Coffee Concerts

The Dome took a risk with this one. Just to get things clear, the Dome chooses and books the players, Strings Attached looks after the audience, and keeps the Dome informed about what that audience wants. That Strings Attached audience, descended as it is from the Old Market Coffee Concert audience, is used, in the main, to string quartets from the 18^th and 19^th century. Here, on 20th January 2013, they got 20^th and 21^st century pieces for tenor, horn and piano, the only strings being a cello in the opening piece.

It worked, judging from the buzz in the interval and at the end. It worked because the performers were world class, they related to their audience as though they were comfortable with us and interested in us, and the music was sometimes great and always interesting. Also there was a satisfying logic to the pieces; connections were made between the Richard Rodney Bennett, Britten and Gerald Barry pieces stylistically, between the Poulenc and the Britten via Denis Brain the horn player, between the Walton and the Britten, the words of both written by Edith Sitwell.

The programme began with Richard Rodney Bennett’s Tom O’Bedlam, new I imagine, like much of this programme, to the audience. It’s a powerful setting of a poem from the 17^th century, for tenor and cello. It’s stark, uncomfortable music in which the cello and voice intertwine, react with each other, and sometimes go off on their own. Committed performances from Mark Padmore and Caroline Dearnley brought it to life, the cold image of the mad beggar enhanced by the branches of the trees in the Pavilion Gardens, heavy with snow, seen through the Corn Exchange windows behind the performers. An extra excitement was that Caroline played, for the first time, from music on the screen of her iPad rather than from a printed score. There was a practical reason for this: the music doesn’t stop for her to turn the page and there are thirteen pages. However, to the delight of the technophobes in the audience, the foot pedal that should have moved the image on the screen failed, and Caroline had to have the screen changed by an assistant manually.

Poulenc’s Elégie for horn and piano is an easier piece to get a handle on but it’s not the languorous writing of his songs. It’s strangely declamatory, finally resolving into an ending that is quiet and peaceful, the horn part played by Richard Watkins with just about the quietest playing I have ever heard from the horn.

The world premiere of Gerald Barry’s Jabberwocky followed. The words are from the Lewis Carroll poem but sung in French then in German. It was performed with utter conviction by Mark Padmore and Huw Watkins on piano. The performance stays with me still but I’m not sure the music would alone.

After the interval William Walton’s three songs were fun – Mark Padmore convincing again in English, Spanish and American modes. But then everything changed. The opening of Britten’s Canticle III Still Falls the Rain is enough to stop the heart: a plainsong-like refrain moving slowly in semitones and repeated with every verse as Edith Sitwell uses the Crucifixion to describe the fate of mankind. And then in the middle of music of unbearable intensity, the tenor speaks these words from Marlowe’s Dr Faustus:

“ O Ile leap up to my God
Who pulles me doune
See, see where Christ’s blood streames in the firmament”.

It was worth struggling through the snow for this piece alone; worth it for those three spoken lines.

Andrew Polmear

The Corn Exchange, 16 December 2012

We’ve seen quite a bit of the Heath Quartet since they became quartet in residence at the Dome 2 years ago. There’s a lot to be said for getting to know one Quartet well: it’s interesting to see how their playing changes over time, and how they tackle one composer when we’ve heard them playing other, very different pieces. It also allows us to get to recognise them as individual players and to see how that individuality merges into the whole.

Oliver Heath is immediately recognisable. He sits very upright and has the best cut jacket and tightest trousers in the business. There is something elegant, composed, even masterly about his posture, not to mention his playing. Cerys Jones, on second violin is the opposite, much more free moving – she adopts a positively combative stance, legs apart, when the music gets a bit fierce. Gary Pomeroy on viola seems to smile throughout. I asked him once if he was really smiling and he said he wasn’t aware of it. Perhaps it’s how he looks when he concentrates. Anyway, it makes him a joy to watch. Christopher Murray on cello used to be the least demonstrative of the four but no longer. He now looks as though he’s really enjoying himself, and even allows himself a rueful smile on the one occasion he got a bit behind with a fast passage.

