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Phillip T Young Recital Hall
July 26, 2007
"I am not one of the great composers. All the great have produced enormously. There is everything in their work - the best and the worst, but there is always quantity. But I have written relatively little."
Maurice Ravel clearly had something of an inferiority complex and it is undoubtedly true that compared some of the great composers his output is relatively sparse: he did, for instance, write just the one string quartet.
But what a quartet it is.
The Emily Carr Quartet closed the first half of Thursday's concert with a superb, at times revelatory performance of Ravel's chamber music masterpiece. Tempos were rather steadier than tends to be the norm these days, but then there really is no justification in the composer's tempo markings for the kind of downhill bicycle race one so often hears from quartets keen to impress us with their virtuosity.
I am delighted to report that the Emily Carrs clearly have more interest in the music than in any empty display; the open movement (marked allegro moderato, others take note) benefitted from the moderate (undoubtedly le mot juste) tempo they adopted, with Ravel's dazzling textures clearer and the more pointillist aspects of the music reinforced rather than brushed aside. The coda was absolutely gorgeous.
The same encomium can generally be applied to the assez vif (lively enough - my italics) second movement, with those famous pizzicato passages. Perhaps the trio was a trifle static - by maintaining the usual tempo relationship with the main scherzo, Thursday's trio ended up being really rather slow, but not unbearably so.
The movement's final pizzicato was extremely deliberate indeed and was the one moment in the entire evening when the performance veered close to the mannered or the arch. Veered, but did not cross the line.
The slow movement was quite lovely, with exultant climaxes and played with intense concentration - and listened to similarly: you could have heard the legendary pin drop in the hall.
The finale (vif et agité) was again played at a less frenzied speed than is usual; once again the result was entirely positive, with the thematic references to the earlier movements for once not speeding by, and much textural detail audible for the first time in my experience, even if the music did, on one or two occasions, seem a trifle episodic.
An exceptional performance.
The Czech composer Lubomir Zelezný (1925-79) is hardly a household name. Even in his native land, I am told, he is currently out of fashion for his political views. And a web search for his name is far more likely to turn up information about Olympic javelin champion Jan Zelezný.
One must be grateful, then, to clarinettist Stan Fisher and the Emily Carrs for their excellent performance of Zelezný's clarinet quintet.
The outer movements both featured plenty of syncopation and awkward rhythmic patterns, all played with verve and precision. The central slow movement was an eerie, lyrical nocturne, beautifully played.
There are clearly influences at work - the keen-eared could detect Bartók, Stravinskian neo-classicism ("Dumbarton Oaks") and more; the finale even seemed to share certain features with the early minimalism of Steve Reich and Terry Riley, although whether anyone in mid-1970s Czechoslovakia would have been familiar with their music is anybody's guess. Nevertheless the music cohered and left at least one listener eager to hear more.
There are certain works in the standard repertoire that, frankly, I have a hard time enjoying. One such is Brahms's Piano Quintet.
Evidently the composer himself was uncertain about the work - making three versions, the original for string quintet, another for two pianos. But my objection is what Neville Cardus was surely referring to when he wrote of Brahms's "tedious passages of joinery confidently put forth as development" - there are some lovely moments but (to paraphrase Rossini's verdict on Wagner) some fairly dull quarters of an hour.
Having got that off my chest (for now) I should also say that Thursday's account of the work by pianist Arthur Rowe and the Emily Carrs, came as close to satisfying me as any I've heard.
For starters, the balances were all but immaculate; although Rowe's piano was certainly distinct, he never overbalanced the weaker strings and this was certainly a major improvement over most other performances (not to mention recordings).
With the exception of the third movement scherzo, for me easily the most cohesive and successful of the four, this was a very-well played, at times exciting performance of music which just does not grab me by the throat.
Except for that scherzo, with energy to spare and a precision in the playing one does not often hear - indeed, I'm not sure I've ever heard the piano part as crisply and accurately played as this.
The audience's enthusiastic applause was entirely deserved, as the Brahms wrapped up an evening of quite excellent music-making. I just wish that, as far as the Brahms was concerned, I could bring myself to care.
But the Ravel...
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