20th International Chopin and his Europe Music Festival 17th August – 08th September 2024
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Saturday 31.08.24 20:30
Witold
Lutosławski Studio of the Polish Radio
Christoph
Prégardien tenor
Julian
Prégardien tenor
Danae Dörken
piano
Chamber
Orchestra of the City of Tychy
Marek Moś
conductor
Ludwig van
Beethoven
Overture to
The Creations of Prometheus Op. 43
Franz
Schubert
Prometheus
(D. 674)
Greisengesang
(D. 778)
Der Vater mit
dem Kind (D. 906)
Erlkönig Op.
1 (D. 328)
Ludwig van
Beethoven
Overture to
“Coriolan”, op. 62 : Auszüge
„Christus am
Ölberg“, op. 85 : Meine Seele ist erschüttert
Franz
Schubert
Alfonso und
Estrella (D. 732)
Der Wegweiser
Op. 89 No. 20 (D. 911)
Totengräbers
Heimweh (D. 842)
Der
Doppelgänger No. 13 (D. 957 )
Nacht und
Träume Op. 43 No. 2 (D. 827)
Im Abendrot (D. 799)
The programme was created by two renowned tenors, father and son, Christoph and Julian Prégardien. They imaginatively joined Schubert Lieder, with Beethoven overtures and an aria from his sole oratorio. Extraordinarily, some songs were presented in an orchestral instrumentation by Brahms, Reger and Webern.
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Schubert's songs were almost exclusively born from poetry. This may seem obvious but all too often the vital literary stimulation to musical creation is pushed to the sidelines in favour of extremely detailed analysis of the music. There are some 110 poets associated with Schubert, ranging from the genius of Göethe, Schlegel, Mayrhofer and Schiller to less demanding more popular emotional declarations. The sources could additionally be translations not only of foreign poets but also of Shakespeare, Petrarch and the ancient Greeks.
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| Christoph Prégardien |
Many of Schubert's inner circle were writers and poets of course, sometimes the authors of opera libretti. Many German and Austrian poets, popular in their day, have fallen from favor, some passed into oblivion. This does not absolve us from the responsibility of realizing their words were sufficiently profound, entertaining or full of vitality to galvanize Schubert's musical creative inspiration. He in fact prided himself on his own literary judgment and discrimination in selections
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| Julian Prégardien |
The profoundly melancholic and realistic approach of Death in Totengräbers Heimweh (D. 842). The dreams present in Nacht und Träume Op. 43 No. 2 (D. 827) and the noble Rückert song Greisengesang (D. 778). Songs were sung alone or as a father and son duet. Here are the words of Matthäus von Collin slightly altered by Schubert for musical reasons :
Night and Dreams
Holy
night, you sink down;
Dreams
too float down
like
your moonlight through space,
through the silent hearts of men
They
listen with delight,
cry
out when day awakes:
Come
back, holy night!
Fair dreams, come back!
Many of the poems were unknown to me in Schubert's settings save the terrifying and well-known Erlkönig Op. 1 (D. 328) which was almost psychically unbearably poignant sung and even subtly dramatized by this father and son.
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| Julian Prégardien and Christoph |
The
Erlking
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (English Translation © Richard Wigmore)
Who
rides so late through the night and wind?
It
is the father with his child.
He
has the boy in his arms;
he
holds him safely, he keeps him warm.
‘My
son, why do you hide your face in fear?’
‘Father,
can you not see the Erlking?
The
Erlking with his crown and tail?’
‘My
son, it is a streak of mist.’
‘Sweet
child, come with me.
I’ll
play wonderful games with you.
Many
a pretty flower grows on the shore;
my
mother has many a golden robe.’
‘Father,
father, do you not hear
what
the Erlking softly promises me?’
‘Calm,
be calm, my child:
the
wind is rustling in the withered leaves.’
‘Won’t
you come with me, my fine lad?
My
daughters shall wait upon you;
my
daughters lead the nightly dance,
and
will rock you, and dance, and sing you to sleep.’
‘Father,
father, can you not see
Erlking’s
daughters there in the darkness?’
‘My
son, my son, I can see clearly:
it
is the old grey willows gleaming.’
‘I
love you, your fair form allures me,
and
if you don’t come willingly, I’ll use force.’
‘Father,
father, now he’s seizing me!
The
Erlking has hurt me!’
The
father shudders, he rides swiftly,
he
holds the moaning child in his arms;
with
one last effort he reaches home;
the child lay dead in his arms.
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| Christoph Prégardien and Julien |
A deeply moving interpretation that lifted the Schubert song to the heights of artistic and metaphysical transcendence when father and son Prégardien sang their respective dialogues that appear in the poem. This dramatization by father and son was poetically and artistically transformational. This entire concert was unusual in that many songs had been arranged as duos. All wonderfully sung. Sometimes I felt as if they were singing with one voice.
The most moving aspect of the concert was the clear filial love that flowed like a glorious lyrical stream between the two tenors, father and son, especially in such a brutal work as the Erlkönig. The love between these two great artists, father and son, redeemed us all and lifted the entire concert onto another emotional plane of intimacy. The songs became an extraordinary type of recompense, a rare moment of healing for the sins of a murderous world. This was an expression of spiritual power and other worldliness, an expression of the strength and therapeutic power of true filial love, something I have never before experienced in any musical concert in my life.
Marek Moś the conductor and the Chamber Orchestra of the City of Tychy acquitted themselves with power and finesse. The alluring pianist Danae Dörken was the solo piano accompanist to some songs. Her tone was seductive and refined but powerful and declamatory when the occasion demanded.
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Chamber
Orchestra of the City of Tychy
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| Marek Moś |
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| Danae Dörken |
Certainly I found this the most moving concert of the entire festival
For many years this father and son have been performing together. In June 2017, at the Frauenkirche in Dresden, I heard Christoph sing madrigals and operatic excerpts with his son Julien in a superb concert to commemorate the 450th birthday of Claudio Monterverdi. They were accompanied by Anima Eterna Brugge conducted by Jos van Immerseel. Father and son touched foreheads at the conclusion, a meeting of mind and heart, which was a deeply moving gesture.
An even more remarkable recital by Christoph Prégardien alone in Warsaw was given in 2019. I feel sufficiently moved to give you a link to that past concert and the recording that is now available.
You will need to scroll down through the festival posts to Saturday 17 August 2019 or put in a search for Prégardien.
http://www.michael-moran.com/2019/07/15th-chopin-and-his-europe-festival.html
Friday 30.08.24 20:30
Warsaw Philharmonic Concert Hall
Collegium Vocale Gent
Philippe
Herreweghe artistic management
Et in Arcadia Ego
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| The Course of Empire: The Arcadian or Pastoral State - Thomas Cole 1834 |
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| Guercino - Et in Arcadia Ego 1618 |
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| Nicolas Poussin (1594-1665) Et in Arcadia Ego (1626) |
Salamone Rossi (1570-1630)
Giovanni Giacomo Gastoldi (1553-1609)
Luca Marenzio (1553-1599)
Claudio Monteverdi (1567-1643)
Sigismondo d’India (1582-1629)
The very word 'Arcadia' conjures so many seductive and erotic images of paradisiacal landscape and mythological figures. The blighted or consummated love of shepherds (Tyrsis) for shepherdesses or nymphs (Chloris) inhabiting a garden of delights but overshadowed by the thunderstorm of Death, perennially hovering near.
The instrumental music and vocal settings of poetry, perfect in intonation and conducted minimalistically by Philippe Herreweghe, took me unresistant into another dimension of this fabled region of the imagination. The madrigal was once a greatest musical gesture in what was once known as the avant-garde. It was contributed to by all the mannerist Mantuan composers featured here, most prominently by Claudio Monteverdi and Salomone Rossi. Such a divine programme of Renaissance Sinfonias and madrigals embraced us.
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| The Polish Arkadia |
As I live in Poland, may I conjure the idea of the Polish Arcadia but in an eighteenth century context. The Italian Renaissance had an immense architectural and cultural influence in Poland. Of course, I adored the 'Arcadias' of Stourhead and Rousham in England but I am here now, living among the Polans (Polanie) or descendants of the people of the fields, as they were known in ancient history by the West. The country is far from Mantua in climate but perhaps not so far in temperament. The seductive nature of such picturesque ideas effortlessly cross boundaries of time and space.
I have often travelled to the
village of Nieborów near Żelazowa Wola (the village where Chopin was
born) about 50 kms from Warsaw where my favourite Polish country house and
pendant garden is situated, one of the great mansion and park ensembles in
Europe. Originally a baroque mansion designed by the Dutch architect Tylman van
Gameren it passed to the noble Radziwiłł family in the late eighteenth century.
Duke Michał Radziwiłł’s remarkable wife, Princess Helena, was a leader of
fashion in Warsaw concerning matters of landscape gardening and enlightened
patronage. The interior has an astonishing Dutch blue-tiled staircase and a
fine library. The lime avenue on the broad central axis of the mansion leads
across squares of lawn to a ha-ha opening onto a former deer park with a pine
forest in the middle distance. The whimsical placement of urns, sarcophagi,
tenth century statues of women from Sarmatian Black Sea tribes and a box garden
with an imperial eagle perched on a Roman column urges the wanderer to heroic
reminiscence of Polish history. I briefly sat on a garden seat with the
admonitory Latin inscription Non Sedas Sed Eas (Do not sit down
but go on). A fisherman was quietly waiting in a drifting dinghy on the lake
near an island.
About a mile from Nieborów, Helena Radziwiłł with the assistance of her
architect Szymon Bogumił Zug and the French painter Jean-Pierre Norblin de la
Gourdaine created the astonishing landscape garden of Arkadia over a
period of forty years. The ‘modern’ notion of a pastoral Arcadia is a
substantial transformation from the original pagan and brutish domain overseen
by rapacious Pan with horns, hairy haunches and cloven feet. Arkadia (Polish
spelling), a picturesque and elegiac garden of allusions, is in the tender
spirit of Jean-Jacques Rousseau and is one of the most extraordinary
‘sentimental’ eighteenth century gardens in Europe.
The garden was fertilised by many international influences. Changing vistas
were evoked by the golden pastorals of Claude Lorrain and the dramatic
classicism of Nicholas Poussin. The English Virgilian landscapes created by
William Kent at Stowe, Henry Hoare and Henry Flitcroft at Stourhead and
Alexander Pope at Twickenham all played their part. In Arkadia Horace Walpole
might have reminded us of those imitators of English gardens, his ‘little
princes of Germany’. The magnificent Enlightenment realm of Wörlitz, ruled by
Reason and Nature, was created in the late eighteenth century by Prince Leopold
Friedrich Franz of Anhault-Dessau. Here the wanderer could choose between the
route of ignorance and superstition or the route of esoteric knowledge.
Literature also played its vital part. The cult of nature, romantic mysticism
and antiquity were developed in the baroque pastoral romance Astrée by
Honoré d’Urfé and in ‘Julie’s garden’ of La Nouvelle Héloïse (1761)
by Jean-Jacques Rousseau (‘perhaps the most influential bad book ever written’
). The pervasive French sensibility of the time was greatly influenced by the
charm of those crowds of vanishing, marvellous creatures languishing in the
autumnal paintings of Jean-Antoine Watteau. Helena herself was fond of reading
the influential meditative poem The complaint; or, Night-thoughts on life,
death, and immortality by Edward Young (1683-1765).
The melancholy ghosts of dead renown,
Whispering faint echoes of the world's applause.
From Night IX
The many allegorical buildings in Arkadia are a labyrinth of encoded messages.
These ideas were propagated through the medium of Freemasonry. The garden was
conceived as an eloquent set of theatre scenes for the enlightened visitor,
evoking the vanished joys and lost ideals of the Enlightenment. The predominant
themes of are of Love, Happiness, Beauty and Death - ideas cultivated
through her eighteenth century sensibilité. On the Island of
Feelings set in a lake, flowers picked at the entrance to the park were placed
by visitors on altars dedicated to Friendship, Hope, Gratitude and Remembrance.
The walls of the High Priest’s Sanctuary are inset with Roman architectural
fragments and even an artificial sheep-pen alludes to a lost Virgilian past. An
inscription reads L’ésperance nourrit une Chimère et la Vie S’écoule (Hope
nourishes a Delusion as Life slips away).
‘Arkadia was all about memories, reveries, regrets and keeping civilization and
culture alive.’ Lying on the grass in the sun in a column of warm gold it was
not difficult to imagine delightful ‘Turkish’ fêtes galantes on the autumnal
lake. Willows trailed leaves in the still waters around the islands, swans
glided by while boats set sail for the île de Cythère. A world of intense
impressions, melancholy, poignancy and reflective thought, an excursion
particularly apposite in my present situation.
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| The Polish Arkadia |
Friday 30.08.24 17:00
Warsaw Philharmonic Concert Hall
Dang Thai Son
piano
Eric Lu piano
Sophia Liu
piano
Sinfonia Varsovia
Martijn
Dendievel conductor
Joseph Haydn (1732 - 1809)
Symphony in C major No. 38 "Echo (before 1769)
Wolfgang
Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791)
Concerto in F major for three pianos (K. 242) (1776)
This was a work written for three lady amateurs (the daughters of Countess Antonia Lodron) in the entertaining and affected galant style. It does not reach the commanding musical and artistic heights of his concertos for the solo instrument but under these six hands and with this orchestral conductor I found it a delightful confection. My two 'poets' Eric Lu and Kate Liu, glorious in tone and touch, were playing with virtuosic stylistic grace and affectation along with one of the great teachers and pianists of today, Dang Thai Son.
For an encore the pianists squeezed onto one stool, or perhaps two, and played a work for six hands. Unfortunately I have no idea what it was but it was highly entertaining !
Fryderyk
Chopin (1810-1840)
Variations in B flat major on a theme from Mozart’s ‘Don Giovanni’ (‘Là ci darem la mano’) Op. 2 (1828)
Chopin composed the ‘Là ci darem’ Variations in 1827. As a student of the Main School of Music, he had received from Elsner another compositional task: to write a set of variations for piano with orchestral accompaniment. As his theme, he chose the famous duet between Zerlina and Don Giovanni from the first act of Mozart’s opera Il dissoluto punito, ossia il Don Giovanni.
'In this opera overwhelming power and faultless seduction meet maidenly naivety and barely controlled fascination. (Tomaszewski)
In his famous first review of Chopin’s variations on Mozart’s ‘Là ci darem la mano’, Schumann gives us a striking description:
“Eusebius quietly opened the door the other day. You know the ironic smile on his pale face, with which he invites attention. I was sitting at the piano with Florestan. As you know, he is one of those rare musical personalities who seem to anticipate everything that is new, extraordinary, and meant for the future. But today he was in for a surprise. Eusebius showed us a piece of music and exclaimed: ‘Hats off, gentlemen, a genius! Eusebius laid a piece of music on the piano rack. […] Chopin – I have never heard the name – who can he be? […] every measure betrays his genius!’”
Chopin’s ‘Là ci darem’ Variations are classical in form with an introduction, theme, five variations and finale. They are a marvellous example of the style brillante and clearly influenced by Hummel and Moscheles.
It is well-known Chopin was obsessed with opera all his life, a fascination that began early. I felt Sophia Liu overwhelmed us with her youthful bravura and fabulous technique (she is only 16 I think). However, I did miss the feeling that a true Italian, Mozartian aria concerning the art of seduction was being sung with vocal intonation and an alluring, seductive and charming cantabile. For such a young lady to play with knowing erotic insight is rather a tall order but in compensation we were simply blown away by her keyboard genius. There will be much time to develop on this solid foundation through the heart and soul of experience!
Clara Wieck loved this work and performed it often making it popular in Germany. Her notorious father, who had forbidden her marriage to Robert Schumann, wrote perceptively and rather ironically of this work: ‘In his Variations, Chopin brought out all the wildness and impertinence of the Don’s life and deeds, filled with danger and amorous adventures. And he did so in the most bold and brilliant way’.
Liu began with a thoughtful introduction. I do feel as the piece moved forward that this pianist has a natural and deep musicality, true musical fluent speech. The projected energy at times was stunning, even frightening in sheer gifted talent. The work was replete with glittering style brillante execution, crystal articulation and Horowizian velocity. However, I felt each variation could have been delineated more clearly in mood and manner of execution from the next. But the progression of the structure remained astonishingly clear. What a golden road lies ahead for this young lady !
