Fanny Hensel, née Mendelssohn (1805-1847): Overture in C major
Clara Schumann (1819-1896): Piano Concerto in A minor, Op. 7
Robert Schumann (1810-1856): Introduction and Allegro for piano and orchestra, Op. 134
Felix Mendelssohn (1809-1847): Symphonhy No. 3 in A minor (Scottish)
Fanny Hensel:
'The LPO's violins responded to the horn’s quiet opening with lyricism, although their pick-up following the introduction was a little imprecise'.
Clara Schumann:
'Melnikov was most at home in the lyrically rhapsodic slow movement, joined by guest principal cellist, Waynne Kwon, beautifully complementing Melnikov’s lyricism with warmth and depth'.
Robert Schumann:
'Melnikov’s chromatic scales swirled and the orchestra surged appropriately in response. He was assured in the delicate intricate passagework, but occasionally, in the more bombastic moments, attention to detail was surprisingly matter of fact, with more than a few imprecisions creeping in'.
Felix Mendelssohn:
'Here the LPO winds came into their own, with a flowing clarinet opening and fizzing articulation from them all, complemented well by the joyful string filigree passages'.
'Once at full pelt, Ponomarchuk elicited rich and expressive drama. The finale had immediate attack, and the fugal sections here were tight. Clarinet and bassoon gave a delightfully expressive duet, and then the transformed ‘Holyrood’ delivered stately grandeur, with glorious horns to finish'.
In the month of International Women’s Day, I am happy to say that by chance rather than design, I have ended up with three great recordings to review, as well as a range of concert listings, that feature no fewer than 14 women composers, 4 women conductors and 10 women performers. This shouldn’t be unusual, yet it still us - but it’s a sign of some progress that I haven’t explicitly gone looking for this. Credit should also go to the three recordings’ shared record company, First Hand Records, for supporting such a diverse range of music composed and performed by women.
Reviews
Late last year, The Telling released a new album, partly in response to the very sad and sudden loss of singer Ariane Prüssner earlier that year. The album consists of two soundtracks to ‘concertplays’, something the group have become so well known for. ‘Vision’ is the imagined testimony of Hildegard of Bingen (1098-1179), and‘Unsung Heroine’charts the imagined life and love of troubadour Beatriz de Dia, who was possibly born in the early 1140s and died around 1212. You may have caught both of these concertplays over the years in Brighton, as the other lead singer and founder of The Telling, Clare Norburn was also founder and co-director for many years of Brighton Early Music Festival. The music on this recording consists of soundtracks for film versions of the plays made in 2020 following the first lockdown. Both soundtracks are testament to the chemistry of Clare Norburn’s soaring soprano and Ariane Prüssner’s rich, deep mezzo-soprano, so passionately expressive when combined. In Vision, they explore the beauty but also the pain of Hildegard’s often shocking visions. There are moments of ecstasy, such as when Norburn’s solo line bursts forth above the simple harp accompaniment (Jean Kelly on medieval harp here) in Ave generosa, or when Prüssner’s rich tones circle and wind passionately in Columba aspexit. In Unsung Heroine, we enter the world of the troubadour, with a whole range of songs drawing on Beatrix de Dia’s poetry, some with existing vocal lines, some borrowed from other songs of the time. There’s lots of forbidden love and jealousy here, as well as the distress of betrayal, the latter evocatively expressed by Norburn’s rise to stratospheric heights in Estat ai en greu cossirier (‘I have been in a state of great distress’). Prüssner on the other hand gives us the passion of two lovers and a jealous husband, and a love that can never be, in Kalenda mia (‘May Day’), here accompanied by harp (Joy Smith) and the medieval bowed string instrument, the vielle (Giles Lewin). This disc is a wonderful testament to these two rich explorations of contrasting medieval music, but more importantly to the deep musical partnership between two exceptional singers, one now sadly lost to us.
