Most weekdays at the Festival of the Sound have three concerts: one at noon, one at 2:30 pm, and one at 7:30 pm. The two earlier ones usually last about 75 minutes each, and the evening one is usually a full two hours with intermission.
This first week has a strong Russian theme running through it. We may not always think about Russia first when it comes to chamber music, but there are enough fine examples to create several concerts. This week's events have by no means exhausted the possibilities!
On Tuesday we heard the Tiberius Quartet from Romania playing Borodin's String Quartet # 2 -- a work which became newly prominent after the third movement Nocturne was used as the basis of the song "And This Is My Beloved" in the American stage musical Kismet. The nocturne is also heard sometimes in transcription for full orchestra. In its original setting, though, it's basically of a piece with the entire Quartet -- a beautiful, gravely romantic melody, pleasingly harmonized, and with the tune shared around all four players in turn. The Quartet was beautifully played throughout, with a clear singing tone that fits this music so well.
Eachmaninoff's Cello Sonata, Op. 19, is a favourite work of mine -- on recordings. This is the first time I've ever heard it played live, and I came away with a new appreciation of the pianist's witty remark (relayed by James Campbell in his pre-concert speech) that it's actually a sonata for piano, with cello.
Macha Beloousova compassed the fiendish piano writing with flair and panache, as did Michel Strauss in the beautiful but at times inaudible cello part! That sounds rather catty -- and actually, Beloousova did scale her tone down very successfully, in the first two movements in particular. It was in the finale that Strauss was most often submerged in rolling waves of piano tone, but that is one of those insoluble problems that composers throw at musicians from time to time. Dynamic and expressive playing from both, allied to a strong sense of the work's sometimes elusive structure.
Prokofiev's Overture on Jewish Themes, Op. 34, is a work we've heard before, and made a welcome re-appearance. It's a sextet for piano, clarinet, and string quartet, and definitely carries with it that sense of mingled sadness and gaiety so characteristic of traditional Jewish folk music. However, it's believed that the tunes may actually be songs composed in traditional style by the leader of the ensemble for whom Prokofiev originally wrote the piece. Good feel for the klezmer overtones in the music by all concerned in this performance.
Among singers, a good deep bass voice is nearly as rare as a good Wagnerian heldentenor. Canadian bass Robert Pomakov has a powerhouse voice and commands a huge range of dynamics as well as having those rich dark tones in his lower register. He gave a gripping and authentically Slavic performance of Mussorgsky's powerful Songs and Dances of Death. One of the joys of the Stockey Centre for a singer is that you can shade your tone right down to the barest pianissimo and the sound will still travel throughout the hall. Pomakov took full advantage of this favourable environment! He was accompanied by the Gryphon Trio, in an arrangement by Canadian composer Gary Kulesha. The Gryphons are famous for their musicality and sensitivity, and it was on full display as they created musical lines out of the sometimes-fragmentary accompaniments.
The Gryphons gave us a powerfully integrated reading of Tchaikovsky's epic Piano Trio, Op. 50. I've heard this work four times now, but this is the first time I have heard it played by a trio ensemble (rather than by a group assembled for the purpose). Again, this is a work where the piano part occasionally can overwhelm the two string players. One of the two acid tests for this piece is the ability of the pianist to hold the lid on, so to speak, and Jamie Parker did that and more admirably. The other is the handling of the ending. The ecstatic, indeed raucous, celebration of the final variation is suddenly interrupted by a dramatic swerve into the minor key and the return of the opening theme of mourning, with full force. Seldom has the arrival of death in the midst of life been interpreted so dramatically by any composer in "absolute" music. Here the Gryphons not only captured the full pathos of the interruption, but then proceeded through the long final statement of that opening theme at a tempo a shade slower than many artists use, so that every single note registered from all three players. On record, this would definitely be a desert-island interpretation.
Among the perennial Festival favourites are the duo piano team of Anagnoson and Kinton. Their blockbuster showpiece was the Suite # 2 for two pianos by Rachmaninoff, which was composed around the same time as his more famous Piano Concerto # 2. Once you know that, it's easy to spot the family resemblance between some of the themes and harmonies -- first cousins once removed might be about right. The Suite is huge -- in four movements, about half an hour long, and making the utmost demands on both players. As Jim Anagnoson showed us during his short little pre-talk, the pages in the finale are nearly black from the sheer volume of notes. In performance, that blackness translates into an unstoppable torrent of sound that becomes positively volcanic in the closing pages! I have a really close seat, right at the edge of the stage on stage right, and it's a great position from which to watch pianists at work. In this case, I was more than close enough to also follow the careful signals by which these two experienced duet partners communicate with each other while playing. Just to get through to the ending of this work without collapsing is an achievement, but of course Anagnoson and Kinton gave us far, far more than that and I loved every minute of it!
The last big showstopper of the Russian minifest was a performance of the film music from Grigori Kostintev's 1964 film of Hamlet, music which just happened to be composed by a certain Russian composer named Shostakovich (a great favourite of mine). We heard it today in a reduction for string quintet and piano. Now, film music in a concert often doesn't work well, for me anyway. Film themes tend to be short, sequences can be rather bitty, and the whole thing falls rather flat without the visual element that it is designed to accompany. One way to get around that is to bring in an actor to present some sections of the text.
Enter Jeffrey Wetsch, who proceeded to undertake a series of excerpts from Hamlet, spoken either between or through the musical selections. Imagine the fun of starting the performance, as soon as the lights come up, with "To be, or not to be..." because that is exactly what he had to do. He proceeded to present seven sections of Shakespeare, sometimes switching characters with lightning speed. Wetsch's variety of tonal characterization was remarkable, and most necessary in a situation where he had to depend mainly on vocal style. His voice ranged from sombre to ironic, from cajoling to emphatic, the full gamut of moods which Hamlet has to cover. From the moment of drinking the poisoned cup and dying as Gertrude, he jumped instantly to become Hamlet crying out villainy and calling for the doors to be locked. As Hamlet, he roamed around the hall, his voice echoing hollowly from various corners, until he returned to the stage, died, and lay there while the musicians finished the final number of the score. Needless to say he got the lion's share of the applause and cheers that followed. I can assure you that, if I ever chance to hear of a production of Hamlet starring this actor, I will be there if I can possibly manage it!
No comments:
Post a Comment