Mieczysław
Karłowicz (1876-1809)
The Eternal
Songs Op. 10 (1906)
I found this programming of the profoundly disturbing Eternal Songs rather a lurch from the cusp of sunny Classicism and Romanticism into our more modern times of alienation, existentialism and the metaphysics of Love and Death even opening into the space of the cosmos.
Although
familiar to musically educated Poles, the precocious late Romantic composer
Mieczysław Karłowicz [1876–1909] who died in an avalanche at the tragically
young at the age of 33, is relatively unknown outside the country. Certainly, his work is not sufficiently familiar to me to write in informed detail about
it. His symphonic poems cause him to be considered Poland's greatest symphonic
composer. At the time opposition to his compositions was violent. The music
historian Aleksander Poliński wrote of young composers that they '...have
now been affected by some evil spirit that depraves their work, strives to
strip it of individual and national originality and turn into parrots lamely
imitating the voices of Wagner and Strauss'. Karłowicz's compositions were
regarded as 'modernistic chaos' which made them unpopular with the
Polish public.
One needs to know the inspiration behind these three extraordinary philosophical works that provoke so much poignant thought. The melancholic Song of Eternal Longing concerns 'the desire that smolders in every human soul and possibly even inanimate matter'. That endless longing being the cause of all suffering. The second Song of Love and Death clearly was inspired by Wagner's Tristan und Isolde where love is ultimately fulfilled in death. Love and death are musically contrasted. 'Eros and Thanatos meet in an amorous embrace.' The final movement of this Op.10 is the Song of the Universe. Karłowicz sculpts a musical portrait of the Polish High Tatra Mountains that he was obsessed with both physically, through corporeal climbing and also by his ascent into the mind's stratosphere. One is forcibly transported by his music into this poetical landscape.
'And when I find myself alone on a steep summit, with only the sky's blue vault above me, and all around the peaks' hardened billows of snow, submerged in the sea of the plains - at such times I dissolve into the vast expanse around me, I no longer feel myself to be a separate individual. [...] they (the mountains) give me peace in the face of life and death, speaking of the eternal harmony of ,merging into the universe.'
So, a profoundly educational
concert for me, exploring the most significant Polish instrumental and
orchestral music between Chopin and Szymanowski. I felt Karłowicz to be a major
composer whose creative work was brutally interrupted by Nature in an avalanche
whilst pursuing his understandable passion (listening to the aspirations within
his compositions) of mountain climbing.
Thursday 29.08.24 19:0
Royal Castle
Harpsichord Recital
Andreas Staier harpsichord
The instrument was built by the distinguished maker Bruce Kennedy based on a famous 1624 Ruckers (Colmar) double manual ravalement
This was a most interesting programme assembled by the distinguished harpsichordist around different styles of composition for the instrument.
Stylus Phantasticus
Georg Böhm
(1661-1733)
Prelude, Fugue, and Postlude in G minor (1705-1713)
A remarkable set of works by a much underrated keyboard composer
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The baroque
organ in the Johanniskirche, Lüneburg where Böhm was principal organist
Johann
Sebastian Bach (1685-1750)
Prelude and Fugue in B flat major (BWV 866)
Staier has mastered the style of this composer for the harpsichord although many of these works would probably have been first performed on a clavichord
'... in Stylo Francese'
François Couperin (1668-1733) - perhaps my favorite composer for the harpsichord. He understood and was fascinated and explored the rich sound of his chosen instrument in much the same way as Chopin by the piano. Couperin had a similar aristocratic style of composition that had an immense influence on composers in Europe. Wanda Landowska wrote about the similarities between Chopin and Couperin as did the great scholar Jean-Jacques Eigeldinger.
Second
livre de pièces de clavecin
I La
Raphaéle - Performed with
great style and appropriate seriousness - a great musical work modeled on an
evocation of the great Renaissance artist
IV Gavotte
Johann
Sebastian Bach
Prelude and Fugue in F-sharp major BMV 882 (1744)
The influence of the French style is pronounced in this work
'.... alla Maniera Italiana'
Domenico
Scarlatti
Sonata in
A major, K 208 A cantabile composition
probably composed for the Cristofori early piano owned by Queen Maria Barbara
Sonata in A major, K 209 The pendant was more active rhythmically
Johann
Sebastian Bach
Prelude and Fugue in C sharp minor (BWV 873) 1744
A quite wonderful performance of this familiar work
Fantasia Cromatica
Jan
Pieterszoon Sweelinck
Fantasia Cromatica SwWV 258
Another splendid and much underrated composer except of course by the cognoscenti
Johann
Sebastian Bach
Prelude and Fugue in A minor (BWV 889) 1744
'...und andere Galanterien...
Wilhelm
Friedemann Bach
Polonaise in
F major
Polonaise in F minor
Bach's favourite son and significant composer of Polonaises. Suffered from the foibles of an active and rich sensual life. I love his compositions so rarely performed.
Johann
Sebastian Bach
Prelude and Fugue in F minor (BWV 881)
Momento mori
Johann
Jacob Froberger
Méditation faite sur ma mort future (FbWV 611a)
One of the greatest of composers of deeply moving, profound existential music that touch the deepest recesses of the heart and soul.
Johann
Sebastian Bach
Prelude and Fugue in B minor (BWV 869)
As an encore the Bach E major Prelude and Fugue from Book II of the WTC
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| Michael Moran privileged to speak to Andreas Staier about Francois Couperin |
Wednesday 28.08.24 20:30
Warsaw Philharmonic Concert Hall
Francesco
Piemontesi piano
Kammerorchester Basel
Antonio
Viñuales Pérez conductor (Principal 2nd violin)
I would like to quote the Mission Statement of the superb Kammerorchester Basel at the outset of this review:
'We are an innovative, artistically independent and creative top ensemble. With our love and passion for music, we break new ground, transcend boundaries and inspire our audiences. We are constantly developing our own historically oriented sound.'
Programme
Fanny Mendelssohn-Hensel
(1805-1947)
Overture in C major (1852 or 1856)
I have often written recently concerning the rehabilitation of female composers scandalously neglected in the nineteenth century owing to mere social prejudice not lack of musical genius.
http://www.michael-moran.com/2024/01/the-contrarious-moods-of-men-review-of.html
Fanny was the elder sister of Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy and was rather a victim of the suppression of talented women in the nineteenth century. Her famous brother included some of her songs in his own collections in order to have them heard. Of the 400 works she wrote only a few are now emerging from the shadows of neglect after her fearless declaration to the music publisher as the dreaded female composer.
This was the only purely orchestral work she completed and as such was fascinating to hear. It indicated her interest in her bother Felix's preoccupation with the sea and seafaring. He wrote a concert overture Calm Sea and Prosperous Voyage. The work indicated and underlined the formidable gifts of the Mendelssohn musical family and the crying need for her resuscitation.
Before I personally assess the performance, I would just like to quote from my impressions of Francesco Piemontesi the first time I heard him in August 2011 at the Duszniki Zdrój International Chopin Festival. He was 28. How far he has developed in musical maturity even since then !
The period Piemontesi had spent with Alfred Brendel became clear from the very opening bars of Beethovens' Sonata in A Major Op. 101 and yet it was is own voice. This emotionally affecting work is Beethoven at his most intimate and sensitive. Piemontesi brought a classical poise to the work, wonderfully married to warm emotional life.
From the outset it became apparent that he is a deeply sensitive musician, a true poet of the instrument, who has cultivated a refined tone, a far lower level but much wider range of expressive dynamics and articulation than many young artists. Too many young players begin so loudly and choose such fast tempi they literally have nowhere to go when they require it, finding themselves trapped in a cul de sac of sound entirely of their own making.
The entire second half of the concert was taken up with the Sonata in A major D. 959, one of the last sonatas by Schubert. This was a truly great performance and a profound emotional experience for the entire audience here at Duszniki. The pianist collected us around his soul. The range of expression was remarkable, the movement from one reality to another or one dream to another, the flashes of memory and sense of bleak alienation produced an atmosphere in the hall the like of which is rarely experienced in a public concert. The silence was palpable - one could hear pin drop even between movements - not a sound - for the entire long duration of the sonata.
The silences within the work itself, within the harmonic and rhythmic structure (so important in Schubert's last sonatas and all music for that matter) were deeply utilized by this pianist as 'blocks of sound' full of meaning. They were such pregnant silences, silences that expressed the deeply troubled, febrile yet poetic spirit and soul of Schubert - a man searching for a secure anchorage as his life slipped away.
As someone mentioned to me later, his playing moved one in a similar way to the spiritual refinement, modesty, musical commitment and sensitivity of Dinu Lipatti or Michelangeli. This will be one of my most memorable musical experiences.
Ludwig van
Beethoven
Piano Concerto No. 4 in G major, Op. 58
Begun in 1805, it was completed early the next year and premiered on December 22, 1808, as part of the famous Akademie in the Theater an der Wien.
It was Beethoven’s last appearance as a concerto soloist and the basis of an extraordinary anecdote. The composer Louis Spohr recounted a description told to him by Ignaz Xaver Seyfried, music director at that venue at that time. The concert lasted some four hours. The audience sat with great determination in the unheated concert hall in the freezing winter.
“Beethoven
was playing a new Pianoforte-Concerto of his, but forgot at the first tutti
that he was a solo player, and springing up, began to direct in his usual way.
At the first sforzando he threw out his arms so wide asunder, that he knocked
both the lights off the piano upon the ground. The audience laughed, and
Beethoven was so incensed that he made the orchestra cease playing, and begin
anew.
Fearing a repetition of the accident, two boys of the chorus placed themselves on either side of Beethoven, holding the lights. One of the boys innocently approached nearer, and when the fatal sforzando came, he received from Beethoven’s right hand a blow on the mouth, and the poor boy let fall the light in terror… If the public were unable to restrain their laughter before, they could now much less, and broke out into a regular bacchanalian roar. Beethoven got into such a rage that at the first chords of the solo, he broke a dozen strings.”
This was a superb performance by Piemontesi and superb Kammerorchestra Basel directed by Antonio Viñuales Pérez 'conductor' and Principal 2nd violin. One of the finest I have ever heard from any pianist and orchestra. The dynamic balance and integration of piano and orchestra were eloquently judged.
Allegro moderato
The opening chord, so difficult for a pianist to manage dynamically dolce, was soft, poised and set an almost dreamlike atmosphere, a domain sensitized to the secrets of the forest. Piemontesi communicate directly and intimately with the orchestra from the outset with both eye contact and his body language. The result was a perfectly balanced symbiosis of dynamic and stylistic statements and response.
His glorious tone and velvet touch with minimal pedal suited the underlying classical nature of the work yet maintaining gestures of romanticism attempting to gently break free from the classical braces. The tempo and feeling of improvisation gave one the feeling of invention at the very moment. The immortal cadenza to this movement was expressive and indicated a highly refined but supremely virtuosic keyboard mastery.
Andante con moto
The second movement was simply and lyrically sublime and I do not use these words lightly. Accompanied only by the orchestral strings, the theme is well known to all music lovers. The movement has often been compared to Orpheus taming the wild beasts with his music. The underrated pupil of Beethoven, Carl Czerny, observed:
'in this movement (which, like the entire concerto, belongs to the finest and most poetical of Beethoven’s creations) one cannot help thinking of an antique dramatic and tragic scene, and the player must feel with what movingly lamenting expression his solo must be played in order to contrast with the powerful and austere orchestral passages.'
This magnificent orchestra was occasionally declamatory and powerful which contrasted movingly and dramatically with the rich harmonies and cantabile phrases of the piano part. The cellos and basses maintained an ethereal pianissimo. Until the opening of the final movement, one has been seduced into a somnambulistic dream world by the emotional, implied restraint of this concerto. Piemontesi was supremely lyrical yet not sentimental in the profound poetry and shifting poignant moods he brought to this movement. A remarkable serenity pervaded and an inspired peace and calm suffused the whole.
Rondo. Vivace
Piemontesi brought spectacular, authoritative, assured and exciting rhythm to the Finale. Trumpets and drums sound as we transition into this exuberant Rondo, like the flash in sunlight off a mountain spring at its source.
Again I felt how Piemontesi achieved a perfect balance in this great composition, a work which hovers beguilingly like a humming bird over the cusp of classicism and rich romanticism. The orchestra were outstanding, even supremely transformed, by the energetic, musically committed and expressive, persuasive conducting by Antonio Viñuales Pérez.
There was a wild audience reaction and an instant standing ovation at the close.
Emilie
Mayer (1812-1883)
Symphony No. 5 in F minor (1852 or 1856)
I was unfamiliar with this other
female composer on the programme, Emilie Mayer, who was a friend of Fanny
Hensel. She was from a wealthy family and a piano prodigy. Her father committed
suicide on the 26th anniversary of his wife's funeral left Emilie a substantial
legacy. Unlike Fanny who restricted herself to chamber works, she embarked on a
serious career as a composer and unusually for a lady, writing in all the great
genres. She became quite famous in her day as a substantial female composer.
This symphony I found highly skilled, full of charm and drama, yet in the final
analysis, not expressive of deeper emotional meaning if that is what you are
searching for.
* * * * * * * * * *
Tuesday 27.08.24 20:30
Moniuszko Hall of the Teatr Wielki – Polish National Opera
Vilde Frang violin
Kaunas State Choir
London Symphony Orchestra
Robertas Šervenikas choir manager
Antonio
Pappano conductor
Edward Elgar (1857-1934)
Violin Concerto in B minor Op. 61 (1905-1910)
Edward Elgar is considered one of the greatest and most popular of English composers. He was at the height of his compositional genius around 1910. Having created 'The Dream of Gerontius', the Enigma Variations, the First Symphony and the Pomp and Circumstance Marches he was then at a high point in the estimation of the public. Elgar had been making sketches of a violin concerto for a long time.
He had begun work on a violin concerto in 1890, but he was dissatisfied with it and destroyed the manuscript. In 1907 the greatest violinist of the day, Fritz Kreisler, admired Elgar's The Dream of Gerontius and asked him to write a violin concerto. Two years earlier, Kreisler had told an English newspaper:
If you
want to know whom I consider to be the greatest living composer, I say without
hesitation Elgar... I say this to please no one; it is my own conviction... I
place him on an equal footing with my idols, Beethoven and Brahms. He is of the
same aristocratic family. His invention, his orchestration, his harmony, his
grandeur, it is wonderful. And it is all pure, unaffected music. I wish Elgar
would write something for the violin.
Elgar reconsidered. He engaged W. H. 'Billy' Reed, leader of the London Symphony Orchestra for technical advice while writing the concerto as well as advice as to how to render the brilliance more attractive by Fritz Kreisler.
The premiere was at a Royal Philharmonic Society concert on 10 November 1910, with Kreisler and the London Symphony Orchestra conducted by the composer. Reed recalled, 'the Concerto proved to be a complete triumph, the concert a brilliant and unforgettable occasion' .So great was the impact of the concerto that Kreisler's rival, the great Belgian violinist Eugène Ysaÿe, spent time with Elgar going through the work. There was great disappointment when contractual difficulties prevented Ysaÿe from playing it in London.
The concerto was Elgar's last great popular success.
Certainly, the concerto is dedicated to Kreisler, but the score also carries the enigmatic Spanish inscription, 'Aquí está encerrada el alma de ....' ('Herein is enshrined the soul of .....'), a quotation from the novel Gil Blas by Alain-René Lesage. The five dots are one of Elgar's enigmas, and several names have been proposed to match the inscription. The Elgar biographer Jerrold Northrop Moore suggests that the inscription does not refer to just one person, but enshrined in each movement of the concerto are both a living inspiration and a ghost: Alice Stuart-Wortley and Helen Weaver in the first movement; Elgar's wife and his mother in the second; and in the finale, Billy Reed and August Jaeger ("Nimrod" of the Enigma Variations).
Vilde Frang is a award-winning young violinist of deep musicality and a high degree of sensitivity which made itself clear in the Elgar concerto. There was great emotional urgency in the haunting solo violin opening Allegro. The so-called 'Wildflower' theme and tone played by Frang was deeply poetic on the Guaneri del Gesù instrument of 1724. The familiarity of the orchestra and Pappano with Elgar was abundant in the fluent and meaningful phrasing in a fine symbiotic attachment to Frang.
