An unusual programme devoted to the chamber works of Robert Schumann provided the occasion of a return to the hallowed temple that is the Wigmore Hall, the soul of the concert-giving community in London.
Here back in the eighties I took a part in the rise of the early music movement when I began as cup bearer and subsequent inheritor to Jennifer Eastwood promoting the London series of the Early Music Network and Centre Festival at the hall for several years. And last evening it was more like a homecoming to see that doyen of the baroque revival, harpsichordist and musical dynamo Trevor Pinnock in the audience - so I knew we were on to an evening of keyboard wizardry. With me I had a group of young chamber music and Wigmore Hall novices 15-25 whose somewhat grungy and alternative hair styles and fashion sense provided a welcome colour note and alternative hyperbolic critical response to the sedate, educated and intensely polite audience that thankfully supports this most cultured, enthralling and relaxed corner of London. Entering the hall through its brass-escutcheoned swing doors is a homecoming and followed by the ritual of the ticket purchase - always inducing a slight queasiness in the preamble as to whether the online transaction had been successful - which takes place Dickensian-like at the old College Buttery-hatch like box office in the long red-carpeted foyer that portends of a string of musical talent in 2016 that makes your heart flip with wonder. Nothing much seems to change here (except management please note noisy new intermittent air conditioning rumble in main hall!). And here a note of praise for The Cavatina Trust (along with th John Lyon and Monument Trusts) whose campaign to get young people to join audiences by giving free entrance to young potential lifetime acolytes was used to entertain royally (and indelibly I suspect) a Cornish contingent of "up in town" ragbag of New Year young blow-in guests.
The A major Op 41 no 3 String Quartet, the E flat Piano Quartet Op 47 form the first half of the concert and the E flat Piano Quintet Opus 44 the second. For me who comes to the works as a keen masher-upper of Robert Schumann's less technically-demanding but seemingly inexhaustible catalogue of clever and affecting piano works and a slightly apprehensive cellist (reality check - frightened) to his chamber works; these works were unfamiliar live territory being for some years way beyond a respectable rendition by me and not frequently played on concert platforms near me. (I have been a student of Schumann's piano music since hearing the first movement of the Fantasiestucke as the soundtrack to Merchant Ivory's evocative and sexy film of Ruth Prawer Jhabvala's novel Heat and Dust and determined to master it.). Schumann's 1842 "blow out" in chamber music produced all these works and they are at the pinnacle of romantic rhapsodic expression. It would be very easy to wallow in the captivating tunes and the rich harmonic wrapper of Schumann's romantic web but neither the Modiglianis nor la Rana did that - quite the reverse, this was a characterful demonstration of beautifully balanced ensemble playing, restrained, never over-exuberant.
On stage they look like severely dressed students in grey suits, the most arresting is the viola player who has the most wonderful tone and deftness of play matched by his comperes. These are works which are generous to all the players in the ensemble and allow us to appreciate the skill and tonal quality of a remarkable group of players. Is it fanciful to suggest there is a je ne sais quoi about the style of playing from this French quartet which puts one in mind of Ravel? The lead violinist even has a passing resemblance to the young Ravel in stature and gait. There is a element of restraint in movement playing in the group which emanates from the lead violinist and his number two and which only the cellist could not resist releasing in some of the nobler passages that he is frequently called upon to anchor and lead the thematic (as well as all those scampering arpeggiations executed with insouicant panache)
Honours were shared between fiddle players. The second took the first fiddle part in the Quartet and demonstrated an equally commanding coolness in his playing.
What to say of Beatrice Rana. As you might expect of a Van Cliburn medallist there is not a technical demand beyond her here, quite astonishing sleight of effortless hand. Her presence at the piano is one of quiet repose which gives the ensemble a confidence in a partnership that, as audience, we gradually wake up to is quite brilliant in its generosity. We become subconsciously expectant as she awaits, poised, to an opening that the quartet without discernible upbeat embark in perfect ensemble. She is never overpowering - though the lid is at full elevation, and Schumann invites it for the piano, she is self-contained, petite, remarkable in musical poise.
The quintet is a formidable pianistic technical warhorse but you would not know it. Only the merest flicker of a smile at the end of the Scherzo would alert us to the Olympus that has been climbed. I discover post concert that her Prokofiev recording with Pappano conducting the St Cecilia Orchestra just released is Record of the Month in this month's Gramophone. Enough said, she is discovered.
The hall is reassuringly well filled - though not full. In the audience there were also a strong international mix of German and Italian speakers, 2 neat and pretty Far Eastern young women sit separately towards the back you think might be able to pounce at a moment's notice on stage if there was a sudden illness just as Felix Mendelssohn did on the first performance of the Piano Quintet replacing the indisposed Clara Schumann. There is definitely a sense of the English musical world taking the measure of a French ensemble and relishing it.
