Webern, Brahms and a Watkins première from Søndergård and BBC NOW - Prom 37

© BBC/Mark Allan

BBC Prom 37

Paul Watkins (cello)

Thomas Søndergård (conductor)

BBC National Orchestra of Wales

12 August 2016

Royal Albert Hall, London

★★★

Walton: Partita

Huw Watkins: Cello Concerto

Webern: Passacaglia, Op. 1

Brahms: Symphony No. 4 in E minor, Op. 98

Watkins: 
'Moments of real beauty here, and this is definitely a work that would merit a second hearing in a more favourable acoustic'.

'It certainly exploited Paul Watkins’ consistently warm tone well, and this was an engaging performance of a promising addition to the concerto repertoire'.

Webern:
'A taught and arresting performance'.

Brahms:
'Fine playing from the BBCNOW, with sweet string tone and incisive woodwind playing throughout'.

'An unexpectedly controlled affair'...(with)...'little space for indulgence'.

Read my full review on Bachtrack here.

Paul Watkins

CD Reviews - August 2016

Having recorded four volumes of British Works for cello and piano, the brothers Paul Watkins and Huw Watkins (cello and piano respectively) have turned their attention to American works for the same forces. Their disc includes works by five American composers (incidentally, three of whom were gay), and the works span forty or so years of the twentieth century.  The earliest work is by Samuel Barber (1910-1981), his Sonata Op. 6.  Barber composed the work after playing Beethoven & Brahms’ cello sonatas in Italy with Domenico Menotti, the brother of Gian Carlo Menotti, Barber’s subsequent life partner.  It is a strongly romantic work, with clear influence of Brahms, and perhaps without the individuality of his mature output.  However, Barber cuts through the lush lyricism of the Adagio with a central scherzo-like Presto, and the Watkins brothers handle this contrast expertly.  Similarly, the impassioned finale is controlled with frequent tempo changes, which can threaten the work’s coherency, but not so here.  Next up are Three Meditations by Leonard Bernstein (1918-1990), arranged by the composer from his monumental and highly controversial Mass from 1971, a musical theatre piece which intersperses settings of Latin mass movements with contrasting sections in English, drawing on several choirs, a rock band and a marching band.  Not particularly well received at the time, it still divides opinion on whether its mash-up of genres works or not.  Even in these three short Meditations, Bernstein combines earnest, almost yearning writing, and glassy harmonics for the cello in the first, spiky chromaticisms drawing on a theme from Beethoven’s Ninth Sypmphony in the second, with an unexectedly bouncy, folk dance (with Huw Watkins adding bongos rather than Bernstein’s instructions for using the piano lid for percussive effect) in the final Meditation.  A somewhat bizarre mixture of styles, Paul and Huw nevertheless make a convincing case for the work, particularly in the complex second Meditation.  Elliott Carter (1908-2012) was an incredibly prolific composer, particularly in his latter years, before his death at the age of 103.  His Sonata for Cello and Piano dates from 1948, and marks a shift in Carter’s output from a more popular neoclassicism to the beginnings of his exploration of what he called ‘temporal modulation’, where the relationship of pulse lengths become a key structural element of composition.  Once again here, the Watkins duo navigate this with expert precision, and their commanding performance here is the stand out moment of the disc.  Huw then gets a rest as Paul performs George Crumb’s (b.1929) Sonata for Solo Cello.  Composed in 1955, he dedicated the work to his mother, an accomplished cellist.  Drawing on baroque traditions in its Fantasia and Toccata outer movements, there are also strong influences of Bartók evident here.  Paul Watkins is particularly impressive in the rapid Toccata, with its almost perpetual motion throughout.  The brothers join for the final piece, the Waltz and Celebration from Aaron Copland’s (1900-1990) Billy the Kid, arranged by the composer for cello and piano.  I am not a fan of Copland in his faux-folksy mode, and after the intensity and complexity of some of the other works on the disc, these two short, rather light movements feel a little out of place, but they receive articulate and sensitive attention here.  Overall, very strong performances, and a fascinating survey of such varied composers, despite being broad contemporaries.

Various. 2015. American Works for Cello and Piano. Paul Watkins, Huw Watkins. Compact Disc. Chandos CHAN 10881.