The second movement begins with a melody that reminds me of wind rustling through English oaks. Frang rendered the music with extreme gentleness which was emotionally deeply moving. In a letter to Alice Stuart-Wortley, Elgar labelled it ‘Windflower’, his nickname for her. The Andante was played with refinement and as a love song with superb control of the eloquent tone and delicacy possible on this glorious Guaneri. Elgar did say of the Violin Concerto: 'It’s good! Awfully emotional! Too emotional, but I love it. Full of romantic feeling.' I felt Frang must have read this sentence.
Both orchestra and soloist were without peer in the challenging final movement. After brilliant passages for the orchestra and violin we have a curious period of rumination concerning events of the past ? The cadenza is usually played alone by a soloist in a musical work. Here the violin is accompanied by the orchestra in a type of evocation of nostalgic memory. H.C. Colles (1879-1943), for 32 years chief music critic of The Times, writer on music and organist said: 'Elgar dwells on his themes as though he could not bear to say good-bye to them, lest he should lose the soul enshrined therein.' Frang was superb in this work and received an enthusiastic ovation
Gustav Holst
Symphonic
Suite 'Planets' Op. 32
I can think of no other single work by an English composer that has achieved similar widespread fame than The Planets Suite by Gustav Holst. He created The Planets between 1914 and 1917. This partly stemmed an interest in astrology and partly a desire to produce a large scale work for orchestra. and also from his determination, despite the failure of Phantastes, to produce a large-scale orchestral work. He told the English writer Clifford Bax in 1926 that The Planets:
'… whether it’s good or bad, grew in my mind slowly—like a baby in a woman’s womb ... For two years I had the intention of composing that cycle, and during those two years it seemed of itself more and more definitely to be taking form.'
Holst's biographer Michael Short and the musicologist Richard Greene both think it likely that the inspiration for the composer to write such a suite for large orchestra was the example of Schoenberg's Fünf Orchesterstücke (Five Pieces for Orchestra) performed in London in 1912 and 1914.
'... ignoring some important astrological factors such as the influence of the sun and the moon, and attributing certain non-astrological qualities to each planet. Nor is the order of movements the same as that of the planets' orbits round the sun; his only criterion being that of maximum musical effectiveness.' (Short p. 122)
What a privilege to hear Antonio Pappano conduct this work with the LSO !
'Mars the Bringer of War' was overwhelming from its quiet opening to a quadruple-forte with dissonant climax in percussive impact and driving rhythm. I have never experienced a musical physical impact to equal it in concert or recording. Short writes that battle music 'had never expressed such violence and sheer terror' One could not help but reflect on the present horrors.
'Venus, the Bringer of Peace' The movement opens Adagio with a solo horn theme answered quietly by the flutes and oboes. According to Imogen Holst, Venus 'has to try and bring the right answer to Mars. A second theme is given to solo violin. Short calls Holst's Venus 'one of the most sublime evocations of peace in music'. Incidentally, I was born under this most fortunate of stars. 'Mercury, the Winged Messenger' is a short pictorial movement of speedy flight, even close to programme music that depicts a scherzo movement. The LSO soloists for solo violin, high-pitched harp, flute and glockenspiel were prominently featured at the highest level of musical performance. 'Jupiter, the Bringer of Jollity' marked allegro giocoso is packed with exuberance 'abundance of life and vitality'. Papanno also highlighted the feelings of nobility in the andante maestoso concluding with the extraordinary richness in full, tight ensemble of this orchestra.
'Saturn, the Bringer of Old Age' This was Holst's favourite movement of the suite. Colin Matthews describes it in his CD notes as 'a slow processional which rises to a frightening climax before fading away as if into the outer reaches of space' As the work opens, the LSO virtuoso flutes, bassoons and harps played a theme suggesting a ticking clock. The trombone section introduce a solemn melody (the trombone was Holst's own main instrument) was taken up by the full orchestral power of the LSO. Papanno understood this planet to perfection. 'Uranus, the Magician' The movement began with powerful brass allegro motifs from this commanding section of the orchestra. This is followed by various 'merry pranks' building to a tremendous LSO quadruple forte climax with a prominent organ glissando. has elements of Berlioz's Symphonie fantastique and Dukas's The Sorcerer's Apprentice, in its depiction of the magician who 'disappears in a whiff of smoke as the sonic impetus of the movement diminishes from fff to ppp in the space of a few bars' (Short pp.130-131) 'Neptune, the Mystic' opens with flutes joined by piccolo and oboes, with harps and celesta more prominent later. The beautiful, unearthly intonation of the Lithuanian Kaunas State Choir then joined the orchestra. In the end, the orchestra fell silent and the unaccompanied voices bring the work to a poetic pianissimo conclusion. Here the final eternal nature of cosmic silence, as powerful in expression as a moment in space filled with sound.
As an encore,
Nimrod from the Elgar Nimrod Variations brought me to tears and emotional
dislocation as I entered a world of intense nostalgic recall for my previous long
life in London and England before I moved to Poland and Warsaw.
Monday 26.08.24 20:30
Moniuszko Hall of the Teatr Wielki – Polish National Opera
Bruce Liu piano
London Symphony Orchestra
Antonio Pappano conductor
Fryderyk Chopin
Piano Concerto in E minor Op. 11
Jean Sibelius
Symphony No. 1 in E minor Op. 39
Some of you may have already this but I make no apology for repeating it !
Some important cultural context for you concerning the E minor Piano Concerto Op.11 before reading the review
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| The Young Chopin in 1829 Ambroży Mieroszewski (1802–1884) |
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| Warsaw Panorama from Praga 1770 - Bernado Bellotto |
Chopin wasted no time in composing his next concerto in 1830 after that in F minor.
In many ways the E minor concerto revolves around the exalted Romanze. Larghetto central movement. He elucidated its inspiration to his friend Tytus Woyciechowski: ‘Involuntarily, something has entered my head through my eyes and I like to caress it’.
The Warsaw premiere audience numbered around 700. ‘Yesterday’s concert was a success’, wrote Chopin on 12 October 1830 to Tytus ‘A full house!’ Two young female singers also performed at the concert conducted by that controversial figure in Warsaw musical life, Carlo Soliva. Contemporary programming was unimaginably different to 2021. After the Allegro had been played to ‘a thunderous ovation’, Chopin sacrificed the stage to a singer [‘dressed like an angel, in blue’], Anna Wołkow. Typical of the pressing personality of Soliva, she sang an aria he had composed.
The other young singer was Konstancja Gładkowska. Chopin wrote as descriptively as always: ‘Dressed becomingly in white, with roses in her hair, she sang the cavatina from [Rossini’s] La donna del lago as she had never sung anything, except for the aria in (Paer’s) Agnese. You know that “Oh, quante lagrime per te versai”. She uttered "tutto desto” to the bottom B in such a way that Zieliński (an acquaintance) held that single B to be worth a thousand ducats’.
This 'farewell' concert was only three weeks before Chopin left Warsaw and the subsequent November 1830 uprising burst upon the city. ‘The trunk for the journey is bought, scores corrected, handkerchiefs hemmed… Nothing left but to bid farewell, and most sadly’. Konstancja and Frycek exchanged rings. She had packed an album in which she had written the words ‘while others may better appraise and reward you, they certainly can’t love you better than we’. Only two years later, Chopin added: ‘they can’ which speaks volumes.
An introductory book on the concertos and their context I cannot recommend more highly:
Chopin - The Piano Concertos by John Rink (Cambridge Music Handbooks 1997)
Fryderyk Chopin
Piano Concerto in E minor Op. 11
Bruce Liu piano
London Symphony Orchestra
Antonio Pappano conductor
Under the profoundly musical conductor, Antonio Pappano, the remarkable London Symphony Orchestra opened the work with a powerful declaration of intent. How this pianist has matured in sensibility and Chopineque understanding, le climat de Chopin as the pupil of Chopin, Marcelina Czartoryska, penetratingly described it. His recent expressive emotional development in interpretation has been so significant and uplifting to hear! The English academic musicologist and Chopin authority, Jim Sampson, perceptively writes that the concerto allows the pianist to be a showman, warrior and poet. Liu rises to these varied roles.
Liu's entry was crystal clear yet lyrical. His LH was prominent in counterpoint and his tone in bel canto quite ravishing and emotionally moving. The style brillante was even more intense, light, airy and virtuosic than in the competition. This was as it was understood to be in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century.
One could hear all the LH detail which added significant depth to the soundscape and exegesis of various themes. His tone and touch are now even more elegant, expressive, rich and graceful. There is distinguished refinement, subtle dynamic sensitivity and aristocratic bon gout in this playing. As before, a light, glistening glitter like pearls falling on glass were scattered over us. His thirds are spectacular and only comparable to Horowitz.
I felt the he had plumbed far more deeply than four years ago, the emotional tragedy which occasionally and painfully fissures this movement. There was quite exceptional co-ordination with the outstandingly musical and virtuosic London Symphony Orchestra under their immensely gifted and sensitively sympathetic, on occasion grand and operatic conductor, Antonio Pappano. The dynamic balance with the Fazioli instrument was perfectly judged by Pappano, who is himself a fine pianist.
Romanze. Larghetto
Great simplicity, a touchstone of the composer, was evident here in a seductive fashion. The aria, a true nocturne taken at dusk in a garden or in moonlight on the still waters of a lake, moved forward in clusters of expressive tension and relaxation. This was true singing on the piano. A lovely duet with the bassoon evolved.
Rich in colour, his phrasing was beautifully sculptured into touching poetic shapes replete with emotional expression of an affecting and poignant kind that suffuses adolescent, unrequited love. For me he had moved one expressive dimension deeper in sensibility than his competition performance. The movement faded with fatalistic inevitability into the dreamworld from which it had originally emerged. A magician who continues to hypnotized us with piano sound.
Rondo. Vivace
As in the competition, this remained a perfect krakowiak both in engaging and vitalizing rhythm and embracing the Polish spirit of dance. The expression was so gloriously varied in articulation, colour, timbre, dynamic and above all, the affected charm of the true style brillante. Eloquent counterpoint in the LH balanced with the RH once more spoke volumes. The Fazioli instrument supported him and the internally fizzing yet richly rounded tone and incandescent sound world he created to perfection.
There was so much life, verve and vivacity invested in the variegated expressiveness. This was fiery energy without crudity of tone or dynamic in an exuberant display that one was privileged to hear live. Some running, high velocity passages were executed with extreme feather-like articulation and delicacy at a pianissimo dynamic.
This type of overwhelming execution I have only heard in recordings of the late nineteenth century masters of the instrument such as Josef Lhévinne, Leopold Godowski or Vladimir de Pachmann. A tremendous, overwhelmingly symphonic conclusion arrived in the coda. One must also reflect on the genius of Chopin in winding up the virtuosic tension to such a formidable pitch of thermodynamic intensity. The London Symphony under Pappano also captured the rhythm, dance and joy to perfection but with unimaginable grace and refinement of sound.
This account of the work was without doubt the finest with modern instruments I have ever heard - and I have heard hundreds by now. The audience were quite beside themselves with enthusiasm and leapt to their feet, shouting their emotional release for ten minutes at least. I have only experienced this once before with Vladimir Horowitz in London (but actually this was on his entrance to the stage before he played a note!).
The first charming encore was a perfect period pendant to the concerto, the so-called 'Pendolino' Nocturne in E-flat major Op.9 No.2 in by Chopin arranged for violin (Sarasate) and piano. The work was played by the orchestra concertmaster Marquise Gilmore Benjamin. Bruce provided a gentle piano accompaniment that scarcely existed yet provided a tonal base over which the violin sang.
There were even moments of relaxing humour. Incidentally, for non-Poles the 'Pendalino' nocturne is so named because this was a Chopin piece chosen for the internal sound system for passengers on the Pendalino high-speed intercity trains crossing Poland.
The second encore, only obtained by an indefatigable applauding audience, was the Chopin Etude in G-flat major Op.10 No.5 executed with glittering style brillante articulation.
This was a fabulous concerto performed at the highest musical level which remains in an elevated position on my list of lifetime memorable musical experiences.
Jean Sibelius
Symphony No. 1 in E minor Op. 39
Sibelius was regarded as a national hero in Finland but his reception outside his native land was more mixed. He felt rather a time bandit and isolated from the avant garde modernist musical movements of his day that shuffled away from Romanticism. This adherence to 'the past' extracted a high price personally and psychologically in terms of alcoholism, depression and diminishment of self-esteem. He knew deeply he was a musical genius but wrote 'Only very few understand what I have done and want to do in the world of the symphony. The majority have no idea what it is about.' [...] ’Isolation and loneliness are driving me to despair.' he wrote in the 1920s.
Twenty years later his diary of 1943 reveals his horror at the race laws of Nazi Germany but he wrote of private agonies: 'The tragedy begins. My burdensome thoughts paralyze me. The cause? Alone, alone. I never allow the great distress to pass my lips.' In the 1920s and 1930s he became internationally famous, even adored as 'the new Beethoven' in New York and became a celebrity. Like many, this new-found fame he found difficult to deal with and disorientating. The avant-garde were highly intolerant of his music.
Theodor Adorno, the renowned but controversial German philosopher and musicologist, supporter of Arnold Schoenberg and the avant-garde, wrote intensely critically for a sociological think tank called the Princeton Radio Research Project: 'The work of Sibelius is not only incredibly overrated, but it fundamentally lacks any good qualities [...] Is Sibelius's music is good music, then all the categories by which musical standards can be measured - standards which reach from a master like Bach to the most advanced composers like Schoenberg - must be completely abolished.'
Much thanks to Alex Ross on occasion, from his remarkable book The Rest Is Noise: Listening to the Twentieth
Century (New York 2007)
The premiere of the First Symphony in E minor and the final version of his well-known Finlandia, coincided with a developing Finnish nationalism. As we have seen expressed in the 2nd. Symphony, Finland’s autonomy under Russian rule was threatened by Tsar Nicholas II. He attempted to suppress the country’s language and culture. Sibelius’s music and the paintings of Akseli Gallen-Kallela (1865-1931), were seen as symbols of resistance. Sibelius himself denied any programme or political message in his symphonies, asserting they were pure abstract music.
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| A Finnish lake by Akseli Gallen-Kallela (1865-1931) |
He met many of the famous contemporary composers – Debussy, Schoenberg, Strauss and famously Mahler. Sibelius maintained his conviction in discipline, 'formal rigours', coherence and 'profound logic' in symphonic construction and relevance, whilst Mahler declared that the symphony 'must be like the world, it must embrace everything'.
The work was completed in 1899 when Sibelius was 34. It has four movements.
I. Andante, ma non troppo –
Allegro energico
II. Andante (ma non troppo
lento)
III. Scherzo: Allegro
IV. Finale (Quasi una fantasia): Andante – Allegro molto – Andante assai – Allegro molto come prima – Andante (ma non troppo)
This was a remarkably rich and lush performance by the London Symphony Orchestra under Antonio Pappano. In the Andante, ma non troppo – Allegro energico, the opening rumble of the timpani and lone, melancholic solo clarinet give way to sublime melodies, stunning brass, woodwind and harp reminding reminiscent of the Tchaikowsky Pathétique Symphony. The percussion section of this orchestra is quite extraordinary. The tempestuous orchestration suited the extraordinarily dense, tight, mahogany thrilling string sound of the LSO. The nostalgic yearning and colours of the Andante were beautifully directed by Pappano. The Sibelius scholar Erik Tawaststjerna has described the Scherzo movement as firmly in the Bruckner tradition. The timpani again came to the fore in the opening.
The Finale is replete with majestic themes that were magnificent with these forces. Pappano directed the interplay of the various instrumental groups in a quite extraordinary manner to hear and absorb musically. Under this a relentless, almost ominous pedal hovers. The final pizzicato bars almost took me onto the Nordic ice. A more enriching performance and interpretation I can scarcely imagine.
Sunday 25.08.24 19:00
Moniuszko Hall of the Teatr Wielki – Polish National Opera
Concert version
Stanisław Moniuszko
Straszny dwór [The Haunted Manor]
Karen Gardeazabal soprano
Agata Schmidt mezzo-soprano
Agnieszka Rehlis mezzo-soprano
Petr Nekoranec tenor
Artur Ruciński baritone
Paweł Konik baritone
Mariusz Godlewski baritone
Rafał Siwek bass
Krystian Adam tenor
Zuzanna Nalewajek mezzo-soprano
Paweł Cichoński tenor
Podlasie Opera and
Philharmonic Choir
Violetta Bielecka choir
manager
Fabio Biondi conductor
The principal […] field of Mr Moniuszko’s activity as a compose is dramatic music; his favourite genre is French opera, created by Gluck, refined with Italian improvements by Méhul and Cherubini, later enriched with the treasures of harmony and drama of the German opera, disseminated so widely by Catel, Boiledieu, Auber, Hérold and Halévy, the sounds of the French opera are heard today from the stages everywhere across Europe. Indeed, music of this kind seems to be much more to our taste than the studied, dreamy-philosophical German style: we are so fond of this gaiety, this lightness that does not exclude the true drama, melodiousness, grace and naïveté—the ingredients of the good French opera.