Does this matter? It does to me. It’s part of the experience of being there; of hearing the music played by human beings. It makes it all the more extraordinary that they then play as one: the tone of their instruments so similar and complementary, their phrasing identical, their ensemble so impeccable.

The concert started with the leader with his back to the raised seats, with the second violin opposite him, and the cello to his left and the viola to his right. You can only do this in the round and it emphasises the relationship between the two violins – sometimes together, sometimes in opposition. Playing in the round has the disadvantage that we hear most clearly the instruments that point towards us. I don’t find this a huge problem and it is more than overcome by the great advantage of playing in the round: that more people can get close to the players. Judging from the numbers who get there early to claim those front row seats, I am not alone in liking this.

At last, the music. The Mozart quartet in E flat starts quietly. Mozart marked it piano but they seemed to play it pianissimo with little or no vibrato – an ethereal sound. They really trusted the acoustics of the Corn Exchange; they knew they would still be heard. And at the forte 12 bars later the contrast was stunning. That set the tone for the whole piece: exquisitely delicate playing set off against boisterous loud passages. I’ve never heard it played quite like that before and never heard it played as well. Tempi were fast but never sounded rushed. The Andante was also relatively fast but still had a sense of stillness because of that quiet delicate playing.

Britten’s Three Divertimenti were tremendous. They are full of fun – swooping glissadi, lots of pizzicato, the instruments moving from the bottom to the top of their ranges. Chris Darwin, in his programme notes, comments that its premier at the Wigmore Hall in 1936 was met with “sniggers and cold silence”. Today’s audience was grinning broadly at the joy in the piece.

The Heath did everything they could to bring the third Tchaikovsky quartet to life, but I don’t find it a successful composition. There are a lot of notes, and every now and then a Tchaikovsky-like tune emerges, but it doesn’t seem to amount to much. It was no fault of the Heath, however, and Oliver’s playing, when Tchaikovsky slips into his violin concerto-like writing, showed that he could have a career as a soloist if he wanted. But he couldn’t possibly; this Quartet is too special.

Andrew Polmear

The Corn Exchange, Sunday 18th November 2012

The Corn Exchange was different today. Sun shone through the great south windows all morning, the heating was perfect, the seats were arranged with intelligence, that is on three and a quarter sides instead of four, so that no-one was unsighted by the piano lid, and the spotlights on the players seemed to be warmer in colour than usual; at least so it seemed when the female players sat down in sleeveless black dresses to reveal golden arms and shoulders. And while I’m praising the Dome I want to mention the page-turner, a man whose name I don’t know but who has turned pages in Brighton for longer than I can remember, and always with the same reliable assurance. It’s not easy to do, and an uncertain page-turner can unsettle a whole audience, which he never has. Thank you, Sir.

They started with Rachmaninov’s Trio élégiaque, a short piece in one movement that he wrote as a student. It’s simple, very romantic, ends with a funereal dirge, and it’s usually played in the expressive romantic over-the-top way that it seems to call for. The Aquinas did the opposite. Much of it they played quietly. They relied on the beauty of their sound and their exquisite phrasing to bring out the passion of the music. As a result, the emotion of the piece got in under our radar; they seemed to do so little and I’ve never heard it played so beautifully.

The second piece was Mendelssohn’s second piano trio, a big, complex work of fun and fury, with engaging tunes and extraordinary grace. Is there anyone who still thinks Mendelssohn is a light-weight? By the end of the first movement it was clear what this trio are about. Firstly, they play with extraordinary sweetness and delicacy. In this they are helped, for the moment, by the fact that the violinist and cellist were playing on borrowed Guarneri instruments from 1691 and 1693 respectively, but I can’t believe they wouldn’t sound the same whatever the instrument; they might just have to work harder to achieve it. Secondly, they play as one, not just with impeccable intonation and perfect ensemble, but in the way they interpret the music: understated but not unfeeling, emotional but not showy. The pianist, Martin Cousin, has one of the softest pair of hands in the business. He was able to merge with the strings and not dominate them, making the Yamaha piano as expressive as the strings. Perhaps it helped that it was a fairly ordinary grand piano and not the larger Steinway concert grand that most concert halls think they need to provide, even for chamber music.