A few years ago I reviewed an excellent disc of mezzo-soprano Clare McCaldin singing works written for her by Stephen McNeff (b.1951), and she has returned to disc with a collection exploring the theme of female ‘madness’, entitled ‘Notes from the Asylum’.  McNeff’s and McCaldin’s working relationship has continued, and in 2013 McNeff wrote his opera in six songs for mezzo-soprano and piano, Vivienne, which McCaldin performed with pianist Libby Burgess.  The work explores the life of Vivienne Haigh-Wood, who married T. S. Eliot in 1915.  The relationship was difficult to say the least, and after Eliot decided on a separation, effectively then shunning her from his life, Vivienne’s mental and physical health finally led to her brother having her committed to an asylum in 1938, where she remained until her death in 1947, never visited by Eliot. McNeff’s six songs, using texts by Andy Rashleigh, move from Vivienne in the asylum remembering her life before her relationship with Eliot, through the turbulence of their relationship, as well as her affair with Bertrand Russell, leaving Vivienne at the end imagining Eliot visiting her and coming back to her.  McNeff writes strikingly nostalgic music, perfectly evoking a sense of the time, particularly in the spoken lines of Bertie, à la Walton’s Façade.  Yet there is a highly individual voice here too, particularly in the sense of disintegration McNeff creates in the final song, Belladonna, as the voice is left increasingly alone.  As is often the case when performers have premiered a work of this nature, McCaldin has clearly inhabited the world of Vivienne, and her performance communicates a strong sense of truth and honesty, throughout the highly virtuosic demands put on her, with real extremes of range and dynamics.  A real tour de force.  Vivienne actually closes the disc, and before this McCaldin moves through a good three centuries of repertoire exploring her theme and how composers, mostly but not quite all male, have portrayed in their music women with perceived madness.  Useful sleeve notes by Paul Conway discuss the prurient 17^th century obsession with mental illness, and how this was reflected in the popularity of the Restoration ‘mad’ songs, of which Purcell’s ‘Mad Bess’ is a prime example, describing ‘poor senseless Bess’, presumably as a result of lost or unrequited love.  Here, it is performed in the arrangement made by Benjamin Britten (1913-1976), which adds a harder edge to the song, and McCaldin matches this accompaniment with a fuller sound than might be expected in Purcell.  Two sets of songs by Brahms (1833-1897) and Hugo Wolf (1860-1903) (who also ended his life in an asylum) are preceeded by a brief song by Harriet Abrams (1758-1821), ‘Crazy Jane’, a rather quaint setting of a text more anguished than the music might suggest, once again reflecting the image of a woman driven mad by the falseness of men.  Brahms’ Ophelia Lieder draw on texts from Ophelia’s ‘mad scene’ in Shakespeare’s Hamlet, and despite their brevity, Brahms packs an emotional punch, particularly in the final song of the set, ‘Und kommt er nicht mehr züruck?’ (‘And will he not come again?’).  Wolf set many poems by Eduard Mörike, and here McCaldin sings five, all sung from the perspective of an Ophelia-like character, Agnes.  The harmonic language is denser and more dramatic here than the Brahms songs, with strong touches of Wagner.  McCaldin’s full tone is well suited to these affecting songs, and the emotional climax of ‘Wo find ich Trost’ (‘Where shall I find comfort?’) is particularly powerful.  Jumping forward to 1971, McCaldin and Burgess are joined by clarinettist Catriona Scott for American composer Ned Rorem’s (b.1923) Ariel, Five Poems of Sylvia Plath. These are highly virtuosic settings, for all three perfomers, which capture the sense of anger and turbulence of the poetry, written shortly before her suicide at the age of 30.  The Hanging Man has a particularly challenging cadenza for clarinet, and Lady Lazarus pushes the bounds of technique for the singer, ending ‘with a loud gasp’. This is a powerful disc, and McCaldin demonstrates the wide range and adaptability of her voice across such a broad range of repertoire, but it is in Vivienne that her dramatic abililties are most impressively in evidence.  Libby Burgess (piano) also deserves praise, showing great command throughout the wide-ranging repertoire. 

Various. 2016. Notes from the Asylum. Clare McCaldin, Libby Burgess. Compact Disc. Champs Hill Records. CHRCD111.

(Edited versions of these reviews first appeared in GScene, August 2016)

CD Reviews - February 2016

Two great French pianists, Jean-Efflam Bavouzet and François-Frédéric Guy, have teamed up to record three great piano transcriptions, all premiered in 1913.  The most well-known work here is Igor Stravinsky’s (1882-1971) radical Le Sacre de Printemps (The Rite of Spring), which famously caused a near-riot at its first performance in Paris.  The composer himself transcribed it quickly for piano with four hands, and following the work’s initial run of performances, it would have been in this transcribed version that people would have known the work, as the full version wasn’t performed again until after the First World War.  Inevitably there are losses of texture and detail when such a visceral orchestral work is transcribed, but there is also a metallic, mechanistic drive that is gained here, which adds a different flavour of early twentieth century modernism. The inflections of the wailing bassoon theme at the opening are obviously not possible, but the pounding rhythms have an additional sense of relentlessness, and at times their clinical precision is even more scary than in the orchestral version. They open the disc with Zoltán Kocsis’ transcription for two pianos of Béla Bartók’s (1881-1945) Two Pictures.  This is a work with rich Debussian harmonies and extensive use of glassy whole-tone scales, particularly in the opening movement, ‘In Full Flower’.  The atmospheric thick chordal textures build to an intense climax, with rippling whole-tone scales given extra sonority on the pianos. The following ‘Village Dance’ is jerky and spiky, and full of eastern melodic inflections and folk dance rhythms, which at times remind one of the incesant drumming in Le Sacre de Printemps (although Bartók’s work was composed first). The centrepiece of this disc is Debussy’s (1862-1918) Jeux, in a new transcription for two pianos by Bavouzet. This ballet score, for Diaghilev, and danced by Nijinsky, is about three young tennis players, one man and two women, who are all attracted to each other.  Bavouzet makes use of trills to get over the problem of sustaining lines, and somehow this adds to a sense of the fragile, tremulous emotions of supressed passion and jealousy. There is also flirty humour here, although some of the score’s characterisation, particularly the wind instruments, is missing. However, the clean piano detail brings a certain transparency, and both pianists play with great delicacy and precision. The twists and turns build in a swirling waltz to a climactic three-way kiss, before the dancers disappear into the night.

