Lieder Festival running from 13 until 28 October.
This year’s Handel in Oxford Festival, with Harry Christophers directing his vocal group, ‘The Sixteen’ and The Symphony of Harmony and Invention, followed closely the pattern of last year. Again it was made possible through the generous support of the Zvi & Ofra Meitar Family Fund to whom audiences and performers alike owe tremendous gratitude. Starting with an orchestral concert on the Friday evening, this year ‘Music for Royal Occasions’, there followed a Masterclass on Saturday morning, a literary event in the afternoon and a choral concert, Alexander’s Feast, in the evening. The final event was a chamber concert in the marvellous Grove Auditorium, Magdalen College, perfectly tuned to the enjoyment of baroque music in considerable comfort.
An invincible impediment to those striving for authenticity in the performance of baroque opera is that the sound and the stage presence of castrato singers, the stars of Handel’s day, are completely lost. Thus the title of the masterclass devoted to ‘The Art of the Castrato’ was intriguing and led us to believe we were to hear singers from beyond the grave. In the event, the masterclass, directed by Michael Chance was devoted to three mere live countertenors singing castrato roles from the opera Tamerlano and the oratorio Belshazzar. The question of how close they came to a true castrato sound was not addressed. In a few remarks to the audience, Chance pointed out how ‘countertenor’ was not these days a single voice but paralleled the variety of the castrati. This was admirably illustrated by Christopher Ainslie and Maarten Engeltjes, the former singing Tamerlano with a florid coloratura, the latter Andronico with a more mellow alto sound. Could it be that, with increasing specialisation, countertenors are poised to become an adequate substitute for the castrati in sound and personality? At present one can name but few countertenors with true star quality.
Alexander’s Feast is a setting of John Dryden’s Ode for St Cecilia’s Day, 1697. The connection between Alexander and St Cecilia is, on the face of it, extremely tenuous but, in an admirably lucid pre-concert talk, Suzanne Aspden (Jesus College) linked the two through the alternate title The Power of Music. The connection, nevertheless, remains strange, the power of music being illustrated by recounting how the minstrel Timotheus beguiled Alexander’s guests first by describing the joys of love and then by inciting a retributive strike on Iran (as Persia is known today). It was awe-inspiring to hear this music in the Sheldonian Theatre, where it was performed in July 1738, and to wonder how close the glorious sound produced under Christophers’ direction resembled how it sounded then (at least the castrato problem does not arise). The singing of the eighteen singers of The Sixteen was immaculate with every word audible, every note responsive to their sense. Likewise the soloists also excelled, James Gilchrist (Hyllas in last year’s Hercules), Ben Davies and Lynda Russell (substituting for Susan Gritton), though her words were, sadly, unintelligible. Had the standard been any lower, the singing would have been overshadowed by Alastair Ross‘ organ playing. It turned out to be fortunate that neither of the orchestra’s harps was available, as it enabled us to hear an unforgettable performance of the organ version of the harp concerto which Handel included in the work. This was a virtuoso rendering, with breath-taking trills, every ornament being timed to perfection, only resolving at the last picosecond. Throughout the Festival, Ross tirelessly supported every work with his robust and stylish keyboard continuo.
At last year’s Masterclass on conveying the English language in Handel’s oratorios directed by Ian Partridge, the soprano Elin Manahan Thomas stood out as a particularly talented and responsive student. Known in Oxford for her performances with New Chamber Opera, she is gradually establishing an international reputation, breaking out of the cocoon of The Sixteen. On this occasion she was selected from the group to feature as soloist in four of Handel’s Italian cantatas in the final event of the Festival. The concert also contained a beautifully restrained performance of the well-known trio sonata, Opus 2 no 1, with Walter Reiter (violin) and Katy Bircher (flute) playing with superb musicianship even if the balance was not always perfect.
Manahan Thomas sang with as much clarity in Italian as she had done last year in English, so that her own translations of the four cantatas that she sang were hardly necessary. The contrasting cantatas, tragic, pastoral and comic, from the first decade of the eighteenth century, dealt with a variety of feminine predicaments. The singer entered fully into the characters of each of them giving a complete dramatic interpretation with a vocal performance it is hard to fault. The most dramatic was the extended cantata Agrippina condotta a morire by her son Nero, contrasting her cries for vengeance with her residual maternal feelings. Such was the intensity, one expected the water- bottle standing by the singer’s feet to turn blood red.
…………………………….