By this time the audience was totally won over, the applause at the end of the Mendelssohn being enough for the end of a concert for most ensembles. And at the end of the concert we got an encore, which is not routine after such big works.

The Dvorak Trio No. 3 is another big work, full of tunes, and changes of mood, and the Aquinas worked the same magic on it and on us. What happens when an audience feels transported in the way we did this morning? It helps that they were a joy to look at, with youth and beauty on their side. It helps that they seemed very comfortable in front of us, that they move about expressively (on their chairs – they don’t walk about) as they play, that the two women, superficially alike with their blond hair and black gowns, reveal very different playing personalities. The violinist, Ruth Rogers, remains poised and elegant, with only the odd frown or raising of her eyebrows, while Katherine Jenkinson, the cellist, reveals every emotion on her face, alive with joy then almost tearful as the music changes to anguish.

Something happens at a concert like this that is more than the sum of the parts. It’s why recording will never take the place of live performance. It’s that we had an experience that we contributed to, and which we come out of changed, if only for a short while. Those who stayed behind in the Dome foyer afterwards for a few minutes found there was yet another dimension to the Trio; they are also really nice young people who have children and who drink coca cola. Oh well, no-one’s perfect (and I don’t mean the children – they were).

Andrew Polmear

The Endymion at the Corn Exchange, 28th October 2012

a personal view by Andrew Polmear

I wasn’t really looking forward to this concert. I’ve always found the clarinet rather limited in the range of sound it can make. And it seems that the great composers have felt the same, judging by how little chamber music there is for clarinet, at least until the 20^th century. In fact, it’s usually the Mozart and Brahms clarinet quintets that are played and we have heard the Brahms as recently as this year’s Brighton Festival. In addition, a light rain was falling as we walked down to the Dome.

Why does everything change when we walk into the Corn Exchange? It’s a barn of a place and, frankly, it was a bit underheated. But the circle of chairs around the performers’ dais draws us in. Perhaps too it’s the knowledge that these events are only happening because of a grass-roots movement by members of the audience of the Old Market Coffee Concert series before they folded. These are our concerts and we want them to work.

Feeling better I picked up the programme to find that the clarinettist was Tony Pay; one the great British clarinettists as well as someone I knew from University. He’s not a member of Endymion but was guesting with them. I was cheering up no end. Then they came in, Tony carrying something that definitely was not a clarinet. It was light brown in colour and so long that when he sat down it rested on his calves. Then he stood up to explain himself. At last! We’ve asked many times if performers would talk about themselves, the music, their instruments, anything really, but so far they have declined. It’s galling to be so close to them that we can hear them breathing, and not have at least one of them relate to us other than through the music.

What Tony said was as good as the fact that he was talking: briefly he was going to play on a 19^th century clarinet with an extra length added. This gave it an extra octave of bass notes, equivalent to the basset clarinet for which Mozart originally wrote his quintet. Also, he ended his talk casually, they would play ‘K’ by Philip Venables first as a prelude to the Mozart.

‘K’ started with high harmonics from the strings, so high they were almost painful, then gradually the sounds came lower, warmer, still no tune yet, no recognisable harmonies, then over a total of 7 minutes the notes of the opening two bars of the Mozart could be heard. It was like mist clearing from round a building, slowly revealing its shape. A brief pause, music changed on the stands, and the Mozart started, those slow descending notes that we’ve heard so many times before but never with such relief. It was like coming home. Perhaps some people didn’t like it. Some people don’t like the glass pyramid in the centre of the Louvre courtyard. I find that putting the old and the new together makes me see both in a new light.

