Coffee Concerts

The Brighton Dome Corn Exchange, 10 November 2013

I wasn’t sure about today’s concert. Solo baroque violin is a long way from our core repertoire of string quartets, and some of the advertised composers are a long way from being household names: Pisendel, Roman, Matteis, Biber. But I was encouraged  that it was given by Rachel Podger, who is known as one of the world’s foremost baroque violinists. And the fact that the concert was sold out suggests that others knew something I didn’t know.

Rachel entered dressed like an angel, from her mass of golden hair to her golden sandals: a reference to her CD called Guardian Angel from which today’s pieces were taken. She started with the sonata by Johann Georg Pisendel written about 1716: a minor work that she brought to life with her extraordinary playing. It helps that she has a lovely warm tone, that her considerable technique seems effortless, that she can convey a range of emotions from a gentle caress to a furious onslaught. But at the heart of her magic is her phrasing.

In her masterclass at Brighton College the day before, she talked about baroque phrasing: that you ease into a note, allow it to swell to its full volume, and then subside. It’s a phrasing made easier by the use of the baroque bow which is lighter than a modern bow, especially towards the tip, and wound to a lower tension. It’s also suited to gut strings, which often growl if attacked in a more modern way of playing. She also spoke about how the same shape applies to a phrase – whether just two notes together or a longer phrase. Today, in her playing, she demonstrated this: every phrase was exquisitely shaped as was every note within that phrase. You knew immediately what each note was doing there and where that phrase was going. What I have called a minor work became enthralling music in her hands. What part of a performer do you watch most? With Rachel it was the grace and precision of her bowing arm and the fluidity of her wrist that I found compelling.

I had my favourites among the lesser known works: three movements by Nicola Matteis, the man who walked from Italy across the Alps with his violin under his coat, to reach the court of Charles II in England and who taught the English violinists to rest their instruments on their chests instead of on their laps. And above all, the Passacaglia by Heinrich Ignaz Franz Biber – a repeated 4 note descending scale on which Biber embroiders the most wonderful extravaganzas. The violinist is playing two parts: the 4 note scale and the extravaganza above (and occasionally below) it. Despite the pyrotechnics involved Rachel was always able to bring out that scale. It helped that she had explained the structure of the piece in advance. And while on the subject of her explanations, she was a delight to listen to: bubbling with enthusiasm, hugely informative, totally understandable.

What would I do if I were to plan next year’s concerts? I must confess that, with string quartets or closely related forms, I enjoy the intensity of communication between players, the huge repertoire of great works, the variety of closely-related sounds that a group of string players can make. Against that I have to say that a solo player gives the audience a chance to appreciate one person’s unique approach to music, which has not been modified to blend into a group. In responses to last year’s Strings Attached questionnaire several people said they did not favour concerts featuring voice “unless it was Mark Padmore” following his performance with the Britten Sinfonia. I feel the same about solo violin: “unless it is Rachel Podger”.

Andrew Polmear

The Brighton Dome Corn Exchange, 13 October 2013

Sunday morning in October, steady rain and about 300 people in the Corn Exchange for the first coffee concert of the series. Something serious must be going on. The first sight of the Corn Exchange was a disappointment; we were in the raked seating because the Corn Exchange was set up for the Comedy Festival and could not accommodate seating us in the round. But after that everything got better, even before the players came on. There were no chairs, just a stool on a platform for the cellist. And the players had provided their own stands, with elegant side extensions so that three or four sheets could be displayed at the same time. The stands were arranged in a straight row instead of the usual semicircle, so that the players faced straight into the audience. Then they came on. Everything about them confirmed their seriousness. Identical black suits, except that the cellist wore a waistcoat; identical cufflinks; the same shine on the patent leather shoes; just a hint of individuality in the hairstyles: both lower string players had long hair, held in place by different types of Alice band. They stood still until they had complete silence; then readied their instruments, again holding their positions for several seconds, before moving into the warmest, most sensitive rendering of those opening 18 bars of Mendelssohn’s opus 13 I have ever heard. All the attention given to their presentation now made sense as they showed the same seriousness in their playing. Their precision was extraordinary, their range of expression huge, without ever being showy. Some people still think of Mendelssohn as lightweight. This was the performance to put such nonsense completely to rest.