Various. 2015. Transcriptions for Two Pianists. Jean-Efflam Bavouzet, François-Frédéric Guy. Compact Disc. Chandos CHAN 10863.

Readers of a certain age may remember the original TV adaptation of Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy, and from that, a haunting Nunc Dimittis (by Geoffrey Burgon) sung by a boy treble.  Well, that treble, Paul Phoenix, became a successful tenor, singing with the The King Singers for 17 years.  He is now focussing on his solo career, as well as working with singers and choral groups around the world.  He released a short album before Christmas, and although some of the tracks have a definite Christmas theme, I thought it still worthwhile to highlight it here, as it provides a good insight into the range of this versatile singer. That Nunc Dimittis opens the disc, obviously now with tenor voice, and immediately Phoenix’s warm, even tone is evidenced here. It is followed by a Pie Jesu setting by John Brunning (well known as a Classic FM presenter for many years), allowing Phoenix to show off his clear higher registers with some double tracked vocals, against some rich (if a little predictable) harp and string orchestrations. The first Christmas track, Child of the Stable’s Secret Birth, by Thomas Hewitt Jones, wears its heart on its sleeve, and reminded me of the work of Howard Goodall.  Phoenix is joined here by soprano Andrea Haines, whose crystal voice adds interest to the straightforward tune.  For my favourite track on the album, Phoenix is joined by the a cappella quintet, Apollo5 for MLK, Bob Chilcott’s arrangement of the U2 lullaby in honour of Martin Luther King, which The King Singers have sung for many years.  Here, the blend between Phoenix and Apollo5 is perfect, and they enjoy the rich harmonies.  This is followed by another a capella piece with Apollo5, the traditional Russian folksong, Oh You Wide Steppe, arranged by Alexander Levine. Phoenix again demonstrates a bell-like, pure upper register, and the rich choral textures are built up and layered as the song develops. Apollo5 are let loose on their own in a beautiful arrangement by Barnaby Smith of the Coventry Carol, and the disc ends with another unashamedly Christmassy Hewitt Jones number, On Christmas Night.  For me, the strongest works here are the Nunc Dimittis and the a capella numbers, and I look forward to hearing more solo work from Phoenix.  Definitely worth a listen, even if it’s no longer Christmas!

Various. 2015. Journey. Paul Phoenix, Apollo5. Compact Disc. Edition Peters Sounds EPS 002.

Brothers Paul Watkins (cello) and Huw Watkins (piano) continue their exploration of lesser known works with their fourth volume of British Works for Cello and Piano.  We have here a Partita by Kenneth Leighton (1929-1988), Constants by Elisabeth Lutyens (1906-1983), and Sonatas by Alun Hoddinott (1929-2008) and Sir Richard Rodney Bennett (1936-2012). Leighton’s Partita beings with an Elegy, which has a winding, angular theme which is exchanged between the cello and piano, who largely operate independently here.  It is followed by an energetic, syncopated Scherzo, and then comes a set of Theme and Variations, longer than the two previous movements together, and here the piano comes more to the fore, with ringing sonorities, particularly in the fourth variation.  Lutyens’ Constants is less immediately accessible, and Lutyens used her own form of notation to indicate lengths of nots, and cues between the instruments.  She creates a mysterious sound-world here, which is very striking, and requires some particularly delicate and very quiet playing from the cello. It ends with some wailing two-note cries from the cello, which was an apparent reference to the sudden death of her husband Edward.  Welsh composer Hoddinott’s Sonata (his second for the instruments) begins with almost simplistic writing, the cello often in conversation with the piano playing open octaves. There is great use of melodic line for the cello in the slow movement, and the finale brings back early music, and the conversational style of the opening movement. Richard Rodney Bennett’s Sonata is my favourite of the works on offer here.  There is a fluidity to his bouncy, mercurial opening movement, and the muted cello in the second movement brings lighter textures, before the Bartók-like scherzo and the virtuosic final set of variations. Cellist and pianist demonstrate strong command throughout, and Paul Watkins’ variety of tone is impressive.

Various. 2015. British Works for Cello and Piano, Volume 4. Paul Watkins, Huw Watkins. Compact Disc. Chandos CHAN 10862.

(Edited versions of these reviews first appeared in GScene, February 2016)