A concert of great warmth which impresses the young group I am with who find the music beguiling and the playing faultless.
Here back in the eighties I took a part in the rise of the early music movement when I began as cup bearer and subsequent inheritor to Jennifer Eastwood promoting the London series of the Early Music Network and Centre Festival at the hall for several years. And last evening it was more like a homecoming to see that doyen of the baroque revival, harpsichordist and musical dynamo Trevor Pinnock in the audience - so I knew we were on to an evening of keyboard wizardry. With me I had a group of young chamber music and Wigmore Hall novices 15-25 whose somewhat grungy and alternative hair styles and fashion sense provided a welcome colour note and alternative hyperbolic critical response to the sedate, educated and intensely polite audience that thankfully supports this most cultured, enthralling and relaxed corner of London. Entering the hall through its brass-escutcheoned swing doors is a homecoming and followed by the ritual of the ticket purchase - always inducing a slight queasiness in the preamble as to whether the online transaction had been successful - which takes place Dickensian-like at the old College Buttery-hatch like box office in the long red-carpeted foyer that portends of a string of musical talent in 2016 that makes your heart flip with wonder. Nothing much seems to change here (except management please note noisy new intermittent air conditioning rumble in main hall!). And here a note of praise for The Cavatina Trust (along with th John Lyon and Monument Trusts) whose campaign to get young people to join audiences by giving free entrance to young potential lifetime acolytes was used to entertain royally (and indelibly I suspect) a Cornish contingent of "up in town" ragbag of New Year young blow-in guests.
The A major Op 41 no 3 String Quartet, the E flat Piano Quartet Op 47 form the first half of the concert and the E flat Piano Quintet Opus 44 the second. For me who comes to the works as a keen masher-upper of Robert Schumann's less technically-demanding but seemingly inexhaustible catalogue of clever and affecting piano works and a slightly apprehensive cellist (reality check - frightened) to his chamber works; these works were unfamiliar live territory being for some years way beyond a respectable rendition by me and not frequently played on concert platforms near me. (I have been a student of Schumann's piano music since hearing the first movement of the Fantasiestucke as the soundtrack to Merchant Ivory's evocative and sexy film of Ruth Prawer Jhabvala's novel Heat and Dust and determined to master it.). Schumann's 1842 "blow out" in chamber music produced all these works and they are at the pinnacle of romantic rhapsodic expression. It would be very easy to wallow in the captivating tunes and the rich harmonic wrapper of Schumann's romantic web but neither the Modiglianis nor la Rana did that - quite the reverse, this was a characterful demonstration of beautifully balanced ensemble playing, restrained, never over-exuberant.
On stage they look like severely dressed students in grey suits, the most arresting is the viola player who has the most wonderful tone and deftness of play matched by his comperes. These are works which are generous to all the players in the ensemble and allow us to appreciate the skill and tonal quality of a remarkable group of players. Is it fanciful to suggest there is a je ne sais quoi about the style of playing from this French quartet which puts one in mind of Ravel? The lead violinist even has a passing resemblance to the young Ravel in stature and gait. There is a element of restraint in movement playing in the group which emanates from the lead violinist and his number two and which only the cellist could not resist releasing in some of the nobler passages that he is frequently called upon to anchor and lead the thematic (as well as all those scampering arpeggiations executed with insouicant panache)
Honours were shared between fiddle players. The second took the first fiddle part in the Quartet and demonstrated an equally commanding coolness in his playing.
What to say of Beatrice Rana. As you might expect of a Van Cliburn medallist there is not a technical demand beyond her here, quite astonishing sleight of effortless hand. Her presence at the piano is one of quiet repose which gives the ensemble a confidence in a partnership that, as audience, we gradually wake up to is quite brilliant in its generosity. We become subconsciously expectant as she awaits, poised, to an opening that the quartet without discernible upbeat embark in perfect ensemble. She is never overpowering - though the lid is at full elevation, and Schumann invites it for the piano, she is self-contained, petite, remarkable in musical poise.
The quintet is a formidable pianistic technical warhorse but you would not know it. Only the merest flicker of a smile at the end of the Scherzo would alert us to the Olympus that has been climbed. I discover post concert that her Prokofiev recording with Pappano conducting the St Cecilia Orchestra just released is Record of the Month in this month's Gramophone. Enough said, she is discovered.
The hall is reassuringly well filled - though not full. In the audience there were also a strong international mix of German and Italian speakers, 2 neat and pretty Far Eastern young women sit separately towards the back you think might be able to pounce at a moment's notice on stage if there was a sudden illness just as Felix Mendelssohn did on the first performance of the Piano Quintet replacing the indisposed Clara Schumann. There is definitely a sense of the English musical world taking the measure of a French ensemble and relishing it.
A concert of great warmth which impresses the young group I am with who find the music beguiling and the playing faultless.
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