[Stanisław Lachowicz, “Moniuszko,” Tygodnik Petersburski 13 (1842), No. 80. Quoted from Grzegorz Zieziula, From Bettly in French to Die Schweizerhütte in German: The Foreign-Language Operas of Stanisław Moniuszko]
Stanisław
Moniuszko was born into a family of Polish landowners settled in Ubiel
near Minsk in present day Belarus and showed the customary precociousness
of genius. He studied composition and conducting with Carl Friedrich
Rungenhagen in Berlin in 1837 and later worked as an organist in Vilnius. He
traveled often to St. Petersburg where he met the great composers of
the day (Glinka, Balakirev, and Mussorgsky) and also Weimar where he met
Liszt and then Prague where he made the acquaintance of Smetana. His
first recently discovered (2015) comic opera in two acts composed in Berlin was
entitled Der Schweizerhütte (the Swiss Cottage).
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| Moniuszko manor house in Ubiel, sketch by Napoleon Orda |
In 1848 he visited Warsaw and met the writer, actor and director Jan Chęciński who became the librettist of arguably Moniuszko’s greatest operas, Halka and Straszny Dwór (The Haunted Manor), both infused with the fertile theme of Polish nationalism. Halka was premiered with great success in Warsaw in 1858 (10 years after the concert version performance in Vilnius!) and then later in Prague, Moscow and St. Petersburg. Moniuszko became an oversight success in the manner of Lord Byron after the publication of Childe Harold. He then began to concentrate on operas that eschewed Polish themes.
For example Moniuszko for some time had been fascinated with the class system in France as also the caste system in India as depicted in the play Paria by Casimir Delavigne (1793-1843) which he had translated from the French. He also desperately wanted an operatic success on the stages of Paris, spurred on by the successful operas of Meyerbeer. He had toyed with the idea of Paria for some ten years before it was finally premiered in 1868. The Overture is a magnificent evocative piece of 19th century orchestral writing.
Until at least 1989, this 'iron cultural curtain' effectively concealed the existence of Stanisław Moniuszko and his operas for directors, producers and audiences in the West. However, I feel sure that more imaginative, fully costumed, opulent staged production of his more obscure or forgotten operas (rather than concert performances) with fine soloists of world renown would at least partially fulfil and validate all of Moniuszko's own immense and deserved hopes for an international reputation. Italian arias dominate traditional opera and French arias follow closely behind which leaves those composers writing and setting libretti in less common languages with a distinct sense of inferiority. Moniuszko remains central to a full understanding of Polish culture which is finally reaching its deserved place in the European world picture. He wrote 14 Operas, 11 Operettas, some 90 religious works in addition to over 300 songs, piano pieces, orchestral music and chamber music.
A long evening that in the harsh light of day attracted rather mixed reviews. This could well have been because the opera had been completely rethought musically in this concert version by Biondi. He is by now intimately familiar with the other operas of Moniuszko which even Polish melomanes may not have heard or seen in performance apart from isolated arias and overtures. Poles deeply identify with the emotions and even concealed political intentions of the opera Straszny dwór [The Haunted Manor] (it was banned by the Russians after only three performances). They have assuredly a deeply nationalist view of the work with close familiarity of how it should be performed and interpreted for them. Biondi redefined this in many ways musically which some may have found disturbing.
I will simply select highlights that moved me 'as a foreigner'. The plot is rather simplistic but makes its point forcibly! Rather than having me arduously outline it here, do read:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Haunted_Manor
The baritone Artur Ruciński gave a majestic, resonant performance of the Sword-bearer's Act II aria Kto z mych dziewek (Who of my girls...) from the opera. The strength of this voice indicated the powerful presence of the singer and was enthusiastically received by the audience
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| Artur Ruciński (Miecznik) |
The soprano Karen Gardeazabal was deservedly popular with the audience (wildly so) singing the character Hanna's recitative and the demanding aria 'Do grobu trwać w bezżennym stanie' (A lament that she may die before getting married) from Act IV of the opera.
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| Karen Gardeazabal (Hanna) and Agata Schmidt (Jadwiga) |
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Agnieszka Rehlis (the Chamberlain's Wife, Old woman) |
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| Karen Gardeazabal (Hanna) |
The fine tenor Petru Nekoranec sang the character Stefan's resonant, tender yet dramatic one of the most famous arias in Polish operatic literature from Act III, Cisza dokoła (Every corner of silence). This aria contains an extraordinary stroke of genius, which has a chime embedded in it as a carefully concealed subversive political statement concerning Sarmatian Poland - or so it seems to me. Partitioned Poland at that time existed as a sovereign nation state only in the minds of its citizens.
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| Pawel Konik (Zbigniew) and Petr Nekoranec (Stefan) |
On 13 October 1865, the Gazeta Muzyczna i Teatralna wrote "In the third act there is this famous chime, which pleased the public. It is a polonaise closed only in eight bars, and written in an archaic style, resembling at least [Michał] Oginski. " Another journal, the Dziennik Warszawski on 30 September 1865 commented "But the main advantage of this act [...] is Stefan's aria with a chime. The very idea of combining several instruments, as: flute, harp, piano and bell [also harmonium], to imitate the voice of an old-fashioned chimes is a happy and original idea, all the more so as the beat of the clock is repeated in the echo, made by string instruments . The same melody, coming out of the clock, serves as a prelude to a beautiful aria.' Nekoranec made much of this great tenor aria in an impassioned and wrought delivery of carefully graded nuance and drama. I thought this aria quite remarkable having never heard anything resembling it in the Western canon.
Another fine moment was from the bass Rafał Siwek movingly sang the character Skołuba's aria Ten zegar stary (This old clock)also from Act III of the opera. The depth and richness of this voice and unflustered intonation were most striking in a deeply satisfying artistic performance.
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| Rafał Siwek (Skołuba) |
Such a pity there were not surtitles in English. The libretto in Polish and English was excellent except that the font was tiny and could not be read in the dim illumination!
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| Fabio Biondi and Europa Galant |
I found Fabio Biodi's orchestral conducting of Europa Galant in this long, demanding Polish work a relatively satisfying and musical interpretation even if I am not Polish. Unlike a native speaker, I cannot fully connect the musical phrase with the emotion and historical associations carried by the libretto. The challenging Polish language does create diction problems for foreign singers. The appropriate musical setting of the words being sung are of course vital in any operatic production.
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| Gunnar Arneson and Michael Moran intensely engaged in their usual interval analyses |
Friday 23.08.24 20:30
Warsaw Philharmonic Concert Hal
Eric Lu piano
KBS Symphony Orchestra
Pietari Inkinen conductor
Fryderyk Chopin
Piano Concerto in F minor Op. 21
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| Bernado Bellotto, called Canaletto - View of Warsaw from the Praga district, 1770 |
This concerto, the first Chopin wrote, follows the Mozart model and was directly influenced by the style brillante of Hummel, Kalkbrenner, Moscheles or Ries. Here, in this early work, Chopin magically transforms the Classical into the Romantic style. The work itself was written 1829-30. As we all know by now, this concerto was inspired by Chopin’s infatuation, or was it youthful love, for the soprano Konstancja Gładkowska. Strangely, it was published a few years later with a dedication to Delfina Potocka.
I felt that the orchestra for this work was really rather large considering the success both Chopin concertos have had in a quintet reduction. They and their conductor Pietari Inkinen made much of the period Polish rhetorical gestures concealed within the work. These nuances are now familiar to me having lived in Poland for many years and heard the concerto many times in different hands.
The first performance of his first piano concerto took place for a group of friends in the Chopin family drawing room at the Krasiński Palace on March 3, 1830. Karol Kurpiński, the Polish composer and pedagogue, conducted a chamber ensemble. One must remember that contemporary full orchestral forces were rare in the performance of concertos in Warsaw in the early 19th century.
There are three movements
Maestoso
Lu expressed this internally iridescent style outstandingly well with great artistic refinement. The opening Maestoso (quite a favourite stylistic indication in Chopin) was noble, even rhapsodic and considered by soloist and orchestra with inner musical logic and coherence. The tempo and character was truly Maestoso. Expressive compositional details were only occasionally lost in the wash of orchestral sound. Eric in this movement grasped a fine sense of youthful excitement and thoughtful keyboard exhibitionism, just as Hummel had laid the groundwork.
The violin counterpoint and devoted cello playing emerged as affecting, highly musical instrumental sections of the orchestra. The fiorituras on the piano Lu were perfectly judged embellishments, seamlessly incorporated into the melodic lines. The LH counterpoint was inspiringly clear.
Larghetto
The outer movements of the concerto revolve like two glittering, enchanted planets around the moonlit, sublime melody of the central Larghetto movement. The nocturnal love song was inspired by the soprano Konstancja Gładowska, Chopin’s object of distant aesthetic and sensual fascination. He would soon part from her and leave Poland. As can be the way in life, it is said she preferred the attentions of the handsome, uniformed Russian officers to our poetic genius.
‘As I already have, perhaps unfortunately, my ideal, whom I faithfully serve, without having spoken to her for half a year already, of whom I dream, in remembrance of whom was created the adagio of my concerto’ (Chopin to his friend Tytus Woyciechowski, 3 October 1829).
The well-known human conflict of duty towards one’s career and love are clear. Liszt regarded the movement as ‘absolute perfection‘. Zdzisław Jachimecki, a Polish historian of music, composer and professor at the Jagiellonian University regarded it as ‘one of the most beautiful pages of erotic poetry of the nineteenth century.’
The glorious melody rose over us from like an aria or nocturne of love, full of considered poetry and lyricism. The movement contains, together with the E minor concerto Romanza, arguably the most beautiful love song ever written for piano and orchestra.
Apart from the creation of a seductive tone colour, Lu sculpted an affecting cantabile. The expressive fiorituras were graceful, elegant and grew as an organic part of the melody. There were authentic feelings of yearning for an inaccessible love here, a sensitive sense of longing. Dynamic variations were moving and persuasive, particularly when the longing turns to resentment fired by unrequited love but subsided in nuances of pianissimo resignation to the grim, rather sad reality. The pizzicato on the double basses was rather ominous and suggestive of hidden forces at work. In many ways you could say that the whole work revolves around this movement.
I always think in the Larghetto of the sentiments contained in the 1820 poem by John Keats La Belle Dame Sans Merci with its passionate interjections
I met a
lady in the meads,
Full beautiful—a faery’s child,
Her hair
was long, her foot was light,
And her eyes were wild.
I made a
garland for her head,
And bracelets too, and fragrant zone;
She looked
at me as she did love,
And made sweet moan.
I set her
on my pacing steed,
And nothing else saw all day long,
For
sidelong would she bend, and sing
A faery’s song.
That final forty-note fioritura of longing played molto con delicatezza always carries me away into Chopin’s dreamy Romantic poetical world. Lu's phrasing was most poetic.
Allegro vivace
The testing Allegro vivace provided technical challenges for everyone, especially for orchestral and soloist co-ordination. In this ebullient movement Lu brought the sensual expression of the style brillante to life but always under artistic control rather than simply a vehicle for virtuoso exhibitionism. There was energy and virtuosity in both soloist and orchestra in this Rondo final movement, composed in the exuberant style of a kujawiak dance. The youthful style brillante broke over us like the waves of the sea. The col legno on the strings was most effective in expressiveness.
The great Polish musicologist and pedagogue Mieczyław Tomaszewski writes perceptively of the movement:
It thrills us with the exuberance of a dance of kujawiak provenance. It plays with two kinds of dance gesture. The first, defined by the composer as semplice ma graziosamente, characterizes the principal theme of the Rondo, namely the refrain. A different kind of dance character – swashbuckling and truculent – is presented by the episodes, which are scored in a particularly interesting way. The first episode is bursting with energy. The second, played scherzando and rubato, brings a rustic aura. It is a cliché of merry-making in a country inn, or perhaps in front of a manor house, at a harvest festival, when the young Chopin danced till he dropped with the whole of the village. The striking of the strings with the stick of the bow, the pizzicato and the open fifths of the basses appear to show that Chopin preserved the atmosphere of those days in his memory.
How Chopin must have loved the bucolic nature of the Polish countryside and its music! The Chopin extension of the Hummel piano concerto was here fully realized. Melody and bravura figuration were wonderfully and authoritatively brought off yet with a balance of formal structure. This composition that lies between Mozart and the flowering of the style brillante was consciously created, as were the gestures towards the concertos of Weber (following the splendid horn Cor de signal ). A dazzling coda concluded an excellent performance by both soloist and orchestra.
As an encore, the poised and elegant Chopin Waltz in C-sharp minor Op.64 No.2
Jean Sibelius
Symphony No. 2 in D Major Op. 43
Carl Axel Frithiof Carpelan (1858 -1919) was a fascinating character, a Finn born in Helsinki mainly remembered as a
close friend, inspiration and supporter of the composer Jean Sibelius. His
family forbad him to study music despite him being a talented violinist and pianist.
Carpelan led a modest, obscure life, devoting himself mainly to music and
military history.
Carpelan became a close friend of Jean Sibelius after a meeting in 1890 and even created the name Finlandia which became one of the best-known compositions of the composer. The work also spread knowledge and curiosity about Finland throughout mainland Europe. Sibelius also dedicated the 2nd Symphony to him.
Carpelan arranged financial patronage for Sibelius after extensive correspondence. He arranged the finance for a visit to Italy for Sibelius. He wrote glowingly of the country to the composer of the artistic heritage of Italy as 'a country where one learns cantabile, balance and harmony, plasticity and symmetry of lines, a country where everything is beautiful – even the ugly. You remember what Italy meant for Tchaikovsky’s development and for Richard Strauss.'
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| Carl Axel Frithiof Carpelan (1858 -1919 ) |
Sibelius hired a villa in the mountains near Rapallo and as I often emphasise concerning composers, he was inspired by the literature of the German Romantic writer Jean Paul (1763-1825). Sibelius writes:
'Jean Paul says somewhere
in Flegeljahre ('The Awkward Age' 1804-5) that
the midday moment has something ominous to it … a kind of muteness, as if
nature itself is breathlessly listening to the stealthy footsteps of something
supernatural, and at that very moment one feels a greater need for company than
ever.'
The twins, Walt and Vult, are the main
characters of Flegeljahre. They are both writers but Vult is a colourful
travelling flautist who whimsically appears and departs whilst Walt is
committed to his home life and in that way more settled in character than his
brother.
An image from Flegeljahre preoccupied Sibelius and he wrote on a sheet of paper the following imaginative vision:
'Don Juan. Sitting in the twilight in my castle, a guest enters. I ask many times who he is. – No answer. I make an effort to entertain him. He remains mute. Eventually he starts singing. At this time, Don Juan notices who he is – Death.' On the reverse side of the paper dated 2/19/01 he sketched the melody that became a theme in the second movement of the symphony.
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The Attack Eetu Isto 1899
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The Attack is a painting that gained a huge reputation for its political resistance during the Russification of Finland (1899–1905 and 1908–1917) |
Again, so appropriate for this fraught time of ours, after its premiere on March 8, 1902, the Symphony emerged as an emblem of national liberation. For Western Europeans the admittedly obscure history of the country indicates that the Grand Duchy of Finland was experiencing the ‘russification program’ of Tsar Nikolai II during the years 1899-1905. This attracted an emblematic interpretation of the music. Robert Kajanus, founder and conductor of the Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra, who put this concept into profoundly eloquent words:
'The Andante strikes one as the most broken-hearted protest against all the injustice that threatens at the present time to deprive the sun of its light and our flowers of their scent. … The scherzo gives a picture of frenetic preparation. Everyone piles his straw on the haystack, all fibers are strained and every second seems to last an hour. One senses in the contrasting trio section with its oboe motive in G-flat major what is at stake. The finale develops towards a triumphant conclusion intended to rouse in the listener a picture of lighter and confident prospects for the future.'