There is a lot more to say about their playing: their instruments blended perfectly together, their tempi seemed just right. At the bottom of it all was something the leader said afterwards: that they approach the piece with the aim of finding the essence in every bar. And that is how it felt. One example came in the second movement. After some particularly expressive writing Mendelssohn introduces a fugue which starts in the viola before being taken up by the other three players. To bring out the point that something different was happening they played the fugue without vibrato. It was like a blow to the stomach.

The other three pieces were Russian, starting with Prokofiev’s Visions Fugitives. Prokofiev wrote 20 of these little pieces, each one based on the personality of a friend, as Elgar did in the Enigma Variations. It seems that Prokofiev had a lot more friends than Elgar and they were certainly more fun. More seriously, the contrast showed the extraordinary development in music over the 16 years between the two works. Incidentally, if you are still puzzling over the huge mutes the players used in the Prokofiev, they are practice mutes designed to give a much quieter sound than an performance mute, so as not to disturb the neighbours. The sound wasn’t just quieter, it was thrillingly different.

Stravinsky’s short Concertino was, at first hearing, an exciting work that starts with an almost jazz-like syncopation and moves through a variety of moods in just six minutes. But then came the Shostakovich fourth quartet; a work of searing melancholy mingled with humour and even gaiety, played with such understated feeling that at the end the audience behaved as though stunned. Had they ended with a showy piece we would have stood and cheered. But this was better, and they were right to decide against an encore.

Did the daring programming work? Absolutely. No-one in the audience had come along for an easy romp through the old favourites; and this quartet could have played Berio and we would have been with them.

Chris Darwin, who wrote the review of the Jubilee Quartet concert, wrote about the dead acoustic at this end of the Corn Exchange, where all four sides are curtained. For me in the front row there was no problem at all, but those further back confirmed that the lack of resonance was a problem, as did the players. They overcame it by playing more fully, and making notes longer than they would in a more resonant hall. I gather we’ll be back in the round in the centre of the hall for the next concert. There will be no problem with lack of resonance there.

Finally, speaking of Chris Darwin, it’s always a relief to find that he is writing the programme notes for another season. It’s like the relief one has, after being abroad for some time, coming back to find that George Alagiah is still reading the BBC news.

Andrew Polmear

The Brighton Dome Corn Exchange, 3 October 2013

I have heard tell that Günter Pichler, leader of the Alban Berg quartet, used to practise in high temperature and humidity wearing a fur coat, so as to be prepared for extreme conditions during a performance.  But one of the conditions that dedicated practice can do little to compensate for is the acoustics of the venue.  Thanks to the ongoing Comedy Festival, the Jubilee Quartet had to perform last night  in the northern half of the Corn Exchange.  Its acoustic, thanks to acres of plush curtain and a splendidly full audience in its cramped raked seating, was dry – well, actually, dead.  The obvious consequence of such a dead acoustic for the audience is that the balance is capricious.  We, back right, heard little of the viola and cello; a friend, front left heard too little of the violins.  More worryingly, a dry acoustic is unnerving for the players who can hear their own instrument but not much else, encouraging a cautious approach to playing, rather than the bolder approach that would help build up the sound.

At the launch concert for the new Strings Attached Coffee Concert Series at the Dome, the young Jubilee Quartet coped magnificently with these difficulties.  For me, the highlight of the evening was Janacek’s ‘Intimate Letters’ quartet, a characteristically episodic piece where much of the interest is in the local detail of each episode – something which the dry acoustic actually helped one to hear. The quartet captured convincingly the passionate torment behind the music, and special mention should go to Amy Tress, who gave a confidently lyrical performance of a notoriously difficult second violin part in this her first concert with the Jubilee Quartet.  There was also fine playing from the quartet in the other two items.  In the slow movement of Haydn’s Op 54 no 2 quartet there was a wonderfully wayward riff from the leader Tereza Privratska, and glorious cello arpeggios from Lauren Steel in the last movement.  The impact of Schubert’s incomparable “Death and the Maiden” quartet was weakened for me by the impossibility of building up a full body of sound in the dry acoustic, despite passionate and dedicated playing by this talented young group.

Mary McKean, chair of Strings Attached, assured the audience that future concerts, after October, in the main Coffee Concert Series will be in the southern half of the Corn Exchange.  Both audience and players will be relieved at that and we look forward to a wonderful season.

Chris Darwin   4 October 2013