American pianist, Sarah Cahill, has released the first volume of a three volume series, ‘The Future is Female’, aiming to celebrate women composers right from the 17th century through to the present day. In the first volume, loosely themed ‘In Nature’, the ten composers hail from across the globe, and there are a number of premiere recordings here. The works are presented chronologically, so we begin with a graceful and expressive Keyboard Sonata from Anna Bon (1739/40-after 1767). Born in Venice, she composed for Princess Wilhelmine of Prussia in Bayreuth, then later sang in Haydn’s ensemble at the court of Esterházy. Sadly, but not untypically, all record of her disappears after her marriage to an Italian singer. Fanny Mendelssohn-Hensel’s (1805-1847) story is not dissimilar – despite being a child prodigy alongside her brother Felix, their father discouraged any ambition for Fanny as a composer, and once married, although she continued to compose in private, it was only after her death that her work began to be published. Here, Cahill plays two of her Vier Lieder, the rippling and poignantly expressive No. 1, with its turbulent, swirling left hand, and the gently throbbing No. 3, Cahill delivering the yearning melody with great lyricism here. Space won’t allow for discussion of all the pieces here, so I must focus on highlights, such as the turbulent waves around a constant chugging rhythm in Venezuelan composer Teresa Carreño’s (1853-1917) ‘Un rêve en mer’, or the brightly evocative bird song over dark chords in Fannie Dillon’s (1881-1947) ‘Birds at Dawn’. Agi Jambor’s (1909-1997) Piano Sonata: 'To the Victims of Auschwitz’ is unsurprisingly dark, with hammering repeated low octaves and nagging repetition, urgent driving rhythms, and then ghostly pianissimo tinkles at the top of the keyboard and a final deathly quiet chord to finish. Deirdre Gribbin (b.1967) explores the dark side of her adopted home of London in Unseen, with insistent, shaking urgency and dark, fearful undertones, before a moment of almost motionless calm. This is an impressive collection, with Cahill effortlessly traversing a phenomenal range of styles, even contributing her voice reciting a poem by Ruth Crawford Seeger in Eve Beglarian’s (b.1958)Fireside. Her exemplary performances here also serve to celebrate the variety of music composed by women over centuries excluded from the classical ‘canon’, and the next volume is eagerly awaited.
I very much enjoyed the first volume of violinist Kinga Ujszászi and harpsichordist Tom Foster’s exploration of the riches of an amazing archive from the late 17th and early 18th centuries, the ‘Cabinet of Wonders’, and now they’re back with another volume of delights. The archive has miraculously survived all that time in Dresden, and is known as ‘Schrank II’ after the cabinet in which it was stored. This volume presents us with music by Martino Bitti (1655/56-1743), Henricus Albicastro (c.1660-1730), Carlo Fiorelli (c.1673-unknown), and two works of uncertain origin, but possibly attributable to Girolamo Laurenti (1678-1751) and Antonio Montanari (1676-1737). I have to confess only the last of these names was at all familiar to me, but there is some delightful and inventive music on offer here. Bitti’s ‘Dresden’ Sonatas (of which three are performed here) have delicate grace and lively, bouncy faster movements. There are harmonically relatively conventional, but Bitti explores the higher register of the violin to great effect in the second Allegro of the Sonata No. 4. There are some slightly more interesting harmonic shifts in No. 1’s middle movement, which dances along nicely, and there is great rapid interplay between violin and harpsichord, a 10th apart, in the opening movement. No.5’s final Gigue is lively, with the harpsichord trilling like a strumming guitar. Albicastro’s offering has a mournfully lyrical opening, as well as rapid figuration and imitation between the instruments in the middle movement. The Laurenti is perhaps the most overtly virtuosic for the violin, but it is the Montanari that stands out for me, with its sliding chromatic lines, frequent tempo changes, and delicate joint figurations from the two instruments. Ujszászi’s virtuosity is without doubt, but she is also alive to the more lyrical and expressive moments, and brings a graceful lightness to even the more conventional passages. There is clear unanimity between Ujszászi and Foster throughout, whether when imitating one another, or when in rapid runs together as in the Bitti. Given there are around 1750 works in ‘Schrank II’, I think we can confidently expect more volumes from these two talented players.