The Oxford Chamber Music Festival made a welcome return at the end of September after a break of one year, albeit with a reduced programme. This year, based on St Hilda’s College, the concerts were held in the Jacqueline du Pré Music Building, with an opening concert in the Sheldonian (I did not attend). The Festival, founded by the Oxford-born violinist Priya Mitchell in 2000, again brought together the coterie of prodigiously talented musicians who allow the audience to listen in to their totally dedicated, almost informal, music making. This year the event was entitled Triptych, marking anniversaries of Mozart, Schumann and Shostakovich (not ‘icons’, please, as the publicity would have it). In addition, a composer in residence, Thomas Larcher, brought an element of 21st century tendance contemporaine by doing strange things to the entrails of a Steinway piano. A novel feature this year was readings by Philip Pullman describing the circumstances of the composition of some of the works.
Every successful festival establishes its own characteristic atmosphere that makes it more than just a collection of concert performances. On this occasion, the proceedings were characterised by many late changes in the programme of both works and artists, giving an air of spontaneity which must in fact have been a nightmare for the organisers. The principal reason was the late cancellation of two veteran performers, the eighty-four year old violinist, Ivry Gitlis, undergoing heart surgery in Paris (he is making a good recovery) and the pianist Alexandre Rabinovitch, himself a substitute. Other, non-musical, features which contribute to one’s reminiscence of the Festival were the lunches served in the marquee before the lunchtime concerts and, on the down side, the late start of some concerts due to road-works in the High Street delaying audience arrivals and having to endure the heavy hammering of a piano tuner right up to the start of each concert (this last inevitable by the need to provide adequate rehearsal time).
But to the music: after the opening concert, there were three lunchtime and three evening concerts, devoted to well-known and less well-known works by the composers. I attended at lunchtime and one evening. As to be expected from such musicians the performances were superb and I only comment in detail on particular insights and revelations.
The first concert opened with Schumann’s first violin sonata played by Patricia Kopachinskaya and Polina Leschenko. This was an extraordinary performance, played as a virtuoso tour de force and getting a rapturous reception. However, I had doubts about this approach as an interpretation of Schumann, particularly in the second movement with its simple delicacy. After a piece by Larcher, emulating electronic music from the strings of the piano, there followed a great performance of Shostakovich’s piano quintet, all the more remarkable in that the pianist, Katya Apekisheva, was playing at a few hours notice. The work hinges on the mind-blowing central Scherzo played with appropriate panache but this performance was particularly remarkable for the beautifully controlled coherence of the extended fugal second movement.
Friday’s concerts began with a late substitution of Bach’s first cello suite, played by Natalie Clein with her characteristic total involvement. On this occasion the music came over more intimately for lacking the final polish of a fully prepared concert performance. We also heard violin duets by Shostakovich, a Mozart piano and violin sonata (played with perfect accord by Leschenko and Mitchell), the last and least familiar of Schumann’s three piano trios and more Larcher (including Smart Dust for prepared piano- a piece which, in spite of one’s forebodings, could be said to show valid musical integrity). However, the day belonged to the clarinettist, Philippe Berrod, who played the two Mozart works, the Kegelstatt trio with Julius Drake (piano) and James Boyd (viola) and, in the evening, the quintet. The first movement of the former got off to rather a mannered start but soon settled down into a perfect ensemble, tossing the demi-demi-semi-quaver figure from instrument to instrument. The performance of the quintet was outstanding, perfectly balanced. Berrod has a beautiful sweet tone with none of the coarseness which sometimes afflicts even the best clarinettists. If I am not mistaken, he introduced some extemporaneous decoration at the end of the last movement that sounded absolutely right. These two performances did full justice to Mozart’s love of the instrument.
The final lunchtime concert contained two works separated by an improvisation for solo clarinet. The opening work was a rare opportunity to hear Schumann’s strange variations for two pianos, two cellos and horn. It was a persuasive performance but one is content that the work should remain a rarity. The programme ended with Mozart’s K581 string quintet, played by Mitchell, Gowers (violins), Boyd and Popovici (violas) and Rosefield (cello). I shall remember the Festival principally for the three quintets, two by Mozart and the Shostakovich but the string quintet was outstanding. It is fitting that the most magical moment of all I heard was Artistic Director Priya Mitchell herself playing the opening bars of the last movement with sublime phrasing taken up by the other players in a musical experience long to be savoured.
