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First Unitarian Church
June 12, 2011
There were two people at the premiere of César Franck's Piano Quintet who were distinctly unimpressed by the music. One was Camille Saint-Saëns, who played the piano part (sightreading it); the other was Félicité, Mme. Franck.
Although Saint-Saëns rationalised his dislike (which apparently became more and more apparent as that first performance progressed) and Mme. Franck remained silent, there is every likelihood that their distaste for the music was rooted in a common cause: Augusta Holmès.
Holmès, of Anglo-Irish parentage although born in Paris, was a pupil of Franck, "possessed of bold beautiful features, abundant golden hair, and handsome breasts of which she was justifiably proud". She was admired by Rimsky-Korsakov but, we are told, fought over by Franck and Saint-Saëns; it is generally accepted today that Franck was, at the very least, infatuated with her and that the quintet's emotional excesses were not inspired by Félicité, but by Augusta.
I cannot pinpoint the exact moment during Sunday's performance of the quintet when the realisation sank in that, for no doubt very different reasons, I am of one accord with Saint-Saëns and Mme. Franck: I really dislike this music intensely. In fact, during the remainder of what seemed an almost interminable piece of music, I had plenty of time to reflect on the fact that I have (almost) never met a piece by Franck that I didn't dislike. (I say almost, because I am a great fan of the violin sonata.)
Clearly, then, I am entirely the wrong person to review Sunday's performance; however, needs must.
One thing I can say is that the music was extremely well-played. The usual balance problems of any chamber work featuring the piano were entirely absent and this was not a case of Lorraine Min's playing being in any way self-effacing or under-characterised; somehow the five players had managed to square this particular circle and turn in a performance in which every player could be heard and every player gave of his or her best.
Indeed, for me, the playing helped take my mind off the music - it gave me something to enjoy while filling my notebook with frustrated comments: "Get on with it César" being perhaps the most polite.
Fortunately, I seemed to be the only person in the room of this opinion and the close of the performance was greeted with deservedly enthusiastic applause. Clearly I am missing something.
Still, this concert had two parts and so this review is going to have two opinions, three coins in the fountain, four calling birds - sorry, I seem to have lost my thread.
I'm not sure whether the opening music, billed as Articulati by Kenji Fusé was actually what we heard or not, as in his brief introduction Fusé seemed to imply that the music we were about to hear was not that originally planned.
What we did hear, though, were two of Bartók's Six Dances in Bulgarian Rhythms, originally for piano, arranged by Fusé for string quartet.
There are two criteria by which I rate a transcription: does the music sound effective? and does it sound as if originally written for the new medium?
On both counts Fusé's transcription must be accounted a brilliant success; in fact I could detect not a trace of the music's pianistic origins.
No doubt the performance helped: it was full of life and bristling with rhythmic energy.
The relative frequency of "complete cycles" of the Beethoven quartets means that performances of any of the Op.18 set are often heard in concert coupled with one of the late quartets, which hardly allows one to appreciate the full worth of the earlier music.
Sunday's concert included a first-rate account of the first (by his own numbering) of Beethoven's sixteen quartets, an account which, apparently effortlessly, trod the tightrope between the Scylla of sounding too much like Haydn and the Charybdis of imputing a late Beethovenian sensibility into music written in the last years of the eighteenth century.
I particularly enjoyed the air of mystery in the isolated chords at the close of the first movement's exposition - and appreciated the taking of the repeat. The second movement was lyrical, poised and had precisely the right amount of weight for the music (see above).
The scherzo was taken a a very nippy pace and the finale - the only movement not in triple time - at a tempo guisto with excellent dynamics.
A fine performance indeed.
Eine Kleine Summer Music continues to go from strength to strength and any problems I have with their chosen repertoire are clearly just that - my problems.
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