{"id":4771,"date":"2018-11-22T11:51:22","date_gmt":"2018-11-22T11:51:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.larkreviews.co.uk\/?p=4771"},"modified":"2018-11-22T11:51:22","modified_gmt":"2018-11-22T11:51:22","slug":"highgate-international-chamber-music-festival","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.larkreviews.wickedlemon.co.uk\/?p=4771","title":{"rendered":"Highgate International Chamber Music Festival"},"content":{"rendered":"

20 November, St Michael\u2019s Church, Highgate<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

This imaginatively programmed chamber concert opened and closed with substantial works (Beethoven String Trio in G Op 9 no 1 and Schubert Piano Quintet in A D.667 Op 114 \u2018Trout\u2019) and sandwiched other slighter \u2013 but interestingly varied \u2013 pieces in the middle. It meant that we heard seven talented musicians in a range of contexts including duets which showcased a great deal of pretty stunning virtuosity.<\/p>\n

Kenneh-Mason, as we\u2019re rapidly realising, can play anything and wow an audience with it. If he gave us a one octave G major scale he\u2019d make it sing. His rendering, in this concert, of Bloch\u2019s Prayer from Jewish Life (immaculately accompanied by Irina Botan) brought out all the mournfully, soulfully evocative minor key richness in the piece and I loved the way he leaned on that dramatic quarter tone moment just before the end.<\/p>\n

He and Ashok Klouda had fun with the South American dance rhythms and that catchy refrain in Jose Elizondo\u2019s Autumn in Buenos Aires for two cellos too \u2013 lots of smiling eye contact and evident pleasure both in music and in working together.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s also good, to hear a live performance of Mahler\u2019s 1876\u00a0 single movement A Minor piano quartet written while he was still a student. It\u2019s an evocative piece, very familiar from radio but I don\u2019t recall ever hearing it in concert before. It was played here with lots of youthful emotion exactly as the young Mahler probably intended.<\/p>\n

The Beethoven trio, with which the concert opened\u00a0 is, of course, a pretty little gem. I admired the handling of\u00a0 incisive contrasts in dynamic and tempi, especially in the Allegro con Brio which were well supported by the acoustic in the cavernous Victorian space of St Michael\u2019s Church. The concert was sold out and the church full to the rafters so all those bodies softened the echo rather well. Another high spot in the trio was the finely judged melodic weaving by the first violin (Alexander Sitkovetsky) in the Adagio Cantabile.<\/p>\n

And so to the utter joy of the Trout quintet with Simon Callaghan on piano and the very charismatic Chi-chi Nwanoku reading her double bass part from an iPad and dancing her way communicatively though the music. I admired the apparently effortless, graceful work in the variations which comprise the\u00a0 famous andantino \u2013 especially Alexander Sitovetsky on violin. This lovely performance was also graced by an exceptionally slick scherzo.<\/p>\n

The gallery at St Michael\u2019s is cursed by some of the most uncomfortable seating it has ever been my misfortune to spend time in. Fortunately the quality and exuberance of the music superseded it \u2013 mostly. How about some reserved ground floor seating for the press next time?<\/p>\n

Susan Elkin<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

20 November, St Michael\u2019s Church, Highgate This imaginatively programmed chamber concert opened and closed with substantial works (Beethoven String Trio in G Op 9 no 1 and Schubert Piano Quintet in A D.667 Op 114 \u2018Trout\u2019) and sandwiched other slighter … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.larkreviews.wickedlemon.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4771"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.larkreviews.wickedlemon.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.larkreviews.wickedlemon.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.larkreviews.wickedlemon.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.larkreviews.wickedlemon.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4771"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.larkreviews.wickedlemon.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4771\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4772,"href":"https:\/\/www.larkreviews.wickedlemon.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4771\/revisions\/4772"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.larkreviews.wickedlemon.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4771"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.larkreviews.wickedlemon.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4771"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.larkreviews.wickedlemon.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4771"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}