Daily Archives: 13 August, 2017

Baroque Chamber Music

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St Nicolas Pevensey Saturday 12 August 2017

The Bats may not have been in the belfry but their protected status has meant that the planned restoration work at St Nicolas, Pevensey, has had to be delayed. The accruing benefit has resulted in the church being available for a summer concert from regular visitor baroque flautist Neil McLaren and baroque violinist Jane Gordon.

Their concert opened with a sonata for both instruments by Telemann. With the sun still streaming through the clerestory windows the opening Dolce seemed a perfect reflection of the gentle warmth of a summer evening. The Largo flowed with simple grace before the rapid dance rhythms of the final Vivace with its hints of hurdy-gurdy from the violin.

JS Bach’s Suite in A minor for solo flute has been adapted by Neil McLaren himself to fit the four movements written specifically for flute into the more familiar structure of a suite for solo instruments. In this case he used the opening Prelude and closing Gigue from the second suite in D minor BWV1008 for cello to telling effect. The Prelude pierced through – at times almost uncomfortably aggressive – before relaxing more into the fluidity of the Allemande and Corrente. The Sarabande is a complete contrast, its sense of yearning and sadness always to the fore. The jollier Bourree Anglaise led to the more extrovert tones of the final Gigue but the intense intimacy of the work is never really lost. Telemann’s Canonic Sonata in D concluded the second half with its hints of pastoral rhythms and formal dances.

The second half opened with one of Bach’s greatest works, but one which is probably not as familiar as it should be. The D minor Partita for solo violin ends with the great Ciaccona which is not only a monumental climb for the performer but also a highly demanding call for the listener. The long opening set of variations twist and turn their way through the most frightening of forms before suddenly emerging into the uplands of the major key variations and a sense of paradise beyond the strife. But Bach does not leave us there. He brings us back to the reality of earth but this time reflected in the knowledge that we have glimpsed heaven even if we are not there yet. It is a masterpiece as great as anything else by Bach and was subtly and wonderfully crafted by Jane Gordon.

It was, of course, difficult to follow but CPE Bach’s brief Duo for flute and violin brought the evening to its official close with the slightly tongue-in-cheek dance movements returning a smile to all. As an encore they gave us a brief movement from Rameau’s Les Indes Galante. Let us hope that the bats don’t keep them away for too long.

Prom 36

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Royal Albert Hall, 12 August 2017

It is Thomas Dausgaard’s extraordinary control over dynamics that I shall remember most about this concert. In the Schubert he had the upper strings whispering so softly that they were hardly there which made those punctuating sforzandos all the more dramatic. At the end of the Mahler the sound simply died away, while 5000 people waited, breath held, for the baton to drop (and it was a long time) despite the earlier inappropriate applause at the end of powerfully moving movements in both works.

It is an inspired programming idea to give us a pair of unfinished (arguably valedictory) symphonies composed 90 years apart. Here the Schubert stood gloriously self contained in its two movements – both in triple time with all that familiar B minor melancholy. Dausgaard has a knack of really making you listen (to the cello opening and the anguish in the second movement for example) with the results that this performance sounded delightfully fresh. Even the slight raggedness in the syncopated theme in the first movement was only a momentary distraction.

The Mahler, in contrast, was presented here as completed by Deryck Cooke and a team of three others as it almost always is. This version was first played at the Proms in 1964 and this was its seventh performance there. The opening adagio (pretty much pure Mahler) with its unusual gift to violas at the start gave Dausgaard plenty of scope to squeeze out every drop of dynamic contrast although sadly, when the music is as quiet as that one becomes more conscious of audience noise and fidgeting. Both scherzos and the playful but doom laden Purgatorio added to the sense of Mahler’s anguish – when this symphony was drafted he was both dying and dealing with his wife’s infidelity. This felt like an authentically autobiographical performance and a poignant one.

The high spot of Mahler 10 is, of course, the moment when the second scherzo, the fourth movement, gives way to the finale. Dausgaard, who described the music in this symphony as “transcendental” in conversation with Sean Raffery on Radio 3’s in Tune last week, really leaned on  those extraordinary resonant silences which lurk menacingly in the dialogue between bass drum and tuba. Yes, we were suddenly a very long way from the Schubert we’d heard an hour earlier.

Congratulations to the BBC Scottish Symphony orchestra for all of this. The Mahler, in particular, is an exhausting work to play but there was never any sense of dipping energy levels. Rather the playing (Charlotte Ashton’s long flute solo in the Mahler, for instance) was always fine and often exciting. If this is the quality they can achieve with their new chief conductor then I look forward to more.

SE

 

Stephen Page at Church in the Wood

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Friday 11 August 2017

The Viscount organ in Church in the Wood can sound quite different depending upon where you are sitting as the speakers are placed throughout the building, the choir being high up in the chancel. On this occasion I sat close to the font which seemed to be a good position both for impact and balance.

Stephen Page opened with a breezy account of Herbert Murrill’s Carillon before moving on to two classical works. JS Bach’s Prelude in G major BWV541 demonstrated the bright top work on the organ and some fine articulation. By total contrast, he then gave us the delicate intimacy of a Sonata for a musical clock by Handel – the final movement deftly reflecting the familiar tones of the Harmonious Blacksmith.

George Oldroyd’s Liturgical Prelude No3 was in more romantic vein even if it maintained an obvious close connection with liturgical compositions.  Stanley Vann’s Hymn Prelude: Blaenwern enabled Stephen to demonstrate the string sounds of the organ with its gently flowing meter, before two chorale-improvisations by Karg-Elert –the first a less familiar but warmly enclosing O my soul, rejoice with gladness before the popular Nun danket. The range of tone which this organ can provide was clear in Ireland’s charming Vilanella which led into the more populist part of the evening, opening with a rousing Crown Imperial by Walton.

One of the benefits of an electronic organ is the variety of stops open to the designer and the next few pieces clearly showed the range available. C Armstrong Gibbs Dusk included piano and/or xylophone together with some theatre organ sounds, but it was Leslie Clair’s Dance of the Blue Marionettes which gave us the full Wurlitzer. But Stephen was able to top even this when Ketelbey’s In a monastery garden rang with tubular bells alongside the organ.

The evening ended with a number of familiar community songs – though The Lost Chord­ seemed a little lost on some of the audience! – and an encore, more Walton in the shape of the Spitfire Prelude.

All of the above was sandwiched between a summer evening stroll in the woods and a fish and chip supper. Who could wish for more?