The Brighton Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by Joanna MacGregor present Silent Classics, with Neil Brand (pianist, film historian & composer), with live music performed to the Buster Keaton classic One Week, and Oliver Twist, starring Jackie Coogan & Lon Chaney (2.45pm, Sunday 6 March, Brighton Dome). They return later in the month for Elgar, Mozart and Brahms' Piano Concerto No. 1, with Joanna MacGregor now on the piano, and Sian Edwards conducting (2.45, Sunday 27 March, Brighton Dome).
Worthing Symphony Orchestra perform Mainly Mozart, including the Concerto for flute and harp (with soloists Monica McCarron & Elizabeth Green), the Piano Concerto No. 6 with Jeneba Kanneh-Mason (piano) and Elgar & Haydn also on the programme (2.45pm, Sunday 13 March, Assembly Hall, Worthing).
Brighton Early Music Festival celebrates Early Music Day with a concert of Renaissance Music on a Grand Scale, including Brumel’s ‘Earthquake’ Mass, and music by Robert Carver, performed by the BREMF Consort of Voices and members of the English Cornett & Sackbut Ensemble, conducted by Deborah Roberts (7.30pm, Sunday 20 March, St Martin’s Church, Brighton).
(Edited versions of these reviews first appeared atScene, March 2022)
I’ve been following the work of composer Cheryl Frances-Hoad (b.1980) for a number of years now, and it was a great delight to explore her latest disc of recordings of some of her chamber works, entitled ‘The Whole Earth Dances’. The title belongs to a work commissioned by The Schubert Ensemble, and in fact this recording was their last as a group before they disbanded in 2018. Inspired by the simple experiences of walking in her local park, but also by the importance of taking notice of nature in a time when it under such threat, it is a single expansive movement for the same musical forces as Schubert’s Trout Quintet (piano, violin, viola, cello, double bass). Full of long sustained string chords, with delicate piano commentary in places, the movement alternates between lively, spiky ‘thistles’ and gentler, unfurling ‘ferns’ (references to two Ted Hughes poems that also influenced here). And there is hope in the positively consonant, sudden C major ending. There’s so much on this disc, nine works in all, for varied chamber forces, and many different performers, it’s hard to do justice here to all of this. Cloud Movements for clarinet, violin and piano again makes use of slow-moving chords to evoke drifting clouds, but there’s also lyricism here, particularly in the central movement. Flanking that central movement are two dancing canons, the first in three parts, and the faster moving second in four parts, increasing the rhythmic complexity, creating unsettling cross-rhythms as the clouds pass and partially obscure one another. Two works for cello and piano follow. Songs and Dances is full of passion and lyricism for the cello in particular, but also there are strangely moth-like high, glassy flutterings, and a surprising folk-like dancing melody in the central movement. There are brief moments of peace, but the final lament is dominated by heartfelt anguish, and ends in nothingness. This leads beautifully into The Prophecy, where that sense of anguish is taken to a new level. Frances-Hoad was influenced here by quotes from people experience schizophrenia, and there is definitely a sense of mental struggle here. Again, the piece begins out of nothing, almost inaudible initially, and the strange slides from the cello build to a terrifying world, full of quotes of the Dies Irae chant. The cello emerges at one point with a higher, more lyrical melody, but the insistent piano doesn’t give up, with the Dies Irae almost screaming through at one point. This is an incredibly virtuosic piece for both players, and Rebecca Gilliver (cello) and Sophia Rahman (piano) give an outstanding performance. Towards the end, the cello cries out with a strange vibrating screech, and then a kind of unsettling calm is reached at the end, with occasional stabs from the piano punctuation an exhausted cello solo.Then for something completely different - Game On, a work for piano and Commodore 64 computer. In this, Frances-Hoad takes sounds from a 1987 puzzle game, X0R, and uses these to create a fascinating soundworld, exploring game theory, robots taking over the world, and ultimately, destruction of humanity - so not a cheery piece! In the first movement, Nash, we’re in the world of game theory, and a sense of uneasy equilibrium, where the piano matches and works around the incessant computer sounds, with nobody really getting anywhere as a result. In Robots will Rule the World, we enter the soundworld of Dr Who (the BBC Radiophonic Workshop), the theremin and ondes martenots, with weird lasers and ‘vaporising’ sounds - what starts out as maybe a conversation between piano and computer definitely becomes a battle - and the title gives the clue as to who wins. In the final Lament, the minimalist repeating patterns of the computer contrast with the melody that emerges on the piano, and then gradually the computer patterns stutter, jam and stick - like an irregular heartbeat, or ultimately the sound of flatlining - so who’s died, the robots or us? There is a chilling sense of panic here, despite the slightly comic origins of a 1980s gaming computer.