Overwhelmed by the sheer bravura and power of this extraordinary composition given us by the KBS Symphony Orchestra and the conducting of Pietari Inkinen, I searched for a narrative or programme feeling the vision. Not being Finnish, I was unable to fully relate deeply to the work but the sheer genius of the incredibly varied orchestration and impassioned conducting of this fine orchestra swept most rational questions away. I often feel a similar difficulty of relation of the upsurge of national feeling encapsulated in many nineteenth century Polish compositions given the fractured history of the country. Similarly to Chopin in a way, Sibelius denied a programme ever existed for his symphonies, deeming them absolute music.
For the encore a seductive and sensual interpretation of Valse triste of Sibelius (1903), eloquently conducted by Pietari Inkinen. The fine, enriching sound of this superb ensemble was again much in evidence.
Oh, and Axel Carpelan died of pneumonia in Turku in 1919. After his death, Sibelius wrote in his diary: 'For whom am I now composing?'
(Much thanks to the Finnish musicologist IIkka Oramo)
This concert is co-hosted by the Embassy of the Republic of Korea and the Korean Cultural Center in Poland in celebration of the 35th diplomatic relations between Korea and Poland.
Thursday 22.08.24 19:00
Warsaw Philharmonic Concert Hall
Bomsori Kim violin
KBS Symphony Orchestra
Pietari Inkinen conductor
Choi Sung-hwan (1936-1981)
Arirang Fantasy (1976)
The KBS Orchestra assembled here was simply immense and I awaited in some trepidation at the sound that would undoubtedly engulf me like a tsunami. I need not have worried, familiar as I am with the magnificent music schools in Seoul and the profound understanding of Chopin shown by numerous talented South Korean young pianists and other instrumentalists. But I had never heard any composition by a North Korean composer!
Arirang is a traditional song familiar in both North and South. Traditional song and folklore invest this emotional Fantasy with a unified, shared sensibility, something as modern Westerners, we hardly ever properly associate with this tragically divided country (perhaps one reason they understand so deeply the nostalgic compositions of Chopin). The work is the best known by Choi Sung-hwan.
The ensemble sound was glorious, superbly disciplined and boded well in my mind for the programmes to come.
Karol Szymanowski (1882-1937)
Violin Concerto No. 1 Op. 35 (1916)
The choice of this concerto and its genesis is singularly appropriate, geographically and spiritually at this fraught time. It provides us with the welcome respite of the creative, lyrical side of human nature rather than that of destructive brutality. Echoes of the Great War are unmistakable.
Karol Szymanowski's Violin Concerto No. 1 Op. 35 was written in the autumn of 1916 in Zarudzie, Ukraine, on the estate of the composer's friend - Józef Jaroszyński. Szymanowski has spent much of this time alone and isolated from the distractions of sophisticated 'culture'. It is dedicated to Paweł Kochański, who composed a cadenza for the Concerto, and during work on the piece gave the composer advice on violin technique as well as tone colour and texture.
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Karol Szymanowski (1882-1937) by Stanisław Ignacy Witkiewicz - 'Wikacy'
One of the sources of inspiration for this composition was probably a poem by Tadeusz Miciński (1873-1918), a Polish poet, novelist, and playwright associated with the fantastical Young Poland movement. He was famous for his mystical and symbolist themes. The poem that inspired Szymanowski in this work is called Noc majowa / May Night which expresses the dual metaphysics of life and death as a spring fantasy.
I quote in part:
Crowned donkeys sat on the
grass –
crickets kiss a wild rose –
and death shimmers on the pond
and plays a frolicking song.
Mayflies,
Follow the dance –
oh, lake flowers, water nymphs!
Pan plays the flute in the oak
grove.
Mayflies
follow the dance,
follow the dance –
love’s embrace
woven
eternally young
[...]
....these owls,
staring with the apple of the
eye’s dread,
that comprehended the divine
madness of events.
How fervent are my flowing
tears,
sylvan fauns look at me
mockingly,
for I cannot join our lips,
or as a river trickle myself
into the sea –
we stand in a mute terror,
in awe, in bloody conflagration
[Translated from Polish by Dosia McKay Copyright of the translation ©2015 Dosia McKay]
As he worked on his composition, Szymanowski shared his feelings with Stefan Spies:
"I have to say I am very
content with the whole - again all kinds of new notes - but also a little
returning to the old; the whole thing awfully fantastic and unexpected."
The work is recognized as the first "modern" violin concerto, in which the composer rejects the 19th-century tradition and the major-minor system, and introduces a new music language full of ecstatic raptures and tension. The lack of a dramatic kind of expression, which is replaced with emotional intensity, means that the piece is closer to the aesthetics of expressionism than to the Romantic convention. The Concerto is a one-movement, internally diverse poem. Tadeusz Zieliński identifies five phases in this work, which differ in mood and motif material:
"The music of the first link can be described in the most general terms as a fairytale fantasy, the music in the second - lyrical and passionate, the third link is a kind of scherzo, the fourth - a gentle, calming nocturne, and the final, fifth link, containing a solo cadenza, brings a synthesis of all the previous phases."
The concerto was very well received both in Poland and abroad. After a concert at which it was performed by Paweł Kochański, one perceptive critic wrote about the concerto in a manner rather beyond my knowledge and capabilities:
"This work, written very freely, offering unusual diversity, filled with unpredictable combinations, rich and lively, interested me greatly. The role the orchestra is given involves painting and describing; the violin's role is lyrical song. The sound waves flood the soloist's subtle melody, the cascades of the harp surround it, the clarinets and oboes quarrel fiercely. One could say the landscape changes from one moment to the next, like a film."
(Courtesy of Polish culture.pl)
Both the violin soloist Bomsori Kim and the magnificent KBS Symphony Orchestra under their conductor Pietari Inkinen, created a pantheistic symbiosis of visionary Nature in their combined sound. As I began to be transported out of time, I felt she understood that even as a soloist she did not intend to dominate with a rich tone or spectacular technique, distracting us with 'reality'. She sensuously floated above, almost disembodied, hovering over the rich, erotic, even rapturous colouration of the orchestral writing below as a type of disembodied wraith.
Pietari Inkinen conducted this extraordinary ensemble with rare penetration. He is Finnish, a conductor and esteemed viiloinist. The nation of Finland have a precious and intimate relationship with Nature and possess rare and unique qualities beyond language within the world of metaphysics and musical communication.
Much is happening inside the mind of any listener of literary, even cinematographic imagination, within the overwhelming musical ambience of this matchless revolutionary, visionary composition. An extraordinary experience.
Antonín Dvořák (1841-1904)
Symphony No. 8 in G major, Op. 88 (1889)
How desperately we are in need of joy, cheerfulness and lyricism in such benighted contemporary times!
Dvořák composed and orchestrated the symphony in only two and a half months from August to November 1889 at his summer resort in Vysoká u Příbramě in Bohemia. The score was composed on the occasion of his admission to Prague Academy and dedicated "To the Bohemian Academy of Emperor Franz Joseph for the Encouragement of Arts and Literature, in thanks for my election." Dvořák conducted the premiere in Prague on 2 February 1890. The work owes much of its popularity to its active performance history and popularity in Great Britain. He actually conducted it in person in 1891 on being awarded an honorary doctorate by Cambridge University.
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A View of Bubeneč near Prague (1825) Antonín Mánes (1784-1843) |
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| Antonín Dvořák (1841-1904) |
In the opening Allegro con brio one is never in any dilemma that one is in the company of Czech national music replete with all its cheerful and energetic folkloric melodies, dance and humour. The quality of the woodwind soloists, brass and tightness of string ensemble was so inspiring in this orchestra in Dvořák's variegated orchestration. Marvellous conducting! A quite uplifting dialogue between woodwinds and strings invests the Adagio. The glorious colours possible to be produced by this wonderful orchestral ensemble were beautifully painted in the soundscape.
And then the Allegretto grazioso - Molto vivace. A beguiling waltz, haunting, nostalgic simmering with that unique Czech sensuality and languor one contemplates with such pleasure in the paintings of the Czech painter Alfons Mucha. I was sorely tempted to sing or dance, the orchestra sounded so rich and alive as the melody swayed over us !
A lady I could waltz with ....
The author of a respected book on Mucha, Ronald F. Lipp, describes the females in Mucha’s work—the Mucha Woman:
“She beckons us hypnotically with some inexpressible yet compelling vision, some unspoken promise—wholesome, alluring, uplifting and erotically vulnerable. Her gaze is half-focused, as if she is herself emerging, posed at the moment of awakening, suspended between her loving viewer and some faintly remembered image of another world. Her allure is often heightened by her tresses which spill luxuriantly, perhaps windblown or disheveled, forming a halo surrounding her face.”
The Allegro ma non troppo final fourth movement gave the superb brass section an opportunity to shine as it did splendidly. This agitated and tumultuous movement was tremendously exciting especially the brass section. It begins with a fanfare of trumpets. Conductor Rafael Kubelik said in a rehearsal: "Gentlemen, in Bohemia the trumpets never call to battle – they always call to the dance!" Again we inhabit the joviality of the Czech lands in this rather complex theme and variations. Their variety gives the fine soloists of the KBS ample opportunity to shine and communicate their optimism.
A truly energizing evening by a superb ensemble and conductor that lifted my spirits out of the 'slough of despond' into which they all too often fall these days.
Optimism !!
This concert was co-hosted by the
Embassy of the Republic of Korea and the Korean Cultural Center in Poland in
celebration of the 35th diplomatic relations between Korea and Poland.
Wednesday 21.08.24 20:30
Warsaw Philharmonic Concert Hall
Louis Lortie piano
Piotr Paleczny piano
Sinfonia Varsovia
Jacek Kaspszyk conductor
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| Old friends - Jacek Kapsczyk and Piotr Paleczny |
Paweł Szymański
Four Hevelian Dances (premiere version for orchestra) 2011
The composer was present in the audience. The work was originally written for pipe organ and two portative organs - an extraordinary combination and so imaginat9ve an idea ! I was unfamiliar with this work, an attractive amalgam of colours, timbres, textures, fractured rhythms and eloquent silences.
Fryderyk Chopin
Piano Concerto in E minor Op. 11
The deep musical impact of his playing and communication with the appreciative audience has come from so many years, a lifetime in fact, of an intimate relationship with this work. The experience was first as the 3rd prize winner in the 8th International Fryderyk Chopin Competition in 1970, followed by a career as a distinguished professor of music, juror, festival entrepreneur and performer with a supremely close knowledge of this great concerto. Coupled with this is a profound understanding of its immortal Polish composer.
To appear as a soloist in such a demanding composition with such an immense teaching and judging load at the Warsaw Filharmonia required great courage. To keep such a work fluently in your fingers over so many years with such external academic demands is nothing short of astonishing. This was clearly appreciated by the intense enthusiasm of the standing audience, orchestra and conductor. A fine performance indeed.
Mieczysław Weinberg (1919-1996)
Serenade Op. 47 No. 4 (1952)
My 'discovery' of this Polish composer whose works for solo piano and orchestra are undergoing somewhat of a resuscitation from suffocation in the former Soviet Union, was augmented once again by this tuneful, cheerful and accessible work. Such a charming, melodious composition that suited the orchestra and its conductor Jacek Kaspszyk.
Witold Lutosławski (1913-1994)
Piano concerto (1987-1988)
The enthusiasm and youthful exuberance shown by Krystian Zimerman when he won the 9th International Fryderyk Chopin Competition in 1975 inspired Lutosławski to write this remarkable piano concerto for him to perform. The first performance was on 19th August 1988.
Louis Lortie was clearly deeply involved in the performance of this overwhelming work but in a creative way, specified by the ad libitum direction, quite unlike Zimerman. I cannot say more as I am not myself deeply familiar with the inner workings of this extraordinary melange of Lutosławski and nineteenth century pianism.
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| (DGG) |
Wednesday 21.08.24 17:00
Warsaw Philharmonic Concert
Hall
Kate Liu piano
Ludwig van Beethoven
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| Beethoven imagined by an artist in 1816 |
This was a most extraordinary recital that took me in experiential emotion one dimension deeper into the metaphysical nature of music than most other artists manage to take me.
Piano Sonata in C minor,
Op. 13 (‘Pathétique’) 1799
I had never heard Liu approach Beethoven so I listened with close attention.
This work was the composer's first great success in the 'sublime' and was well-known even in his own day. However, it has suffered much under the many wrong amateur fingers which diminish the proper appreciation of its grandeur and musical depth.
In 1793 Schiller in his essay 'On the Pathetic' wrote:
'Representation of suffering - as mere suffering - is never the end of art, but, as a means to its end, it is extremely important to the same. The ultimate end of art is the representation of the super sensuous, and the tragic art in particular effects this thereby, that it make sensuous our moral independence of the laws of nature in a state of emotion.'
Liu opened the sonata with powerful,
almost symphonic weight, setting a tone of high seriousness in her approach to
the work.
Enlightenment sensibility gracefully entered the interpretative picture
in the famous and exquisite Adagio cantabile - so beautiful
and vocally 'sung' by Liu. The Rondo is not so profound as the mood of
the first movement but does conclude in a melancholic C minor key. Liu
understood the structure and emotional impact of the familiar sonata perfectly.
Piano Sonata in E major,
Op. 109 (1820)
She then
performed the Beethoven Sonata in E major Op. 109. This
sonata was composed in 1820 when Beethoven was completely deaf and suffering
ill-health. He was beginning to bid a
final farewell to the sonata form from Op.109 to Op.111.
Charles Rosen
writes in his book Beethoven's Sonatas (p.229)
'They (the last three sonatas) have understandably inspired a good deal of pretentious interpretation in both writing and performance. This was inevitable: the composer clearly intended these works as exemplars of great spiritual experience. It is less evident that Beethoven's idea of transcendence is the same as ours.'
There are three movements:
- Vivace ma non troppo — Adagio
espressivo
- Prestissimo
- Gesangvoll, mit innigster Empfindung.
Andante molto cantabile ed espressivo
It is an especially lyrical work. The work is a profound personal statement by Beethoven which with Liu gave an impression of rich internal life. She expressively and finely managed the many difficulties of executing the opening theme. The reflective parts of the Adagio espressivo are of the deepest philosophical introspection which I felt she penetrated profoundly. The sonata breaks nearly all the rules of traditional sonata form.
The Prestissimo emerged as an immaculate yet irresistible force. Here is needed the expression of divine nostalgic laments, regrets in life, the meditative preoccupations and loss of love leading to an ultimate resignation under the stronger force of destiny. Her articulation throughout was very fine with much colour and nuance.
Beethoven for
me requires the communication of feeling of the struggle of human inadequacy
against unflinching fate, the anger that this can generate when intense
lyricism has been experienced, lost and then remembered with yearning.
Beethoven for me requires what I might term in a literary observation, the 'condiments
of human imperfection'.
A theme and
six variations, each with a different character and partly contrapuntal
texture, is contained within the final movement Gesangvoll, mit
innigster Empfindung Andante molto cantabile ed espressivo. The
writing veers between moments of lyrical cantabile and
the severely declamatory. The driving rhythmic energy of the fifth
variation gives the impression, at least to begin with, of a complex,
many-voiced chorale-like fugue. This is resolved into quiet resignation
at the conclusion. Beethoven’s approach to the variation form at the conclusion
is far freer here than in his previous sonatas.
Fryderyk Chopin
Around 1835, Chopin began working on the set of mazurkas Op.30. There are four mazurkas in the set. The great Polish musicologist Mieczysław Tomaszewski writes (slightly paraphrased):
'...the last mazurka, closing the opus, brought a
breath of grand music – here, the dance miniatures grew into dance poems. The
mazurkas that precede the opus-ending apotheosis present music of a more modest
shape and expression, focussed within itself, more succinct and more fleeting.
They come and go, like the first, in C minor, that opens opus 30, inspired by a
kujawiak, a Polish dance which is particularly apt to be played in
tempo rubato.'
Liu took us on her musical excursion into the world of nostalgic dreams yet retaining the essential rhythmic nature of the mazurka.
This delicate, fey lady is a phenomenon and an extraordinary pianist. During the 17th International Fryderyk Chopin Competition, Warsaw, 1-23 October 2015 she was placed only 3rd.
At that time I had the curious vision of an immensely precocious Chopin savant whilst listening and watching her. Without doubt hers was one of the most extraordinary Chopin recitals and concerto performances I have ever experienced in competition or out of it. This pianist seems to be in touch with some force outside of herself, transfigured by music electromagnetically if that does not sound too fanciful.
