This whole week at the Festival of the Sound has been rather like a Schubertiade, with works by this composer cropping up in the majority of the concerts.
Start with the string quartets. There are three major Schubert quartets that come from the final years of his life. These "big three" each have their own distinguishing characteristics, and it's hard to imagine three works for the same combination of instruments that could be more unlike each other.
The first one we heard was the A Minor Quartet (D.804 in the Deutsch catalogue of Schubert's music). It's commonly referred to as the Rosamunde Quartet, because the slow movement uses a lovely melody from one of the entr'actes of his music for that resounding flopperoo of a stage play -- see that story in my companion blog under the heading of Meet the Princess of Cyprus!
Unlike several other cases where Schubert recycled a much-loved melody, he did not write a set of variations on the theme here. It appears, says its say, leads to other melodic developments, returns once as a kind of recapitulation and then is heard no more. The most ear-catching movement of this quartet, for me, is the graceful minuet -- really a pair of minuets -- which replaces the more usual scherzo in third place. It's by no means the only spot where this piece harks back to the more courtly world of the eighteenth century. The whole work is a beautiful example of Schubert at his lyrical best, and was beautifully played by the Brodsky Quartet. On the same program they also gave us the earlier Quartettsatz ("Quartet Movement") in C Minor, D.703, a more dramatic work which remained as a single movement since Schubert never wrote any companions for it.
Then it was the turn of the Penderecki Quartet to present the G Major Quartet, D.877. My own sense of this titanic and revolutionary work is that it became "the road not followed" in the evolution of chamber music. Musicologist Jeff Stokes made much in his pre-concert lecture about how certain features of the quartet (especially the extraordinary use of tremolando effects) later reappeared in the symphonies of Mahler and Bruckner, but I would suggest instead that those features evolved more along the path from Beethoven's late symphonies through the dramatic orchestration of Wagner. Just my thinking. Certainly no later composer of chamber music followed Schubert's lead.
This is a strange and disconcerting sound world, where the chord structure of the music keeps making lightning-fast shifts between major and minor and back again, while the frequent tremolandos increase the intensity. Since the themes are already pretty heavy-duty in that field, the whole experience is breathtaking -- especially when given with the power that the Penderecki ensemble brought to it. But it's not a comfortable or entertaining piece, by any stretch, for either performers or listeners, and will (I think) always remain a rare bird in performance.
I'm going to deal with the third of the "Great Three" in a separate post for reasons which will become obvious when I do it!
Like the quartets, Schubert's piano sonatas conclude with a group of three which stand alone for power as well as for experimentation and unique effects. We heard Leopoldo Erice in the last one, D.960 in B flat major. He prefaced it with the Impromptu No. 3 in G flat major, D.899, one of the most graceful and most difficult of Schubert's piano utterances. Keeping the melody audible on the 5th finger while the same hand plays a rippling flow of notes on the other fingers, at the same time keeping the whole process both quiet and gentle, is a real technical challenge (as I can attest -- I've tried to play this piece without a whole lot of success!). In Erice's hands, it sounded both easy and inevitable.
The Sonata was a performance of breathtaking power. Erice stretched the limits with prolonged pauses in the first two movements, but such was the intensity of his concentration that the audience stayed right in the music with him. In a recording for repeated listening, this might become annoying but as a live performance it was completely involving and gripping. The third and fourth movements crackled with energy and fire as the music lifted off at very fast tempo indeed.
Other works by Schubert were spread through the week, here and there. The String Trio in B flat major, D. 471, in one movement, came across beautifully as played by the Magellan Ensemble. So did the one-movement Piano Trio in B flat, D.28, as given by the Land's End Ensemble.
Two of the most beautiful lyrical outpourings of Schubert's genius were also played. One was the lovely Adagio (Notturno) for piano trio, D. 897. The melodies of this piece, moving in parallel thirds and fourths on violin and cello, have always sounded to me for all the world like an operatic duet in instrumental form. This lovely song without words is almost a first cousin to Bizet's Au fond du temple saint from the opera Les Pecheurs de Perles, a favourite operatic highlight. And then there was the equally lovely Andantino varie in B minor, D.823 for piano 4-hands, which like so much of Schubert's magnificent work for that medium languishes in undeserved obscurity today.
No Schubertiade would be complete without song, and on Friday afternoon we had a delightful recital of Romantic lieder by Schubert, Schumann and Brahms, combined with a couple of Mendelssohn's Songs Without Words for piano. The concert began with the Schumann group, then one of the Mendelssohn pieces, then the Brahms group, the other Mendelssohn piece, and finished with a set of eight songs by Schubert, including some of the best-loved of Schubert's over 600 lieder.
I was pleasantly surprised by the three performers. This was not the first time I had encountered Peter McGillivray as a lieder singer, but his art in this field has gone through quantum improvement in the years since I last heard him. I had never heard soprano Leslie Fagan singing lieder before, but only operatic music, and the two sound-worlds can be very different. But no fear -- Fagan is a consummate artist, and proved every bit as fine in this repertoire. Both singers made good use of the fine acoustics of the Stockey Centre to shade their voices right down to the edge of audibility, especially in Der Tod und das Mädchen ("Death and the Maiden") which was presented as a duet.
Fagan made her mark readily in the famous Gretchen am Spinnrade ("Gretchen at her Spinning Wheel"), a song which is really an operatic aria in all but name. She was equally effective, and equally at home in the light, playful folksong style of Heidenröslein ("The Rose on the Heath"). Fagan is famous for her sense of humour and her hearty laugh, and these certainly emerged in this song!
McGillivray was especially impressive for his control in the slow, quiet music of Wanderers Nachtlied ("Wanderer's Night Song") and Meeres Stille ("Becalmed Sea").
I've also never heard pianist Leopoldo Erice in the role of accompanist before, but there's no question in my mind that he is the genuine article (and genuine accompanists are very rare artists indeed!). In his playing, the audience had no trouble catching the images of Schubert's highly visual piano writing, such as the starting and stopping of the spinning wheel in Gretchen, or the rippling waters of the brook in Die Forelle. His sensitive work set the seal on a highly-successful lieder recital.
The recital programme ended with with a delightful duet rendition of Die Forelle ("The Trout"), and with the two singers making faux-sad faces at each other at the fate of the poor fish -- until they dissolved in laughter again! But that was not the end. For an encore, singers and accompanist joined in Schubert's An die Musik ("To Music"). In my current state of mind and emotion, this beautiful song, with its lovely final modulation in the piano at the end of each verse, brought me to the edge of tears:
You lovely art, in how many grey hours,
When life's mad whirl beset me,
Have you kindled my heart to warm love,
Have you transported me into a better world,
Transported into a better world!
Often has a sigh flowing out from your harp,
A sweet, divine harmony from you
Unlocked to me the heaven of better times,
You lovely art, I thank you for it!
You lovely art, I thank you.
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