Three more works round off the collection. First, a lop-sided, quirkily accented Mazurka for violin and piano. Then comes Medea for solo flute, a dramatic monologue of long sustained notes and pauses, interrupted by moments of impassioned activity full of flutters and trills, evoking Medea’s battle between emotion and decision. Finally, a work for string quartet, My Day in Hell, inspired by Dante’s Divine Comedy. The complex organisation of numbers of circles and groups in that work dominates Frances-Hoad’s calculations of structure, rhythm and even melody, and the angular melodic material, downward slides and richly dissonant chords definitely create a sense of being trapped in circles within circles. I’m always struck in Frances-Hoad’s music by how, despite some common devices, such as the contrast between slow, long chords and spikier rhythmic movement, with great use of pregnant pauses, the atmospheres evoked are incredibly varied and individual to each piece. I’ve focussed on the music itself here, but all the performers deserve praise here - there is some challenging music, and all the players do great justice to Frances-Hoad’s fascinating and often virtuosic demands.
Joël Marosi (cello) and Esther Walker (piano) have brought together on one disc all the works for cello and piano composed by brother and sister, Felix Mendelssohn (1809-1847) and Fanny Mendelssohn (1805-1847). This amounts to two Sonatas, a set of Variations Concertante, and a couple of miniatures from Felix, and two single movement works from Fanny. Many of the pieces were written with their cellist younger brother, Paul. Felix’s first Sonata has a real youthful urgency in the opening movement, with slight yearning in the second subject. Walker manages to produce a bright tone despite the driving repeated chords and thick textures of the piano part, and Marosi brings out that yearning as well as a virtuosic display to finish. He really gets the chance to sing out in the second movement’s lyrical central section, and the sense of rapid drive returns in the finale, with more turbulent sections, and a dramatic climax with flourishes particularly for the piano. Both players here produce the requisite drama, but also manage the piece’s quiet ending, with delicate lyricism from the cello over a gently rippling piano. The Song without Words that follows is warm and lyrical, with a delicate piano part, and Marosi delivers this with a heartfelt simplicity, and an understated sense of urgency in the central section. The single movement Assai tranquillo, possibly incomplete, has a pleasing melody passed from cello to piano, with the cello then weaving in and out of the piano’s presentation of the tune. The Variations concertantes draw on a humble, hymn-like tune, and encompass eight variations, sharing out the virtuosic moments between instruments reasonably equally, if anything favouring the pianist. The two players here exploit their moments well, and bring out effectively the more dramatic moments, such as in the seventh’s declamatory cadenza-like statement, although there could be a little more tempo differentiation between the faster
variations. Turning to sister Fanny, we then have a Fantasia, with a beautifully romantic melody presented fist on the piano, with the cello emerging from a low accompaniment to take over the melody. There is plenty of opportunity for Marosi to sing here, particularly in the slower arioso section. The quiet ending might suggest this is somewhat slight, but the melodic invention and use of repeated chords in the accompaniment are very pleasing. Similarly, in her Capriccio, lyrical melodies are passed between the instruments, with the piano leading off on a faster central section, with emphatic fanfare-like statements from the cello. Once again, the movement winds down to a quiet finish. We return to Felix for the remainder of the recording, with