RSNO Chamber, 29/04/2018
Shostakovich : Piano Trio No. 2
Vaughan Williams : Piano Quintet
Scott Mitchell, piano
Lena Zeliszewska, violin
Tom Dunn, viola
Arthur Boutillier, cello
Ana Cordova, double bass
Going to a concert is usually a fairly decorous affair, so imagine the surprise to be greeted at the door of the venue by a couple of life-size plushies, and to find inside a keen, chattering crowd of exotics, such as statuesque persons of uncertain gender swathed in scarlet or black satin, or perky girls in very short flouncy skirts and extravagant neon-pink hair! You will have guessed that aside from this afternoon's recital, the venue was also hosting a manga/anime convention, with accordingly exuberantly garbed fans abounding. None of them made it into the recital hall, which might have been amusing, but was maybe just as well.
Shostakovich's second Piano Trio (the first is a short, one-movement, student work, rarely heard) was written in 1944, as an elegy after the unexpected death of his friend the musicologist Ivan Sollertinsky. As always, though, with Shostakovich, there is the feeling that he is commenting on far more than the loss of a dear friend, but also on the world around them which, given the year, was in a pretty grim state, which is duly reflected in the music. The first movement, with its eerie opening, in a haze of harmonics, was somewhat tentative; Boutillier never sounded completely comfortable in the almost supersonically high register required at the start, and that had something of a knock-on effect to his partners. However, the remainder was much better, notably the last two movements, with the heavy, grieving chaconne that is the direct lament for Sollertinsky, and which passes almost directly into the grimacing Totentanz of the last movement, edgily delivered by the trio.
Vaughan Williams was about 8 years younger when he wrote his unique Piano Quintet, than Shostakovich was in '44, but they were at very different stages in their musical development. Vaughan Williams was still very much at the start of his career, and he had only just begun the collections of English folk-song that was to become so central to his later compositional style. In this Quintet, Vaughan Williams chose the line-up of Schubert's "Trout" Quintet, with a double-bass rather than a second violin, thickening and warming the lower registers of the music. The first movement has a somewhat heroic quality to it, a bold, opening theme striding forth with a hint of Brahms about its treatment. It's in the second movement that you start to hear the RVW-to-come, with a suggestion of his song "Silent Noon" (written around the same time), and which would eventually find its way into the 1952 Violin Sonata.
By the final movement, the texture has lightened slightly, the inspiration more French - late Saint-Saëns, maybe a little Fauré - than German, but there's also that hazy cushion of string sound at moments, that one hears so often in the symphonies. You don't really come away from this piece with any clear themes running in your head, but it's whole-hearted, with passion and charm that today's players brought out very well.
[Next : 6th May]
Vaughan Williams : Piano Quintet
Scott Mitchell, piano
Lena Zeliszewska, violin
Tom Dunn, viola
Arthur Boutillier, cello
Ana Cordova, double bass
Going to a concert is usually a fairly decorous affair, so imagine the surprise to be greeted at the door of the venue by a couple of life-size plushies, and to find inside a keen, chattering crowd of exotics, such as statuesque persons of uncertain gender swathed in scarlet or black satin, or perky girls in very short flouncy skirts and extravagant neon-pink hair! You will have guessed that aside from this afternoon's recital, the venue was also hosting a manga/anime convention, with accordingly exuberantly garbed fans abounding. None of them made it into the recital hall, which might have been amusing, but was maybe just as well.
Shostakovich's second Piano Trio (the first is a short, one-movement, student work, rarely heard) was written in 1944, as an elegy after the unexpected death of his friend the musicologist Ivan Sollertinsky. As always, though, with Shostakovich, there is the feeling that he is commenting on far more than the loss of a dear friend, but also on the world around them which, given the year, was in a pretty grim state, which is duly reflected in the music. The first movement, with its eerie opening, in a haze of harmonics, was somewhat tentative; Boutillier never sounded completely comfortable in the almost supersonically high register required at the start, and that had something of a knock-on effect to his partners. However, the remainder was much better, notably the last two movements, with the heavy, grieving chaconne that is the direct lament for Sollertinsky, and which passes almost directly into the grimacing Totentanz of the last movement, edgily delivered by the trio.
Vaughan Williams was about 8 years younger when he wrote his unique Piano Quintet, than Shostakovich was in '44, but they were at very different stages in their musical development. Vaughan Williams was still very much at the start of his career, and he had only just begun the collections of English folk-song that was to become so central to his later compositional style. In this Quintet, Vaughan Williams chose the line-up of Schubert's "Trout" Quintet, with a double-bass rather than a second violin, thickening and warming the lower registers of the music. The first movement has a somewhat heroic quality to it, a bold, opening theme striding forth with a hint of Brahms about its treatment. It's in the second movement that you start to hear the RVW-to-come, with a suggestion of his song "Silent Noon" (written around the same time), and which would eventually find its way into the 1952 Violin Sonata.
By the final movement, the texture has lightened slightly, the inspiration more French - late Saint-Saëns, maybe a little Fauré - than German, but there's also that hazy cushion of string sound at moments, that one hears so often in the symphonies. You don't really come away from this piece with any clear themes running in your head, but it's whole-hearted, with passion and charm that today's players brought out very well.
[Next : 6th May]