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Phillip T Young Recital Hall
July 30, 2009
In November 1918 Arnold Schoenberg founded the Verein für musikalische Privatauffürungen (Society for Private Musical Performances) in Vienna. Its purpose, according to the prospectus - written by Alban Berg - was "to give artists and art-lovers a real and accurate knowledge of modern music".
In the three years of the society's existence (before hyperinflation made its continuance untenable) the society presented performances of 154 works. Surprisingly, to contemporary music-lovers, the composer whose music was featured the most was not Schoenberg or either of his star pupils, not Debussy, not Bartók, but Max Reger, some 24 of whose works were presented.
The reasons, according to a letter from Schoenberg to Alexander von Zemlinsky in 1922, were twofold: "Reger must in my view be done often; 1. because he has written a lot; 2. because he is already dead and people are not yet clear about him. (I consider him a genius.)"
Yet here we are, almost a century later, and arguably people are still not clear about Reger (nor Schoenberg, come to that). Melvin Berger's "Guide to Chamber Music", for example, originally published in 1985, has entries for such major figures as Ingolf Dahl, Franz Danzi, Leo Kraft and George Rochberg - yet you will search the book in vain for any mention of Reger.
Reger's last completed work - he died at the age of 43 of heart failure - was the Clarinet Quintet in A, Op.146, a densely lyrical work with more than a nod in the direction of Brahms: like Brahms, Reger was essentially a frustrated Classicist (as witness his remark that "every piece of organ music which is not at bottom related to Bach is impossible").
As practically every clarinetist in town (and not a few string players) knows, I have wanted to hear this piece "in the flesh" for over fifteen years. Finally, on Thursday evening, my wish came true.
It is in the nature of long-held desires that their fulfilment is not always entirely satisfying. Happily, this was anything but the case with Thursday's performance, which was everything I could have wished for.
MacLeod and the Emily Carr Quartet, none of whom had previously performed the music, completely belied their unfamiliarity and turned in an account which spoke of an intimate knowledge of the composer's unique idiom.
The opening movement was lushly rhapsodic, the succeeding scherzo playful (not an adjective most would associate with Reger), the slow movement alternately tranquil and agitated.
The theme-and-variation finale was a delight also, although its quiet close and the programme's distinct implication that there was a fifth movement to come led to the applause's being somewhat tentative at first.
This is a great treat for me personally and, I suspect, will lead many in the audience to investigate history's only palindromic composer further (hint to the quartet: he wrote five substantial string quartets).
Mendelssohn's second string quartet, the A minor, Op.13, is one of those works which, if you turned on the car radio during, say, its first movement, would cause you to spend much of the journey wondering first precisely which Beethoven quartet you were listening to and then, when you'd eliminated Beethoven, wondering just exactly what you were listening to.
Nonetheless, although there is much in the quartet which owes a debt to Beethoven, Mendelssohn's own voice establishes itself as the quartet progresses - to the extent of throwing in a handful of fairy dust in the intermezzo's trio section.
The Emily Carr Quartet closed the first half of Thursday's programme with a stunning, rivetting performance of the quartet. This group really does sound better every time I hear them and this time there seemed a new solidity in their playing, which swept all before it, as the quartet seemingly flew by.
The opening movement, after its solemn introduction, provided some of the most intensely driven and eloquently passionate playing I have heard in some time. The slow movement was deeply heartfelt, the intermezzo featured immaculate phrase-passing between the four, with delicately graceful fairies in the trio, and the finale, until its final reprise of the work's opening, fiery and dramatic.
The concert's opener turned out to be a world premiere: of MacLeod's transcription of Debussy's Premiere Rhapsodie (originally for clarinet and piano, also in orchestral garb) for clarinet and string quartet.
MacLeod's arrangement was beautifully idiomatic and the combination of the luminous strings and MacLeod's limpid clarinet was entirely irresistible. I can see others taking up this arrangement, which I gather MacLeod intends to publish - as indeed he should.
A completely engrossing evening - despite the subtropical conditions in the hall. Bouquets to all concerned.
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