8 October 2006
Handel in Oxford, 15-17 September; Oxford Chamber Music Festival, 27-30 September 2006
September and October are Festival months in Oxford. First we had the third Handel in Oxford weekend; the Oxford Chamber Music Festival ran from 27 to 30 September, a ‘triptych’ of music by Mozart, Schumann and Shostakovich. At the time of writing we look forward to the annual Lieder Festival running from 13 until 28 October.
This year’s Handel in Oxford Festival, with Harry Christophers directing his vocal group, ‘The Sixteen’ and The Symphony of Harmony and Invention, followed closely the pattern of last year. Again it was made possible through the generous support of the Zvi & Ofra Meitar Family Fund to whom audiences and performers alike owe tremendous gratitude. Starting with an orchestral concert on the Friday evening, this year ‘Music for Royal Occasions’, there followed a Masterclass on Saturday morning, a literary event in the afternoon and a choral concert, Alexander’s Feast, in the evening. The final event was a chamber concert in the marvellous Grove Auditorium, Magdalen College, perfectly tuned to the enjoyment of baroque music in considerable comfort.
An invincible impediment to those striving for authenticity in the performance of baroque opera is that the sound and the stage presence of castrato singers, the stars of Handel’s day, are completely lost. Thus the title of the masterclass devoted to ‘The Art of the Castrato’ was intriguing and led us to believe we were to hear singers from beyond the grave. In the event, the masterclass, directed by Michael Chance was devoted to three mere live countertenors singing castrato roles from the opera Tamerlano and the oratorio Belshazzar. The question of how close they came to a true castrato sound was not addressed. In a few remarks to the audience, Chance pointed out how ‘countertenor’ was not these days a single voice but paralleled the variety of the castrati. This was admirably illustrated by Christopher Ainslie and Maarten Engeltjes, the former singing Tamerlano with a florid coloratura, the latter Andronico with a more mellow alto sound. Could it be that, with increasing specialisation, countertenors are poised to become an adequate substitute for the castrati in sound and personality? At present one can name but few countertenors with true star quality.
Alexander’s Feast is a setting of John Dryden’s Ode for St Cecilia’s Day, 1697. The connection between Alexander and St Cecilia is, on the face of it, extremely tenuous but, in an admirably lucid pre-concert talk, Suzanne Aspden (Jesus College) linked the two through the alternate title The Power of Music. The connection, nevertheless, remains strange, the power of music being illustrated by recounting how the minstrel Timotheus beguiled Alexander’s guests first by describing the joys of love and then by inciting a retributive strike on Iran (as Persia is known today). It was awe-inspiring to hear this music in the Sheldonian Theatre, where it was performed in July 1738, and to wonder how close the glorious sound produced under Christophers’ direction resembled how it sounded then (at least the castrato problem does not arise). The singing of the eighteen singers of The Sixteen was immaculate with every word audible, every note responsive to their sense. Likewise the soloists also excelled, James Gilchrist (Hyllas in last year’s Hercules), Ben Davies and Lynda Russell (substituting for Susan Gritton), though her words were, sadly, unintelligible. Had the standard been any lower, the singing would have been overshadowed by Alastair Ross‘ organ playing. It turned out to be fortunate that neither of the orchestra’s harps was available, as it enabled us to hear an unforgettable performance of the organ version of the harp concerto which Handel included in the work. This was a virtuoso rendering, with breath-taking trills, every ornament being timed to perfection, only resolving at the last picosecond. Throughout the Festival, Ross tirelessly supported every work with his robust and stylish keyboard continuo.
At last year’s Masterclass on conveying the English language in Handel’s oratorios directed by Ian Partridge, the soprano Elin Manahan Thomas stood out as a particularly talented and responsive student. Known in Oxford for her performances with New Chamber Opera, she is gradually establishing an international reputation, breaking out of the cocoon of The Sixteen. On this occasion she was selected from the group to feature as soloist in four of Handel’s Italian cantatas in the final event of the Festival. The concert also contained a beautifully restrained performance of the well-known trio sonata, Opus 2 no 1, with Walter Reiter (violin) and Katy Bircher (flute) playing with superb musicianship even if the balance was not always perfect.
Manahan Thomas sang with as much clarity in Italian as she had done last year in English, so that her own translations of the four cantatas that she sang were hardly necessary. The contrasting cantatas, tragic, pastoral and comic, from the first decade of the eighteenth century, dealt with a variety of feminine predicaments. The singer entered fully into the characters of each of them giving a complete dramatic interpretation with a vocal performance it is hard to fault. The most dramatic was the extended cantata Agrippina condotta a morire by her son Nero, contrasting her cries for vengeance with her residual maternal feelings. Such was the intensity, one expected the water- bottle standing by the singer’s feet to turn blood red.