But the best thing was the way they played the Mozart. Some players go for a mellifluous sound throughout, as though they, like the old me, think that that’s all a clarinet can do. But this playing was warm, committed, spanning the whole range of emotions. And the elongated clarinet made a different sound from that highly polished black clarinet that we are used to; a little muted, more gentle, a perfect match for the strings. A few things weren’t perfect. The ensemble wasn’t as good as we are used to from players who do nothing but  play together in a quartet. There were odd duff notes from the strings, but only because they were playing daringly and taking risks.  These are the things that make live performance so much more exciting than a recording.

Thank goodness for the interval; I could not have gone straight on from that to the Brahms. It was another committed performance, this time bringing out the turbulence and tension in this late work by the ageing Brahms. On a few high entries Tony, now on a glossy black clarinet, shrieked the anguish that’s in the music.

A great concert – and great to see the performers afterwards in the bar.

Endymion Ensemble at Brighton Dome Corn Exchange, Sunday, 28th October 2012  

Review by Richard Amey

There is a fascinating notion thrown up by the root source of Brahms’ Clarinet Quintet that appears to fly in the face of rivalry and prejudice in musical criticism and heroic allegiance in late 1800s Vienna.

This memorable piece was performed by one of our long-standing top clarinettists Anthony Pay as he guested for the first time with the Endymion Ensemble, at the Strings Attached Coffee Concert on 28th October. Their job was to present the mellow fruitfulness of Brahms’ inspiration in the autumn of his life, derived from Richard Műhlfeld, who was probably the outstanding clarinettist of his time, and whose exceptional skill and taste re-lit the faded flame of Brahms’ desire to compose.

It’s easy to read into this great chamber music elegies for all the friends the lonely Brahms had survived as he looked back over his life and forward to mortality. He will have ruminated on a career of European fame while being held up by Viennese critic Eduard Hanslick as the pillar of conservatism in a war of words against the oncoming romantics Liszt and Wagner whose own vociferous supporters counter-attacked.

Some of the most sensuous, evocative and pictorial recent music for the clarinet had been written by Wagner.   And for more than a decade following Wagner’s death, who should be the principal clarinettist conveying his music in the festival opera orchestra at famous Bayreuth, but Műhlfeld?  Wagner was undoubtedly Műhlfeld’s own inspiration. Now, here was Brahms, himself a highly sensual composer within his stricter formal straitjacket, resuscitating on that (to some) controversial oxygen. Hanslick’s thoughts on this ironical ‘treachery’ are unrecorded, even had he realised the link.

On Sunday, the clocks having gone back an hour, a typically reverential, languid opening movement of the Brahms Clarinet Quintet would complement perfectly some extra time in bed. But the Endymions adopted a quicker tempo and the agitations and unsettlings often smoothed over by slower, oily interpretations were now alive and insistent in our ears. Golden, lying dead leaves were now brown, windblown and disturbed.

The second movement hinted at passions and regrets, of which Brahms had a several, and so continued a stimulating and revelatory reading of this music, and an absorbing and masterly demonstration of its rewardingly unique range of expression.

Already, the morning had begun with this work’s chief predecessor and model of more than 100 years before, similarly a late-in-life work, the Clarinet Quintet of Mozart.

Here the Endymion had something special on offer from their 23-year-old artistic director Philip Venables: a short, custom-composed reflection on the Mozart serving in performance as a prelude to it. Entitled ‘K’ (a nod to the Mozart cataloguer, Köchel), the strings emerge from silence into a series of sustained textures, finally hinting at the first theme of the Quintet, to be joined unobtrusively only then by the clarinet.

Wolfgang Amadeus then pops his head around the door and the Quintet proper is up and away.  Such warmth, originality, such freshness and roundedness of utterance, such clarity of content and logic in form came to us with vigour and appropriate grace under the hands of violinists Jackie Shave and Clara Bliss, violist Asdis Valdimarsdottir and cellist Adrian Bradbury, with the sumptuous depth and range of Pay’s basset clarinet sound the cream on the Viennese whirl.