Nadia Boulanger was once asked what made a great as opposed to an excellent performance of a piano work. She answered 'I cannot tell you that. It is something I cannot describe in words. A magical element descends.'
This remark could not be more appropriate applied to the magical performances given by Kate Liu.
She played with an alluring and velvet touch. This created a dream atmosphere which descended over us like the wings of a night moth. Agitation rose organically and naturally like all true emotion does. Liu has a unique interpretative voice in the music of Chopin, rare indeed.
Mazurka in C minor Op. 30 No. 1
Mazurka in B minor Op. 30
No. 2
Mazurka in D flat major Op.
30 No. 3
Mazurka in C sharp minor Op. 30 No. 4
Robert Schumann (1810-1856)
Études Symphoniques, Op. 13 (1834)
I wrote about Liu's performance of this work at Duszniki Zdroj in August 2023 (apart from some additional variations on this occasion restored by Brahms to later editions). I would not wish to change my opinion of the devastating emotional impact of her conception of the work and performance.
I love this work of Schumann so much and Kate Liu gave a superb and idiomatic account of it. Horowitz felt it was the best introduction to the essential problems of Schumann interpretation for any young pianist. The composer's mercurial and whimsical nature is so difficult to grasp, the fluctuation in moods of fantasy even moments of visionary madness escape so many pianists.
An
autobiographical romantic element is interwoven into
the highly complex genesis of the Études symphoniques which
Liu captured perfectly. The work was dedicated to Schumann's English friend,
the pianist and neglected composer William Sterndale Bennett. Bennett played
the piece frequently in England to great acclaim, but oddly Schumann thought it
was unsuitable for public performance and advised Clara not to play it!
In much the same way as Chopin's Etudes they are predominantly concert studies in variation form with a possible pedagogical element in terms of piano technique and timbre. They are widely regarded as some of the most difficult works in the piano literature. Liu played these textually difficult 'orchestral' works with a convincing and absolute passion capturing the electrical whimsy and quicksilver moodiness that flows through Schumann to emotional incandescence.
- Theme – Andante [C♯ minor]
Liu offered us a long mental preparation for what was to follow at a tempo perhaps even affectingly slower than what is normally accepted as Andante.
- Etude I (Variation 1) – Un poco più vivo [C♯ minor]
Highly variegated in dynamic and tone - very much 'alive'
- Etude II (Variation 2) – Andante [C♯ minor]
Performed with great resolution and rhapsodic emotion - the polyphony (reflecting Schumann's obsession with Bach) was abundantly clear
- Etude III – Vivace [E Major]
Superb articulation. As light as golden pollen drifting on the summer breeze. The cantabile song was deeply poignant. Yes, symphonic in texture too.
- Etude IV (Variation 3) – Allegro marcato [C♯ minor]
She created a irrepressible marcato Étude. The marvellous melody struck like the autumn wind.
- Etude V (Variation 4) – Scherzando [C♯ minor]
Liu almost physically disintegrated in a furious explosion of symphonic energy.
- Etude VI (Variation 5) – Agitato [C♯ minor]
Here we were presented with unsettling, scintillating agitation to the point of Schumannesque madness!
- Etude VII (Variation 6) – Allegro molto [E Major]
A reflective reverie which was almost baroque in feeling and poetic in its feeling of improvisation
- Etude VIII (Variation 7) – Sempre marcatissimo [C♯ minor]
- Etude IX – Presto possibile [C♯ minor]
An extraordinarily passionate interpretation that simply left me breathless.
- Etude X (Variation 8) – Allegro con energia [C♯ minor]
- Etude XI (Variation 9) – Andante espressivo [G♯ minor]
- Etude XII (Finale) – Allegro brillante (based on Marschner's theme) [D♭ Major]
Liu abandoned herself to monumental expressiveness and construction. We were presented with the strength of granite building blocks of immense virtuosity. The lyrical, relaxed, reflective episodes were all the more effective due to this contrast. The sonic transparency even at ff was miraculous. The cumulative conclusion can only be described as magnificent, monumental and deeply moving, even shattering. At the conclusion everyone leapt to their feet. However, I was unable even to move or applaud.
She returned with yet another dream-invested encore, that of the Beethoven Bagatelle in G major Op.126.
Tuesday 20.08.24 20:30
Warsaw Philharmonic Concert Hall
Chouchane Siranossian violin
Tomasz Ritter period piano
Makoto Ozone period piano
{oh!} Orchestra
Martyna Pastuszka violin, artistic management
What a concert this was and without doubt only possible in creatively eccentric Poland! Thank the fertile imagination of the Festival's Artistic Director Stanisław Leszczyński.
Feliks Janiewicz (1762-1848)
Violin Concerto No. 5 in E minor
I traveled to Edinburgh towards the end of June 2022 and among the many adventures and museums visited, I managed to be there for the opening of a remarkable exhibition at the Georgian House. I live in Warsaw in Poland, move in musical circles there, but had never encountered this artist. I was astounded at the discovery.
[Throughout this post I have adopted the anglicized spelling of his name that he favoured in Edinburgh beginning with 'Y' (Yaniewicz) rather than the Polish 'J' (Janiewicz)]
I met and had a long instructive conversation with the exhibition curator Josie Dixon who assembled and wrote an excellent article on Felix Yaniewicz, her ancestor and a Polish virtuoso violinist, composer and businessman who was the catalyzing founding force behind the present, world-renowned, Edinburgh Festival. But this was in 1815!
This concerto
is the finest for me of his set of five. The opening Largo is
dark and a touch forbidding. The following Allegro. Moderato is
highly emotional, dramatic and subjective Sturm und Drang melody
and put me in mind of the Mozart D minor piano concerto in its
intense emotionalism. This or even the premonitory energy within Verdi overture
to La Forza de Destino. Mozart admired Yaniewicz greatly. In
fact, Mozart’s 19th-century biographer Otto Jahn speculates that his lost Andante
in A major K470 written at this time may have been composed for
Yaniewicz.
Michael
Kelly, a famous tenor, wrote that while in Vienna he was privileged to hear one
of the foremost violinists in the world: ‘...a very young man, in the
service of the King of Poland, he touched the instrument with thrilling effect,
and was an excellent leader of an orchestra. His concertos always finished with
some pretty Polonaise air; his variations were truly beautiful.’
.jpg) |
| Chouchane Siranossian |
The
composition certainly sets the individual soaring virtuoso violin part as a
superb display piece against the orchestra. The long, polyphonic cadenza is
dazzling and absolutely sensational, rather like a prized piece of decorative
Sevres porcelain displayed in a solitary cabinet in a Parisian museum. I felt
Siranossian and Pastuszka were slightly held back during this remarkable
movement but it remained convincing in its flourishes.
The Adagio was lyrical and affecting as a pastoral melody of love gliding above pizzicato orchestral strings. An extraordinarily long lyrical period by the soloist led magically attaca (no pause) into the spirited and exuberant Rondo. Allegretto. This conclusion was rich in unmistakable folkloric, Jewish-Ukrainian dancing elements and a physical joy. There was a beautiful balance maintained here between the virtuosic violin soloist Siranossian and the minimalist pizzicato orchestral writing and accompaniment under Pastuszka. I felt at times I could have been in Kazimierz in Kraków during a late evening klezmer concert in a tavern. The accelerando conclusion was exciting and uplifting in gaiety.
I cannot imagine why this concerto, in a fine performance by an exceptional violinist, has not been absorbed into the conventional repertoire and pleasure taken in hearing the sheer tuneful, ornamented virtuosity. We do not always need to inhabit the 'dark night of the soul' in a concert hall! Here we had a balance of temperament, the unalloyed ideal of Sturm und Drang.
The performance was received with ovations. The encore
was a overlong, virtuosic caprice by 'the mad Locatelli' which I found diverting to
begin with but the length somewhat tiresome in execution. There were
extraordinary ironic, hilarious moments when Locatelli requests the violinist to
play on the fingerboard in the highest, utterly inaudible, silent register.....for
some time !
For more on the remarkable Polish virtuoso violinist Feliks Yaniewicz and his long period in Edinburgh musical life planting the seeds of the Edinburgh Festival today - if you have time, here is an illustrated presentation ....
http://www.michael-moran.com/2022/09/felix-yaniewicz-music-and-migration-in_7.html
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| https://sklep.nifc.pl/en/produkt/77383-duranowski-janiewicz-mozart |
Ludwig van Beethoven
Piano Concerto No. 4 in G major, Op. 58
Begun in
1805, the concerto was completed early the following year and premiered on
December 22, 1808, as part of the famous Akademie in the Theater
an der Wien.
It was
Beethoven’s last appearance as a concerto soloist and the basis of an
extraordinary anecdote. The composer Louis Spohr recounted a description told
to him by Ignaz Xaver Seyfried, music director at that venue at that time. The
concert lasted some four hours. The audience sat with great
determination in the unheated concert hall in the freezing winter.
“Beethoven
was playing a new Pianoforte-Concerto of his, but forgot at the first tutti
that he was a solo player, and springing up, began to direct in his usual way.
At the first sforzando he threw out his arms so wide asunder, that he knocked
both the lights off the piano upon the ground. The audience laughed, and
Beethoven was so incensed that he made the orchestra cease playing, and begin
anew.
Fearing a
repetition of the accident, two boys of the chorus placed themselves on either
side of Beethoven, holding the lights. One of the boys innocently approached
nearer, and when the fatal sforzando
came, he received from Beethoven’s right hand a blow on the mouth, and the poor
boy let fall the light in terror… If the public were unable to restrain their laughter
before, they could now much less, and broke out into a regular bacchanalian
roar. Beethoven got into such a rage that at the first chords of the solo, he
broke a dozen strings.”
This was a fine performance by Tomasz Ritter on a fine copy by Paul McNulty of a Graf and the {oh!} Orchestra under Martyna Pastuszka providing violin leadership and artistic management. There are three movements.
Allegro moderato
The opening
chord, so difficult for a pianist to manage dynamically dolce, was
pianissimo, poised and set an almost dreamlike atmosphere, a domain
sensitized to the secrets of the forest. Here we had a perfectly balanced
symbiosis of dynamic and stylistic statements and response. The texture
and timbre could be controlled unlike a modern instrument and Ritter made full
use of these creative sound possibilities on the early instrument. His tone and
touch with minimal pedaling suited the underlying classical nature of the work
yet with gestures of romanticism attempting to gently break free from the
classical braces. As William Blake wrote Damn braces, Bless relaxes in The
Marriage of Heaven and Hell (1790–3) ‘Proverbs of Hell’.
Ritter gave us an expressive and supremely virtuosic cadenza which surely places him in top flight of young Polish pianists.
Andante con moto
The second
movement, accompanied only by orchestral strings, is well known to all music
lovers. The movement has often been compared to Orpheus taming the wild beasts
with his music. The underrated pupil of Beethoven, Carl Czerny, observed:
'in this
movement (which, like the entire concerto, belongs to the finest and most
poetical of Beethoven’s creations) one cannot help thinking of an antique
dramatic and tragic scene, and the player must feel with what movingly
lamenting expression his solo must be played in order to contrast with the
powerful and austere orchestral passages.'
The orchestra is occasionally strident and powerful which contrasts movingly and dramatically with the rich harmonies and cantabile phrases of the piano part. The cellos and basses maintained a fine pianissimo. Until the opening of the final movement, one has been seduced by the emotional, implied restraint of this concerto. Ritter was lyrical yet not overly sentimental in the poetry and poignant moods he brought to this movement.
Rondo. Vivace
Ritter brought excitement to the Finale. Trumpets and drums sound as we transition from the sublime second movement into this exuberant Rondo, like the flash in sunlight off a mountain spring at its source.
Ritter balanced
this work which hovers beguilingly like a humming bird over the cusp of
classicism and rich romanticism.
There was a highly enthusiastic audience reaction at the close. Ritter is popular in Warsaw owing to his recordings and awards on period pianos. As an encore he performed Chopin’s Prelude in D-flat major.
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Piano Concerto in E flat major (K. 271)
What a intensely creative performance this was !
The internationally famous Japanese jazz and classical pianist Masako Ozone was approaching the Mozart Piano Concerto in E flat major K 271. What might he invent, improvise or whatever and where ? Would it cross any musically interpretative 'red lines' ? Had jazz ever been played on a nineteenth century 1838 Erard period instrument in the Warsaw Filharmonic ever before ? Certainly with his extrovert personality I did not anticipate a conservative, dry as dust, academic response to this sublime work.
This concerto was carefully chosen to provide opportunities for whimsical and effective improvisation on a familiar work. Mozart composed this concerto, his last in Salzburg, in January 1777 (he was a mere 21) for a visiting French pianist, a Mademoiselle Jeunhomme (or 'the Jenomy' as Mozart called her). She must have been an accomplished musician.
Alfred Einstein in a serious vein compared this concerto to Goethe's Werther and Beethoven's Eroica Symphony remarking 'it is surprising and unique among Mozart's works [...] he never surpassed it.'
The opening Allegro calls attention to the solo piano which Ozone played as written. As the movement progressed he could not resist adding embellishments of a subtle variety, only lightly accompanied by the orchestra. During the long cadenza to this movement he was able to fully indulge the wildest jazz-like fantasies and inventions until Mozart was submerged struggling in vain, yet winningly, against the popular music of succeeding centuries. Ozone's invented harmonic transitions moved the original into the time distance but hints remained of salvation and return. Wonderful, exciting and refreshing this 'game' and distraction.
The Andantino theme is full of sublime lyricism and eloquence, a poem of wistful yearning. Ozone sublimated this beauty with superb tone on the Erard. Long and varied piano solos which gave him opportunities for irresistible decorative embellishments. Again the cadenza gave him all the jazz improvisatory openings he required but in a more subdued mood than in the first movement.
The final Rondo quickly dispelled the C minor mood. The altered moods were utilized inventively by the pianist and then the cadenza - originally a virtuoso written out example by Mozart. Ozone took us on a long jazz excursion into distant regions of rhythm and harmony where at points in this wildness I despaired of him ever being able to returning harmonically or gracefully - but he did !
If the film Amadeus is anything other than a fantasy, Mozart, with his sense of fun and travelling in a Dr. Who time machine, would have been overjoyed by Ozone. The standing upright, period performance baroque style orchestra ,with their leader and artistic manager, were utterly bemused over quite some time listening and waiting to enter once again. I feel sure this type of Ozone invention could not have been meaningfully rehearsed! At the close, amidst standing ovations and cheering, Ozone highlighted an orchestral player for special approbation for his jazz bass performance during his improvisations.
As an encore Ozone gave us a long, purely virtuosic jazz work of great though dark passion and enjoyment. His metier quite obviously. The whole thing was reminiscent for me of a misspent youth late at night or early morn in Ronnie Scott's jazz club in Soho in London in the 197os. A concert with Oscar and Stephane Grappelli playing 'jazz standards' one night in that smoky room was divine sensuality. Makato told me it was my jazz piano idol Oscar Peterson who originally fertilized his interest in jazz. Was it his own composition? The first time jazz has ever been performed on a period 1838 Erard instrument in the Warsaw Filharmonia I am almost sure ! And such sheer fun !
Tuesday 20.08.24 17:00
Warsaw Philharmonic Concert Hall
Ewa Pobłocka piano
Johann Sebastian Bach
Das Wohltemperierte Klavier (I)
For me this was a truly beautiful recital that lodged in the heart. Ewa Pobłocka presented herself from the outset as a servant to this immortal music. She created an atmosphere of warm intimacy. A few precious festival hours could be spent in calm spiritual communion as this fine musician explored her treasured Book I of Das Wohltemperierte Klavier.
Bach presented the work 'For the use and profit of young musicians who are
anxious to learn, as well as for the enjoyment of those who are already expert
in the art.' - as it was presented to us. The work is simultaneously
absolute music and pedagogic text. The first volume betrays great variety of
Baroque figuration and dance rhythms, composed over a long period of
time. Pobłocka managed to
convey this variety and its archaic (for the time) polyphony
and counterpoint well although I felt on this occasion at times a curious absence of deeper
expressive possibilities.
This was
not a 'performance' to which we have become accustomed but rather a private sharing
of her musical thoughts with us. I was reminded of a remark made by C.P.E. Bach in his seminal Versuch
über die wahre Art das Clavier zu spielen of 1753 (An Essay on the
True Art of Playing Keyboard Instruments): ‘I prefer to be moved rather than
astonished.’ Quite.