…………………………….
The Oxford Chamber Music Festival made a welcome return at the end of September after a break of one year, albeit with a reduced programme. This year, based on St Hilda’s College, the concerts were held in the Jacqueline du Pré Music Building, with an opening concert in the Sheldonian (I did not attend). The Festival, founded by the Oxford-born violinist Priya Mitchell in 2000, again brought together the coterie of prodigiously talented musicians who allow the audience to listen in to their totally dedicated, almost informal, music making. This year the event was entitled Triptych, marking anniversaries of Mozart, Schumann and Shostakovich (not ‘icons’, please, as the publicity would have it). In addition, a composer in residence, Thomas Larcher, brought an element of 21st century tendance contemporaine by doing strange things to the entrails of a Steinway piano. A novel feature this year was readings by Philip Pullman describing the circumstances of the composition of some of the works.
Every successful festival establishes its own characteristic atmosphere that makes it more than just a collection of concert performances. On this occasion, the proceedings were characterised by many late changes in the programme of both works and artists, giving an air of spontaneity which must in fact have been a nightmare for the organisers. The principal reason was the late cancellation of two veteran performers, the eighty-four year old violinist, Ivry Gitlis, undergoing heart surgery in Paris (he is making a good recovery) and the pianist Alexandre Rabinovitch, himself a substitute. Other, non-musical, features which contribute to one’s reminiscence of the Festival were the lunches served in the marquee before the lunchtime concerts and, on the down side, the late start of some concerts due to road-works in the High Street delaying audience arrivals and having to endure the heavy hammering of a piano tuner right up to the start of each concert (this last inevitable by the need to provide adequate rehearsal time).
But to the music: after the opening concert, there were three lunchtime and three evening concerts, devoted to well-known and less well-known works by the composers. I attended at lunchtime and one evening. As to be expected from such musicians the performances were superb and I only comment in detail on particular insights and revelations.
The first concert opened with Schumann’s first violin sonata played by Patricia Kopachinskaya and Polina Leschenko. This was an extraordinary performance, played as a virtuoso tour de force and getting a rapturous reception. However, I had doubts about this approach as an interpretation of Schumann, particularly in the second movement with its simple delicacy. After a piece by Larcher, emulating electronic music from the strings of the piano, there followed a great performance of Shostakovich’s piano quintet, all the more remarkable in that the pianist, Katya Apekisheva, was playing at a few hours notice. The work hinges on the mind-blowing central Scherzo played with appropriate panache but this performance was particularly remarkable for the beautifully controlled coherence of the extended fugal second movement.
Friday’s concerts began with a late substitution of Bach’s first cello suite, played by Natalie Clein with her characteristic total involvement. On this occasion the music came over more intimately for lacking the final polish of a fully prepared concert performance. We also heard violin duets by Shostakovich, a Mozart piano and violin sonata (played with perfect accord by Leschenko and Mitchell), the last and least familiar of Schumann’s three piano trios and more Larcher (including Smart Dust for prepared piano- a piece which, in spite of one’s forebodings, could be said to show valid musical integrity). However, the day belonged to the clarinettist, Philippe Berrod, who played the two Mozart works, the Kegelstatt trio with Julius Drake (piano) and James Boyd (viola) and, in the evening, the quintet. The first movement of the former got off to rather a mannered start but soon settled down into a perfect ensemble, tossing the demi-demi-semi-quaver figure from instrument to instrument. The performance of the quintet was outstanding, perfectly balanced. Berrod has a beautiful sweet tone with none of the coarseness which sometimes afflicts even the best clarinettists. If I am not mistaken, he introduced some extemporaneous decoration at the end of the last movement that sounded absolutely right. These two performances did full justice to Mozart’s love of the instrument.
The final lunchtime concert contained two works separated by an improvisation for solo clarinet. The opening work was a rare opportunity to hear Schumann’s strange variations for two pianos, two cellos and horn. It was a persuasive performance but one is content that the work should remain a rarity. The programme ended with Mozart’s K581 string quintet, played by Mitchell, Gowers (violins), Boyd and Popovici (violas) and Rosefield (cello). I shall remember the Festival principally for the three quintets, two by Mozart and the Shostakovich but the string quintet was outstanding. It is fitting that the most magical moment of all I heard was Artistic Director Priya Mitchell herself playing the opening bars of the last movement with sublime phrasing taken up by the other players in a musical experience long to be savoured.
8 October 2006