He played a light-coloured boxwood instrument from the 1850s, modified in the 1960s, bought from the late Alan Hacker. For the Brahms – Pay, sporting a beard and head of hair almost as full as the composer himself – then played the Brahms on a 1908 Buffet clarinet.

The Endymions, performing in the round, were surrounded rightly by a substantial audience. And this programme, the world’s two masterworks in this instrumental combination in one sitting, was a treat on paper – and a sheer joy and stimulation in the flesh.

Richard Amey

Next Coffee Concert:  Piano Trio on Sunday, November 18 (11am): Rachmaninov Trio Elegaique No 1 in G minor Opus posthumous); Mendelssohn Piano Trio No 2 in C minor Opus 66; Dvorak Piano Trio No 3 in F minor.

 

 

 

By Richard Amey, written for The Worthing Herald and published with the author’s permission

ANYONE believing that string quartet musicians are of the dourer slices of the classical music personality pie chart will have stood corrected by the opening work of Strings Attached’s new season of Coffee Concerts at Brighton’s Dome on Sunday.

With the father of the string quartet, Haydn, heading its repertoire, displaying no sense of humour threatens your artistic credibility. The opening work on Sunday morning in the Corn Exchange was the sixth and final quartet of Haydn’s Opus 60 publication and The Castalian Quartet’s projection of the particular humour on its final page simply had me laughing.

How can any composer be complete without the ability to convey humour — over and beyond mere wit? Thus it follows for string quartet ensembles. And the likelihood of being made to chuckle delights string quartet audiences. Haydn is fun as well as all this other great attributes and even though new first violinist Daniel Pioro was making only his fourth appearance with Castalians, no newcomer needs to learn the humour of Haydn.

Found in the excellent accompanying Coffee Concert companion programme, Brighton violinist, violist and quartet player Chris Darwin’s programme notes also make the reader smile broadly. Significant?

Pioro is trying out after the departure of Canadian, Sadie Fields, and 2^nd violin Daniel Llewellyn Roberts reports a consequent change in their sound from romantically tinged to a more open one.

The Castalian Quartet made its Wigmore Hall debut in January. The personality of French violist Charlotte Bonneton caught the eye and ear as the epitomy of a young quartet alive and unified in its alertness to nuance and subtleness of touch, as much as to rhythm and texture. While Bonneton brings visually a sense of excitement and anticipation, cellist Rebecca Herman’s lighter touch, not just in her pizzicato, gives the Castalians a spring and an airiness.

With complete confidence, the Quartet stepped from their final exhuberance in the Eb of the Haydn to the F minor of Beethoven’s Opus 95 —the immensely condensed ‘Quartett Serioso’ which is one of the greatest string quartets in the entire repertoire. It’s music speaking of worry, disturbance and fright, with fleeting and possibly false consolation. At this time, Beethoven was moving knowingly into his final years of deaf isolation and cosmic contemplation while unable to hear and partake in the full discourse the world outside.

If the Castelians’ reading lacked the vehemence and explosiveness one associates with great performances of this piece, then that lies probably around the corner when Pioro becomes fully embedded.

Dvorak’s Opus 61 in C major, written 70 years later, rounded off the morning and latterly put Pioro through his paces. We moved from post-Napoleon Vienna to 1880s Bohemia with a flow of Slavonic melody and rhythm, apparently freeing us from the angst of the pre-interval Beethoven. And as large an audience as seen at a Dome Coffee Concert since the move from Hove’s Old Market, went off happily enriched, to enjoy a reception in the Founders Room.

The stage structure being already set for the current Comedy Festival prevented this concert being staged in the round but that will return for the next Coffee Concert, by the Endymion Ensemble on October 28. “I feel far more involved in the performance when it’s in the round,” commented one audience member, undoubtedly speaking for the majority.

This new season is not just string quartets. The Endymions will play the two woodwind instrument crowns of the repertoire, the Clarinet Quintets of Mozart (K581) and Brahms (Opus 115). The Aquinas Piano Trio follow on November 18 with Rachmaninov, Mendelssohn and Dvorak.

Richard Amey