We were modestly and quietly lured into a world of deep, uncompromising humanist meditation, philosophical reflection, blithe untroubled refinement with the occasional sensual 'indulgence' of chromaticism and glorious sound. Her legato, more warmly pedaled (to my taste) than I feel stylistically appropriate, yet gave us a deeply emotionally meaningful and reflective Bach.
I was taken back
to the heartfelt world of the great Dame Myra Hess, but this was none the less meaningful. Hess commented in an interview on the BBC with John Amis in 1963 in answer to his
question concerning her opinion of young pianists: "Oh the terrible
competition! There are too many people now who are not necessarily great
musicians but who can for instance play the piano....much too well and much too
fast." And that was in 1963 !
Tone and touch were of prime importance to composers like Fryderyk
Chopin, something Ewa Pobłocka would have been well aware of being one of
the finest Chopin interpreters. One must also remember that Bach along with
Mozart occupied the predominant place in the tiny pantheon of great composers
that Chopin respected, even adored. In fact preparing for recitals, Chopin
would not practise the repertoire he intended to perform but Preludes
and Fugues from Bach's Das Wohltemperierte Klavier. The
recital was in an oblique way a homage to Chopin without actually playing his
music.
The conclusion of the performance, the Prelude and Fugue No
24 in B minor, was played in a spellbinding way after the great
musical traverse of Book I.
In this recital
of Das Wohltemperierte Klavier one was once more convinced of
Bach as essentially a religious composer. The profound humanist that emerges
from his deepest psyche emerged as an adjunct and devotion to his Lutheran
faith. My recent visit to the museum in his birthplace of Eisenach, Martin Luther's
'altar', displayed a surprising number
of different bibles and religious texts from his library. This uplifting evening managed once again to
regenerate my faith in creative human nature in the face of the profoundly
negative and threatening aspects of our times. Surely an experience given to
few in concert halls today.
JS Bach Das Wohltemperirte Clavier, Book 1
Sunday 18.08.24 20:30
Warsaw Philharmonic Concert
Hall
Piano Duets
Kate Liu piano
Eric Lu piano
This recital became
a moment of almost metaphysical magic for me. To see these two poets of the
piano actually playing together after their remarkable individual performances
in the 17th International Fryderyk Chopin Competition, Warsaw, 1-23 October
2015, was a time to treasure in nostalgia and recall. Almost eight years have passed since then!
I finally learned after much debate that in the competition Kate Liu had won 3rd Prize and the best Mazurkas Prize and Eric Lu the 4th prize. I wrote at the time:
"Two of my 'poets' have won major prizes! This lifts my spirits immeasurably [...] Kate Liu inhabits another musical world to the other competitors and we are reduced to mere human beings. I felt personally she should have won the competition and if I had been the only judge...well, she would have [...] As I said 'poets' do not win piano competitions."
Eric Lu I had first heard in the Chopin Preludes in an outstandingly poetic performance in Duszniki Zdrój (a mere half recital in those anonymous days). I wrote of his competition performance among many other positive things:
"Here at last we have a pianist who fulfills all
the criteria performance of Chopin I have outlined above - at last,
at last - a true poet of the piano who managed to create an
atmosphere of intense intimacy on a Steinway in this vast hall [...] As George
Sand once said of Chopin 'He lives in a different world to the
rest of us.' Here with Liu we moved to a different level of musicianship
altogether and far, far closer to the authentic intentions of Chopin
at least as I conceive them from my own studies over almost a
lifetime."
Since then I have reviewed many recitals by both artists in Warsaw and Duszniki Zdrój in similarly glowing terms.
Franz Schubert
Allegro in A minor for 4 hands D. 947 "Lebensstürme" (D. 947) 1828
As a great creative artist Schubert was possessed of many demons. In his compositions he often juxtaposes the lyrical, entertaining aspects of life with its harsh, dark realities. We are uncomfortably, in a mood of grim irony, still occupying such a place almost 200 years after his death.
This work was superficially published as Lebensstürme ('Storms of Life') and certainly the brilliant four hands of these two virtuosi elevated the work to majestic orchestral proportions, almost as a type of overture. The beginning of this sonata movement was 'heroic' in a word which was transformed into an almost 'unstable visionary effect' by the 'diaphanous texture' of the four hand medium (Margaret Notley). They gave a haunting poetic dimension to the exquisite second subject in the recapitulation.
Fantasy in F min or for four hands, Op. 103 (D. 940) 1828
This work has struck deeply into the engaged heart but disinherited mind of much of my musical life. This most outstanding instrumental piece by Schubert touches the normally inaccessible regions inhabited by his songs with their contrasting preoccupations. The conjunction and relationship of poetry and music was an obsession with composers in the early nineteenth century and beyond.
Again we have the intensely contrasting themes within the free sonata-form structure and offering transformative expressive possibilities. I am reminded of the structure and emotional landscape of the earlier Wanderer Fantasy based on his song of the same name. I feel contemporaneously that the work speaks of humanity's ceaseless wandering and searching for spiritual security in a world whose values have scarcely evolved despite miraculous technological advances.
Again the unreality of what appear convincingly to be the sunny alpine pastures of life are wonderfully expressed but always loitering increasingly threatening and ominous are the shadows of past accumulating disillusionments. The inexorable progress towards a tragic destiny appears inevitable. The dark realities of a second theme in F minor erupt over us in almost funereal rhythm, a severe contrast to the almost lyrical but melancholic character of what has preceded it. Death awaits as in the song Der Tod und das Mädchen. The weight of the fugue becomes almost insupportable in emotional significance. Again the two-faced perspective of Janus in this work culminates only in the concentrated concluding last bars of this extraordinarily visionary creation.
Nothing in life is as it seems. The 'tragic symbolism' analogous to that of Winterreise is inescapable.
I felt Kate and Eric elevated the work with grandeur to a noble statement of human significance, or lack of it in the cosmos. They captured the intimacy of external suffering yet with poetic sensitiveness of the mind's imagination in their expressiveness. Their close co-ordination or even symbiosis at the keyboard was notable. Deeply moved by this music.
Wolfgang
Amadeus Mozart
Sonata in D major for two pianos (K. 448) 1781
Mozart only wrote two works for two pianos. This Sonata was written in November 1781 for performance by Fräulein von Aurnhammer and himself.
It is written in the galant style and has a truly festive character and thematically is reminiscent of a sinfonia for an opera buffa.. Alfred Einstein wrote a description of the work that cannot be bettered. He considers '...the art with which the two parts are made completely equal, the play of the dialogue, the delicacy and refinement of the figuration, the feeling for sonority in the combination and exploitation of the different registers of the two instruments - all these things exhibit such mastery that this apparently 'superficial' and entertaining work is at the same time one of the most profound and most mature of all Mozart's compositions.'
I felt that this poetic couple did not abandon themselves sufficiently to the joy, humorous wit and relaxed interplay as the pianos exchange roles and motives so brilliantly. Their superb technical abilities were never in question but their mood could have been more playfully unbuttoned.
Fryderyk
Chopin
Rondo in C major [Op. 73] (WN 15) 1828
Chopin's first Rondo Op.1 was published in 1825 at the tender age of 15. Containing elements and compositional spirit of the brilliant rondos by Hummel and Weber, this version for two pianos dates from 1828 in the Warsaw period of compositions. Audiences would stand on their chairs to see how Hummel produced his spectacular trills!
It was never published by Chopin but released after his death in 1855. The work has not been widely acclaimed, although its music is tremendously effective in the period style and is at times tremendously diverting as entertainment of the virtuoso variety. Eric and Kate gave it a highly energetic and sparkling performance that I enjoyed immensely.
Sunday 18.08.24 17:00
Warsaw Philharmonic Chamber Music Hall
Dmitry Ablogin period piano (McNulty copy of the Polish Bucholtz) and modern piano
As is always the case with this pianist, I am overcome with superlatives. He is one of the great period piano specialists but also has a commanding keyboard technique and deep musical insight that convinces completely on the modern instrument.
Fryderyk Chopin (1810-1849)
Rondo à la Mazur in F major Op. 5 (1825–26)
This work was written when Chopin was 16 (such a prodigious genius). He dedicated it to the Countess Alexandrine de Moriolles, the daughter of the Comte de Moriolles, who was the tutor to the adopted son of the Grand Duke Constantine, Governor of Warsaw. This rather unpleasant individual often requested Chopin to play for him at the Belvedere Palace. Unable to sleep, on winter nights he would ostentatiously send a sleigh drawn by four-horses harnessed abreast in the Russian style to collect the young pianist from his home. Schumann first heard the Rondo à la mazur in 1836, and he called it 'lovely, enthusiastic and full of grace. He who does not yet know Chopin had best begin the acquaintance with this piece'.
Ablogin invested with all the grace, youthful exuberance and elegance one could imagine from the world Chopin moved in and his ebullient youthful personality at this time. Ablogin created the intimate ambiance common among the original cultivated audience. The range of colour, touch, rubato, expressiveness and phrasing transported us into another world of sensibility to the present adulation of brute force. Quite wonderful, even magical.
John Field (1782-1837)
Listening to the extreme simplicity, refinement and economy of means in these Field nocturnes, it is hardly surprising that the aristocratically cultivated Chopin was seduced by them to create his own augmented creations of the form. Field was well-known in 19th-century Europe both as teacher and pianist. As Ablogin fully comprehends, this purposefully created intimate ambiance continued to reduce the audience to utter silence - a variety of hypnotism was in operation distinguished by the sheer quality of these beautiful, intense, subtly ornamented cantabile melodies. Such a pity the Field nocturnes are not better known for themselves and not simply as shadows that influenced the immortal creations of Fryderyk Chopin.
Nocturne in B flat major Op. 4
Nocturne in E minor Op. 10
Nocturne in A major Op. 4
Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy (1809-1847)
Piano sonata Op. 6 (1826)
Felix Mendelssohn was a virtuoso
pianist born in 1809. Schumann was born in 1810, as was Chopin, and Liszt
followed this glowing caravan of creativity in 1811. These were youthful pianist-composers
at a time when the piano was considered a constantly evolving, rather a modern instrument. Beethoven commenced
his career in the 1790s as a virtuoso pianist.
Chopin used to visit piano factories in Warsaw obsessively following new technical developments in the role of what we might now call an 'early adopter'. Such manufacturers as the Polish Bucholtz, a superb modern copy of which we were listening to. Composers such as Hummel, Moscheles (a friend of Mendelssohn), Kalkbrenner and Ries were tumultuously adored in a manner similar to pop phenomena today such as Taylor Swift.
Mendelssohn's early concertos are phenomenal works that place him directly beside Mozart in precocity. The sonatas were precursors to the ‘mature’ style in works such as the Rondo capriccioso and the Andante cantabile e Presto agitato.
I must confess to being unfamiliar with this work and was astounded by the harmonic adventurism and sheer confident élan of the writing. One could feel a sense of compositional exploration in many of the harmonies and Ablogin gave us as fine an account as far as I could judge in this case-limited way. A marvelous piece performed magnificently.
Johannes Brahms (1833-1897)
Rhapsody in B minor, Op. 79 No. 1
Brahms spent the summers of 1877 - 1879, some of the most productive of his life, in Carinthia.
Here he conceived the Rhapsodies, Op. 79. They are his largest single-movement works for piano. The works are dedicated to the composer's friend, Elisabeth von Herzogenberg (née Stockhausen). Brahms found her paralyzingly attractive and found teaching her near impossible owing to his flood of emotions. Other teachers that followed faced the same erotic issues. However, after she married Heinrich von Herzogenberg, Brahms relaxed his infatuation with his 'Liesl'.
With some difficulty he fought for a title of the form, originally terming No.1 a Capriccio. However, under Liesel's influence, on publication he altered the title to Rhapsody (source John Palmer). Ablogin gave full reign to his musical imagination in this work and I could not help marveling at the apparently effortless transition from idiomatic, intimate performance on the Bucholtz copy of 1825 which he brought to a more declamatory modern Steinway. Experience of the earlier instrument clearly paved the way for subtlety of touch and tone rare extracted from the modern instrument.
Ballad in B major Op. 10 No. 4 (1854)
The Ballades, Op. 10, are lyrical piano pieces written by Brahms as a young man dedicated to his friend the German conductor, composer and musician Julius Otto Grimm. Their composition signaled another poetic, amorous and long-lived affection for the pianist and composer Clara Schumann. She helped Brahms launch his career but failed to respond in a manner he might have adored. Brahms conceived of the genre rather differently from the arguably more famous Chopin Ballades.
Ablogin gave a dramatic trajectory to this work and clearly performed it as if created by a young spirit, mired in the emotional throes of unrequited love ?
6 Klavierstücke, Op. 118 (1893)
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| Brahms in age |
The divine autumnal Brahms 6 Klavierstücke Op.
118 (1893) have always been close to my heart. Dedicated to Clara Schumann, they were
written in 1893 at Bad Ischl during the summer. Julius Spitta, a German
musicologist, wrote to Brahms after receiving the music, 'They are
the most varied of all your piano pieces and perhaps the richest in content and
depth of meaning …'. In a letter to the conductor and composer Franz
Lachner, Brahms wrote (actually concerning the 1st Movement of the Second
Symphony): 'I am, by and by, a severely melancholic person …black wings
are constantly flapping above us'.
These are among the last compositions by Brahms and he seems to have conceived them as a coherent whole. It is hard to overlook the presence of the spectre of death that inhabits them. The group speaks volumes to me of the transient nature of human existence, but more of a proud philosophical resignation to the inevitability of destiny than a sensationalist expression of terror, despair and melancholy in the face of our mysterious journey to oblivion. Ablogin approached them with immense sensitivity and subtlety of tone, touch, phrasing and articulation.
The passionate outbursts of the first Intermezzo in A minor, is such an affirmation of life in those rich chords, then the fading away and decaying. Ablogin expressed these emotions in a profoundly expressive manner.
In the second sensitively played Intermezzo in A major, we are gifted the desperate yearning and eloquent harmonic transitions of the Andante teneramente. The expressive dynamic variations and poetry lovingly embrace the long legato lines devoted to transient affections. This ardent work has all the rhapsodic yearning and longing of a nocturne on the nature of mortality and lost love. The Andante teneramente can in fact be considered a secret love letter to Clara Schumann. It is one of the most affecting pieces of the Romantic piano repertoire, replete with love, reminiscence, nostalgia and sense of longing. The opening has a lyrical melody of exquisite beauty. The emotions of melancholy and yearning follow with a final sense of eternal values and difficult acceptance. Ablogin penetrated to the core of this refined reminiscence.
In an almost vengeful affirmation of life, yet remaining hauntingly reflective, Ablogin then powerfully explored the Ballade in G minor which burst over us with its vigorous rhythms and a wonderful delineation of densely woven harmonies.
In the contrapuntal texture of the fourth piece, the Intermezzo in F minor, Ablogin expressed the fluctuating, mercurial nature of emotional tensions and calm waters, which seems inevitably to follow the etiolated nature of 'all passion spent'. The Chopinesque lullaby that inhabits the heart of the Romanze in F major was so movingly expressed.
The valedictory final piece of this integrated meditation on the acceptance of destiny and fate, the Intermezzo in E-flat minor, begins with the theme of the Dies Irae of the Christian requiem. The spectre of death enters and recurs in the work in various guises. Here we begin to inhabit another world far beyond this one. Ablogin is a master of creating alternative worlds of sound for us to inhabit. A strenuous, heroic yet tragic averral of the force of life briefly emerges but the terminal expression of resignation in death concludes pianissimo.
These are profoundly mature works reflecting on past life, ego utterly extinguished, inhabiting a world or metaphysical medium in a scarcely bearable extinction of life. Concentrated and highly expressive, Ablogin presented us with this set of pieces as a musical portrait of Brahms' complex internal emotional world and its history.
Uniquely, or at the least, very rarely with pianists, Ablogin manages to remove his ego and personality when creating a channel through which the music can flow directly to us from the mind of the composer unhindered by 'histrionics', overt theatricality or 'heart worn on sleeve' which besieges too many players. He remains essentially modest confronted by the demands required by the interpretation of these great works of musical art.
An wildly enthusiastic standing ovation.
His first beautiful impressionistic encore was by Richard Strauss from Stimmungsbilder Op.9 : An einsamer Quelle. It revealed his usual extensive knowledge and discrimination. He then gave us a delightfully rethought and highly individual reading, even recreation, of the familiar Waltz in C sharp minor Op.64 No.2 decorated as suggested by Chopin's own variant notations to his student scores. Also the Nocturne in E flat major Op.9 No.2 was similarly refreshed into creation in another similar mood of delight.
