Sunday 24 September 2017

Flair and Fire, Poetry and Passion

The title describes the only right way to perform the classical music from the great Spanish composers of the late 19th and early 20th century.  That is precisely the way the Cheng²Duo played throughout an evening of Spanish music for cello and piano on Saturday night.

It's hard to describe the characteristic Spanish sound that informs so much of this music without going into almost poetic overkill.  The popular image of proud posture, flashing eyes, stamping feet and whirling skirts in the famous flamenco is not far off the mark.  Neither is the image of a man strumming a guitar and singing a love song while a young woman blushes becomingly at the window, her face coyly hidden behind a black lace fan.  In more mundane terms, think of fingers plucking at a guitar and then listen; you will hear hints of that characteristic sound everywhere in these works.

Aside from sounding "Spanish," several of these composers went in for dense chromatic chording, and particularly for chording at the low end of the piano keyboard, which gives a characteristic rich sound that can easily become dense and congested if not handled with care.

This is also music of the Romantic era, music which requires the widest range of dynamics, and this we certainly got from the Cheng²Duo -- whisper-quiet yet perfectly audible pianissimos and emphatic but not congested or clangorous fortissimos.

The concert opened with the famous Intermezzo from the opera Goyescas, by Enrique Granados.  Although composed for orchestra, this piece transcribed well for the duo.

This popular lollipop was followed by a truly challenging work, the Malagueña from the two-book piano collection España by Isaac Albeniz.  España has been described with good reason as one of the hugest challenges ever presented to any pianist.  Transcribing the Malagueña for cello and piano didn't lessen any of the music's harmonic or rhythmic complexities, and the Cheng²Duo delivered a fiery performance that made it all sound easy.

Then Granados again -- the single most performed piece he ever wrote, the Andaluza (#5) from his twelve Danzas Españolas.  It's a perennial favourite of pianists and classical guitarists, many of whom believe it was actually written for the guitar!  Here, the Duo caught the ideal flexibility of tempo, the idea of a breathing pause, "a strongly presented moment" as Alicia de Larrocha once said, without ever overdoing it or breaking the essential flow of the piece.

The highlight of the first half was the piano-cello arrangement of the Seven Popular Spanish Songs by Manuel de Falla.  This cycle condenses a huge variety of moods, from passionate anger to gentle quietness, all into seven short movements.  I'm sure that I wasn't the only one holding my breath to avoid breaking the magical spell in the quiet, sustained melody of Nana, with Bryan Cheng's cello spinning out a mere thread of tone.  By contrast, the stabbing anger of the concluding Polo owed much of its power and volume to Silvie Cheng's emphatic delivery of the bass-heavy staccato chords low on the piano keyboard.

The same composer's Danza Española from the one-act opera La Vida Breve brought the first half to a suitably rousing conclusion.

So far, we might have been listening to a "greatest Spanish classical hits" compilation.  But in the second half, we came to some less familiar -- but no less rewarding -- music.  Silvie Cheng came first to perform the first of the three Danzas fantasticas, "Exaltacion", Op. 22 No. 1 by Joaquin Turina.  This piece was notable for the complex textures which she made completely clear throughout.  I'm only sorry that the programme didn't allow enough time for her to perform all three of these pieces. 

Bryan Cheng then joined her for a piece entitled Requiebros ("Compliments"), by cellist/composer Gaspar Cassado, dedicated to his mentor, Pablo Casals.  Here we heard the classic Spanish sounds again, but updated with some more advanced harmonies.

The great reward of the second half for me was the Suite for Solo Cello by Cassado.  It's hard to escape the feeling that Bach went to Spain for a holiday, since the uniquely human sound of the solo cello is so strongly identified with Bach's famous suites for that instrument.  Here, though, we have the idiomatic sounds of Spanish dance rather than the classic courtly dances of the Baroque.  Bryan Cheng played with great feeling, ranging from the rather inward, meditative sounds of the Preludio-Fantasia to the more playful Sardana, and then the fiery Intermezzo e Danza Finale.  He also solved the technical challenge of maintaining the rhythmic through line of the dance while necessarily being held up to play arpeggio chords across the strings.  A fascinating performance of a rarely-heard work.

The programme closed with a musical bonbon which, in this context, was a kind of impostor.  Pablo de Sarasate may have been Spanish by ancestry, but the violinist-virtuoso-composer's famous Ziguenerweisen lives entirely in the mittel-Europa gypsy tradition.  Nor is this surprising, because that was Sarasate's musical world, the world of Liszt and other contemporary virtuosi -- the great flowering of Spanish classical music represented by Granados, Albeniz, and de Falla was just gathering speed as Sarasate died in 1908.

Anyway, Ziguenerweisen is a famous and well-loved showpiece for the violin.  I've heard it before many times, but never played on a cello.  Bryan Cheng's fingers were definitely flying as he had to stretch twice as far as a violinist to perform the same high-speed extensions.  The casual aplomb with which the tossed off Sarasate's virtuoso fireworks was a sight to behold.  

The rightly-earned standing ovation then brought forth a single encore -- but what an encore!  Manuel de Falla's famous Ritual Fire Dance from El amor brujo ("Spell-Bound Love") ended the evening on a resounding note of triumph.  This piece famously includes passages where a thrumming rhythm is played very softly and then instantly leaps to a fortissimo.  These dynamics were stretched right to the limit in both directions, adding to the excitement of the music, and the accelerating conclusion flew right off into space at blinding speed.

I'd be perfectly happy to sit down and listen to this magical programme of Spanish music from the Cheng²Duo again.  Lucky for us, the Duo will soon be taking this music into the recording studio and the CD version will be available next year.  Based on last night's concert, this should be a powerful, energetic, and gripping recording.

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