his Sonata No. 2. The two players bound into the opening movement, with its striding cello theme and joyful energy and drive throughout. The piano introduces the second movement’s hesitant melody, repeated pizzicato by the cello, with delicately ringing grace notes from Marosi here. The piano is in charge of the slow movement to begin with, with an arpeggiated chorale, given rich tone here by Walker. The cello joins with a lyrical melody on top, and gradually takes over direction of proceedings, with the piano receding into the background, before stealing back the lyrical melody at the end. The piano launches the finale, with an immediately racing, virtuosic delivery. The cello occasionally takes over the virtuosic runs, but the piano is in charge here. Walker and Marosi never let up with the driving rhythmic energy, right to the dramatic explosive climax, before the dynamics drop down leaving quiet, rippling exchanges to end the piece.
In Louis Lortie’s sixth volume of Chopin works, we have the Hommage à Mozart Op. 2, the two Op. 40 Polonaises and the Fantasie Op. 49, interspersed with sixteen of the Mazurkas. Lortie’s Mazurkas are full of character, with great attention to articulation and dynamics. From the Op. 6 set, he gives the first a wonderful halting lilt, and its falling chromatic progressions have a silky darkness. The folk-like drones and eastern-infused melodic inflections in the second are seductively accentuated by Lortie’s rubato. The third and fourth are brief gems, the former with its light droning and lively theme, and the latter with its fleeting off-kilter accents, all of which Lortie brings out well. A second set of four, Op. 24 follow, with a lyrical, more waltz-like affair to begin with, contrasting beautifully with the stomping off-beat rhythms of the second. The third has pauses in almost every phrase, and Lortie shapes and times these with delicate poise, as he does the chromatic clashes and dramatic swirls of the last of the set. The Hommage à Mozart opens with a lengthy rhapsodic introduction, with hints of Mozart’s theme, ‘Là ci darem la mano’, and Lortie delivers this with suitable grandeur and virtuosic command. The theme is then finally presented more straightforwardly, followed by a brilliant set of variations, with increasingly extreme demands on the pianist’s virtuosity. Lortie dashes this off with impressive ease, and then exploits the dark drama of the operatic Adagio variation to the full, with an electric Alla Polacca to finish. Back to Mazurkas next, and the
Op. 67 set. The simple dance of the first is followed by the touching, nostalgic second – again Lortie demonstrating wonderfully his ability to achieve such contrasting moods with subtle dynamic inflections and halting rubato. That nostalgic mood continues in the third, a gently swirling dance, and the darkly expressive fourth. The two Polonaises, Op. 40, especially the first, the ‘Military’, are by nature emphatic and weighty, but this can be easily overdone in the first, rendering it a shouty affairs. Here, Lortie certainly provides weight, but with precise articulation and full use of the range of dynamics he avoids the bombast. The second is full of brooding darkness, and Lortie brings this out, as well as the wistful melancholy of the lyrical central section. A final set of Mazurkas, the Op. 41 with the first drawing invention from just a few notes, and the second evoking strumming guitars in its opening chords. The third is simple and graceful, whereas the final Mazurka of the set is the most substantial and dramatic. Once again, Lortie captures the extraordinary variety of moods like a chameleon. The Op. 49 Fantasie concludes the disc, with its funereal march launching an explosion of improvisatory explorations. Lortie is definitely let loose here, although despite the extremes of virtuosity, that sense of subtle changing moods is never lost.