A truly wonderful evening of music as if created before us in the moment.
For my detailed review of his recent outstanding CD please consult
http://www.michael-moran.com/2023/12/endymion-1818-john-keats-1795-1821.html
https://sklep.nifc.pl/en/produkt/77317-late-works-opp-45-64
17.08.24 Saturday 20:30
The Church of the Holy Cross
Warsaw
Before Chopin's Heart
Fabio Biondi violin
Paola Poncet harpsichord
I would simply like to say that
this concert was so full of virtuosity, correct baroque violin and
harpsichord performance practice, sheer musicality and
uplifting brilliant joy in life and living, anything I would say as a
so-called music 'critic' seems gratuitous, parsimonious and redundant. Even the
diverting stories in the programme book concerning these
trail-blazing Italian violin composers were
highly amusing. 'One God, one Veracini' the composer is
reputed to have uttered ! All the composers, now familiar names,
exerted an immense influence on the development of violin technique
and melodic composition which Paganini later took to formerly
unconceived lengths.
Fabio Biondi, the brilliant baroque violinist, has also developed a current passion for the almost forgotten (in the West) operas of the Polish composer Stanisław Moniuszko. He has performed most of them at this festival in Poland and recorded many for the Chopin Institute with his band Europa Galante.
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The harpsichordist Paola Poncet studied with Tom Koopman and Bob van Asperen at the Royal Conservatoire at The Hague. So enough said on that performance front if you know the institution and their formidable reputation as performers.
An unutterably joyful opening to the festival and adoration of the creative spirit in man ! How desperately we need this now ...
Arcangelo Corelli
Violin Sonata in A major Op. 5 No. 9
Antonio Vivaldi
Sonata in G minor (RV 28)
Francesco Geminiani
Sonata in D minor Op. 4 No. 8
Giuseppe Tartini
Sonata in G minor, ‘Didone abbandonata’ Op. 1 No. 10
Francesco Maria Veracini
Sonata in D minor Op. 2 No. 12
Pietro Antonio Locatelli
Sonata in D minor Op. 6 No. 12
As encores we were overjoyed to receive a movement from Bach's Sixth Sonata for Violin and harpsichord and a repeat of the final movement of the Tartini.
17.08.2 4 Saturday CET 17:00
Witold Lutosławski Studio of the
Polish Radio
Eric Guo period
piano copy of an 1830 Pleyel by Paul McNulty
This pianist is the winner of the 2nd International Chopin Piano Competition on Period instruments Warsaw, 2023. A fitting soloist to open the Festival. He is a great communicator (vital in a concert artist) which was obvious from the first embracing smile and warm farewell directed to the audience.
His playing is a marvellous example of coherent musical speech with a variety of timbre, tone and dynamics. One is struck by his fertile musical imagination and extrovert personality. He demonstrated the variegated sound and colour potential of this McNulty copy a period piano. We were offered bravura playing, style brillante and ultra-pianissimo effects that were as elegant and delicate as Venetian Burano lace. His dramatic accumulation of vivid colours and variety of touch, timbre were a revelation of polyphony.
Scherzo in B flat
minor Op. 31
This Scherzo is a marvelously dramatic work with an authentic feeling of narrative and complex swings of mood and heightened emotion coupled with poetic meditation. The Pleyel added significantly to these chiaroscuro contrasts of colour.
The brilliant
Polish musicologist Mieczyslaw Tomaszewski writes of this scherzo: 'The new
style, all Chopin’s own, which might be called a specifically Chopinian dynamic
romanticism, not only revealed itself, but established itself. It manifested
itself à la Janus, with two faces: the deep-felt lyricism of the Nocturnes
Op.27 and the concentrated drama of the Scherzo in B flat minor.' Friedrich
Niecks, the German musical scholar and author, found the Trio evocative of
the Mona Lisa’s thoughtfulness, a mood full of longing and
wondering.
Arthur Hedley
thought about the work’s ecstatic lyricism, before concluding in a way
even more appropriate today in the age of recording: ‘Excessive
performance may have dimmed the brightness of this work, but should not blind
us to its merits as thrilling and convincing music.’
Jean-Jaques
Eigeldinger in the Chopin 'bible' Chopin - Pianist and Teacher as seen
by his pupils mentions on p.84-85:
The repeated triplet group that appears so simple and innocent could scarcely ever be played to Chopin's satisfaction. 'It must be a question' taught Chopin. He felt it never played questioningly enough, never soft enough, never round enough (tombé), as he said, never sufficiently weighted (important). 'It must be a house of the dead', he once said [...in his lessons]
I saw Chopin dwell at length on
this bar and again at each of its appearances. 'That is the key to the whole
piece,' he would say yet the triplet group is generally snatched or swallowed.
Chopin was just as exacting over the simple quaver accompaniment of the cantilena as
well as the cantilena itself. 'You should think of [the
singer] Pasta, of Italian song! - not of French Vaudeville.' he said one day
with more than a touch of irony.' [Wilhelm von Lenz]
Guo achieved much of this but I felt he could have taken the work one spiritual dimension deeper.
Nocturne in B major Op.
62 No. 1
Interestingly, in the Anglo-Saxon world, this has been given the name of an exotic greenhouse flower: ‘Tuberose’. The American art, book, music, and theatre critic James Huneker explains why: ‘the chief tune has charm, a fruity charm’, and its return in the reprise ‘is faint with a sick, rich odor’. It is curious how Chopin's Nocturnes were regarded as 'sick emanations'.
Guo was sensitive and poignant in this work, extracting a seductive sound from the Pleyel which created a slumbering nocturnal ambiance. There is great variety of mood and writing of this rather untypical Chopin nocturne.
Piano Sonata in B
minor Op. 58 (late autumn 1844)
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Wojciech
Gerson (1831–1901): ‘Pejzaż tatrzański z góralem (Ulewa w Tatrach)’ /
‘Tatra Landscape with a Highlander (Downpour in the Tatras)’
This sonata is one of the greatest masterpieces in the canon of Western piano music. In many ways this sonata (still classical in its formal Austro-German sonata structure that Chopin embraced) is the very essence of Romanticism in music. The first and last movements possess the character of a Ballade, the second is a scherzo, and the third is a nocturne.
Guo expressed the severe agitation of the spirit that imbues the Allegro maestoso. He created a beautiful, singing cantilena a song of immense emotionalism and nostalgic poignancy.
The Scherzo was light and airy with clear articulation of
'pearls', an approach that would have pleased Mendelssohn. The poetic, nostalgic cantabile passages were handled with subtlety and sensitivity.
The introduction to the Largo on an Pleyel was not an overly grand, dynamic declamation. I found his movingly expressive approach showed an understanding of the complex harmonic structure and its development. Here we began an exquisite extended nocturne-like musical voyage taken through a night of meditation and introspective thought.
This great musical narrative of extended and challenging harmonic structure
must always be presented as a poem of the reflective heart and spirit which Guo achieved. It is so
difficult to maintain interest and momentum in the movement over the long
period it takes to perform. The Largo is a nocturne by any
other name. An 'aria of the night' indeed which we and the pianist should never forget.
The Finale is marked with the indication Presto but non tanto which he understood. There was no excessive virtuosity as he maintained, what for my over-active imagination at least, is the irresistible impetus of a lover heading towards a seemingly inevitable emotional doom. The movement has the tone and nature of a narrative Ballade.
So impassioned is this movement
that it has stimulated the imagination of many interpreters. For Marcel Antoni,
it brought to mind an image of the Cossack Hetman Mazeppa on a wild steed
chased by the wind. Iwaszkiewicz saw this music as a foretaste of the galloping
of Wagner’s Valkyries. Both Jachimecki and Chominski heard in it an expression
of a demonic nature.
The great
Polish musicologist Tomaszewski again cannot be bettered in his observation:
'Thereafter, in a constant Presto (ma non troppo) tempo and with the expression of emotional perturbation (agitato), this frenzied, electrifying music, inspired (perhaps) by the finale of Beethoven’s Seventh Symphony…’
Ballade in F major Op. 38 (1839)
Penetrating
the expressive core of the Chopin Ballades requires an
understanding of the influence of a generalized view of the literary, musical
and operatic balladic genres of the time. In the structure there are parallels
with sonata form but Chopin basically invented an entirely new musical
material, nothing less than a new genre. I have always felt it helpful to
consider the Chopin Ballades as miniature operas being played
out in absolute music, forever exercising one's musical imagination.
This is
wonderfully narrative Ballade. Chopin was working on the F major
Ballade in Majorca. In January 1839, after his Pleyel pianino
had arrived from Paris, he wrote to Fontana ‘You’ll soon receive the Preludes and
the Ballade’. And a few days after, when sending the manuscript of
the Preludes: ‘In a couple of weeks, you’ll receive the Ballade, Polonaises and Scherzo.'
So the conception took place in the atmosphere of a haunted monastery,
threatened by untamed nature. The same ambiance as the Preludes. Here
was conceived the idea of contrasting a gentle and melodic siciliana with
a demonic presto con fuoco – the music of those ‘impassioned
episodes’, as Schumann referred to them.
The Leipzig
encounter with Chopin Schumann experienced in 1840 is instructive. 'A new
Chopin Ballade has appeared’, he noted in his diary. ‘It is
dedicated to me and gives me greater joy than if I’d received an order from
some ruler’. He remembered a conversation with Chopin: ‘At that time he
also mentioned that certain poems of Mickiewicz had suggested his ballade to
him.’ So the narrative balladic tradition did underlie this conception but
naturally not in any programmatic way.
In the
opinion of the musicologist and Chopinist Jim Samson, the work can only be
explained as a two key piece, in both F major and A
minor, yet coalesces into an entire organic expression, a Romantic
'fragment of autobiography' if you will. Sometimes Chopin would
perform the childlike innocence of the opening lyrical siciliana as
a separate work and not continue to the volcanic, explosive and almost
terrifyingly passionate presto con fuoco. The regions of the
work loosely resemble in spirit and design, that of the Preludes themselves,
almost bordering on the autonomous.
Guo made
expressive contrasts of mood and the chiaroscuro illumination
of this highly temperamental, febrile fluctuation in the work, much assisted by
the disturbing varied register colours and timbres given these moods on
the Pleyel. 'Op. 38 is a narrative of national martyrdom'. [Professor
Johnathan D. Bellman]
I have always felt piano students during the course of their studies should be urged by their teachers to play some Chopin on an early instrument to augment their feeling and cultural contextual understanding of what his pupil Princess Marcelina Czartoryska referred to as 'le climat de Chopin'.
Accelerate your imagination!
Chopin was that breed, a composer-pianist, exclusively playing his own work in recital. What a transcendent experience that must have been on a Pleyel or if he was physically tired, an Erard.
Mazurkas Op.59 (1845)
No: 1 in A
minor
This opening
theme of this masterpiece sounded as if sung far away on an alpine pasture to
which reality slowly intrudes with darker realities. Then a return to wandering
with nostalgic reminiscences among the high clouds. Using the different sound
colours in the different registers of the Pleyel, Guo made much of
this work.
No.2 in
A-flat major
There is a
delightful 'Romantic' story linked to this second mazurka. Towards the end of
1844, Chopin received a short letter from Felix Mendelssohn. During their first
years in Paris, those two composers, together with Liszt, Hiller, Berlioz and
Bellini, created a musical ‘Romantic movement’. Mendelssohn later left Paris,
and only met Chopin now and again. Mendelssohn wrote to him:
‘My dear
Chopin, This letter comes to you to ask a favour. Would you out of friendship
write a few bars of music, sign your name at the bottom to show you wrote them
for my wife (Cécile M.-B.), and send them to me? It was at Frankfort that we
last met you and I was then engaged: since that time, whenever I wish to give
my wife a great pleasure I have to play to her, and her favourite works are
those you have written.’
Chopin, as
often delayed his reply but finally wrote somewhat apologetically:
‘Just try
hard to imagine, my dear friend, that I am writing by return of post […] If the
little sheet of music is not too dog-eared and does not arrive too late, please
present it from me to Mrs Mendelssohn’.
How much
closer to the source of this music when hearing it with all these
associations and on a Pleyel.
No: 3 in F-sharp
minor
Let me allow the great Polish musicologist Mieczyslaw Tomaszewski describe the third of these Mazurkas which 'drags one into the whirl of a Mazurian dance from the very first bars, with its sweeping, unconstrained gestures, its verve, élan, exuberance, and also, more importantly, the occasional suppressing of that vigour and momentum, in order to yield up music that is tender, subtle, delicate...'. I felt Guo gave gave full expression to the physical exuberance of this mazurka.
Sonata in B flat minor Op. 35 (1839)
The great Polish musicologist Tomaszewski describes the opening movement of this sonata Grave. Doppio movimento perceptively: ‘The Sonata was written in the atmosphere of a passion newly manifest, but frozen by the threat of death.’ A deep existential dilemma for Chopin speaks from these pages written in Nohant in 1839. The pianist, like all of us, must go one dimension deeper to plumb the terrifying abyss this sonata that opens at our feet.
This I felt Guo only partly accomplished this expressiveness, a movement that possesses both tragedy and menace. His immense talent allowed the phrasing to breathe musically, the polyphony to be transparent and clear. His rubato was not sufficiently affecting for me, hungry as I am to be emotionally moved. An introspective and deeply angry discontent with the nature of mortality is present in Chopin here.
The Scherzo again put me in mind of Tomaszewski who commented: ‘…one might say that it combines Beethovenian vigour with the wildness of Goya’s Caprichos.' The beautiful cantabile Trio took us singing into the further dimension of ardent dreams which makes the Marche funèbre such a shocking emotional jolt of the force of destiny.
The dark colours of the Pleyel register where Chopin sets this funereal theme gives an immediate atmosphere of tragedy to the Marche funèbre. The tempo was slow, deliberate yet not heavy as the pall bearers proceed, swaying through the cemetery to the funeral plot. The reflective Trio was sensitively a contrast of innocence, love and purity blighted by the reality of death (Chopin was terrified of being buried alive – often horrifyingly possible in those primitive medical times). It remains sublime Chopin. The fragility of life and the ruthless pendulum of fate and death needs was feelingly communicated to us.
Guo created an extraordinary, subterranean growling in the bass of the Pleyel , a feeling of the dark, soil of the grave engulfing the body forever in final deeply moving appearance of the funeral theme.
The Presto was
not supremely virtuosic in performance style yet the baroque counterpoint, polyphony and
harmonic complexities were clearly indicated to my rather Gothic imagination.
The disturbing grief of an unhinged mind, the wind blowing
autumn leaves over the grave or more simply the reverential remembrances of the
departed in sotto voce conversation after the burial ... as does manifest itself at funerals.
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Cztery struny skrzypiec [Four Strings of a Violin] 1914
He gave us three finely executed encores with the slight reservations outlined below. The Chopin Prelude in B major, the final Polonaise from the Variations Op.2 and to conclude the Prelude in B minor. Fortepiano Pleyel
Serial No: 1619, 1830 Ignaz Pleyel
(1757 - 1831) was born in Ruppersthal (lower Austria). He studied with Haydn
and, according to the 1791 review in London’s Morning Herald, became even more
popular than his teacher. He lived in Strasbourg from 1783 and came to Paris in
1795. In 1797 he founded his music publishing firm, which for years published
more than 4000 compositions by composers such as Boccherini, Beethoven,
Clementi, Hummel, Kalkbrenner and Chopin. The lively
McNulty instrument of 2023 was built after Pleyel op. 1619, 1830, from a
private collection. Pleyel started piano making in 1805, aged
52. Chopin remarked: 'When I am not in my best form, I prefer Erard’s
piano where I can easily find a ready-made piano tone. But when I am in a good
mood and strong enough to find my own piano tone, I prefer one of Pleyel’s
pianos.' Overall in terms of sound, I felt Guo had not yet completely mastered the supremely difficult transition from a modern Steinway to the period piano sound spectrum. This was not the case of delicate filigree in the treble but fortissimo in the middle and lower registers became rather harsh on more fiery occasions. |
The Polish Musical Renaissance
(A reflective personal essay by Michael Moran © Narodowy Instytut Fryderyka Chopina (NIFC)
http://www.michael-moran.com/2024/08/the-polish-musical-renaissance-in_13.html
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