MiV HomeBy Deryk Barker
It is unfortunate, although probably inevitable, that for many music-lovers the name of Ernest Chausson does not immediately summon up memories of his music, but of his untimely death: in what today would be called a "single vehicle accident" (a bicycle in this case) at the age of 44.
Chausson's melodies may not be of the kind which people hum on the street, but he has a highly individual and immediately recognisable style and an indubitably French sense of harmony.
The Piano Quartet in A, Op.30 dates from 1897, a mere two years before Chausson's death, and is a seldom-heard work (I wonder if anyone at Saturday's concert had ever heard it in the flesh before - I know I had not). The Schubert Ensemble of London, as pianist William Howard told the audience in his brief spoken introduction, learned the work - somewhat reluctantly - at the insistence of the organisers of a festival in Venezuela at which the group were to play.
Leaving aside the fascinating question of just why a group of Venezuelan music-lovers should be so eager to hear what is, it must be admitted, a fairly obscure French chamber piece, we should instead express our gratitude to them: rarely is one's first live encounter with a piece of music of such an exalted standard.
From the work's declamatory opening to its sonorous close, the Schubert Ensemble put never a foot wrong; their familiar (from their previous visit) virtues of stunning precision and ensemble were present and correct, but the Chausson - unlike anything I've heard them play before - gave them an opportunity to show just what an enormous range of tone colours and sonorities they can produce.
Among numerous highlights, Douglas Paterson's noble and rich playing of the viola melody which opens the slow movement stands out, as does the wonderful diminuendo in the finale which presages the return of that music.
I suspect that in lesser hands, Chausson's at times dense harmonies and instrumentation could easily have sounded not majestic, but overblown and overwritten. Fortunately, these were precisely the right hands.
Owen Leech's "a deeper season" (the title is from a poem by e.e. cummings) was composed for and premiered by the Ensemble. Simon Blendis's spoken introduction was welcome, although the music was certainly powerful enough to speak for itself.
The opening section, with its frenetic syncopation, was tremendously exciting and the slower central passage, with eerie glissando harmonics highly effective.
Perhaps, as one audience member suggested to me, there was enough material in the work for two movements, rather than the one. Perhaps; I'd certainly rather it was that way around than vice-versa.
Which leaves Mendelssohn's prodigious Piano Quartet in F minor, Op.2 composed when he was just 14.
There is certainly nothing in the writing itself to lead one to believe it to be the work of on so young, although the way in which he wears his influences on his sleeve much of the time (a lot of Beethoven, in particular) tended to give the game away.
The beautifully-poised opening - with silky-smooth strings being joined by Howard's crisp, detailed piano - spoke of the quality of the performance to come. Balances were generally excellent (although the hall's acoustic tends to favour the piano) and the sense of a patrician classicism almost tangible.
I was struck by the way the second movement's endless outpouring of melody closed in an almost Schubertian fashion - but would the 14-year-old Mendelssohn have been aware of the almost-unknown Schubert in 1823? Perhaps if Schubert had not lived, it would have been necessary to invent him.
The lilting intermezzo of the third movement was charming and the finale propulsive and dramatic, even if this is the movement in which the composer's youth is most evident.
As an encore the Schubert Ensemble performed a movement from the Suite, Op.23 by Erich Wolfgang Korngold (probably the greatest musical prodigy after Mendelssohn), a lyrical work which built to an intense climax and was quite beautifully played.
The perfect close to a wonderful evening's music.
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