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Phillip T Young Recital Hall
July 26, 2016
It is inevitable, as we grow older (and much though we may try to deny it, older we do all get) that there will be, to inverse the adage, a last time for everything.
But, of course, we are aware when we do something for the very first time, whereas, although we may suspect, we are rarely certain that we are doing something for the last time.
Which made attending this week's Basses Loaded XX a singularly bittersweet experience, as it was definitely the final iteration of what has become a Victoria tradition.
The concert opened, as it always has, with a Bach chorale, with the bassists arrayed around the hall. As usual, this was a totally immersive experience and the tuning was commendably accurate, noticeably more than it has been sometimes in the past. And, moreover, this was from an ensemble of twenty-two [sic] basses, the largest ever assembled for Basses Loaded.
Actually, there was a slight difference from the usual beginning of BL: Gary Karr and Harmon Lewis were greeted with a veritable storm of applause which threatened to continue all night; it was only Lewis's beginning to play the keyboard introduction that quelled the storm.
The ensuing fuga by Handel (well, that certainly narrows it down) was really rather jolly, with nicely-observed dynamics and very good ensemble — the latter particularly impressive for what was, essentially, a very large chamber group.
Arcangelo Corelli's "Sonata IV" was clearly an arrangement, but of what? Corelli composed a dozen violin sonatas and four sets of twelve trio sonatas; as the fourth violin sonata has five movements and this only had four, I'm guessing it's one of the trio sonatas.
Whatever the actual source — and whoever the arranger — it too proved most enjoyable, even if the stately triple-time of the second movement allegro was actually slower than the third movement adagio. The finale was in a lively 6/8 which one could easily have danced to. (Well, I say "one"....)
Next came a masterly arrangement, by Victoria's own David Clenman, of the third movement of the Symphony No.5 by one Ludwig von Beethoven. (An obscure second-cousin of Ludwig van, Clenman assures me).
This is, of course, the movement with the famous (cello and) doublebass eruption in the trio — Sir John Barbirolli used to tell the tale of the time he was rebuilding the Hallé Orchestra and one aged bass player who came to audition, invited to play this passage, played the whole thing on the same note; here it was as dynamic and dramatic as one could have wished. And although the music was clearly never going to transition into Beethoven's finale, with its groundbreaking symphonic trombones, the resounding pizzicato certainly gave an air of finality to the last bar.
For a couple of bars, so similar was the opening of the melody, I thought that the Mozart divertimento from which the allegro was being played, by Daniel Caras, Sam Okawa and Ruei Chi Wang, was "Eine kleine Nachtmusik".
It wasn't and I don't have the time to check the scores of his other twenty-six divertimentos to ascertain the precise provenance.
But, once again, it does not matter: the music was lots of fun and all three players were clearly enjoying themselves.
If Basses Loaded had a "greatest hit" then Bernhard Alt's Quartet for Contrabasses is certainly a contender. Composed in around 1932, for Alt's colleagues in the Berlin Philharmonic (in which he was a violinist from 1928 until his suicide in 1945), it is set in a distinctly anachronistic, almost Brahmsian, style.
This was almost certainly the finest performance of the piece in the two-decades of BL. The opening Präludium was very intense and featured a marvellous cadenza-like passage for Karr featuring some quite spectacular double stopping, while the second movement had a distinct resemblance to "There's no place like home" which I had somehow never noticed before.
After the interval, as usual, we had a group of items played by Karr and Lewis with, in three cases, the assistance of one of the class.
Verdes Anos is a traditional Portuguese song which, as Daniel Carias said in his brief introduction, "everyone knows".
"If they're Portuguese", Karr added dryly.
I don't know if this counted as Fado, but it certainly seemed plaintive enough; Carias and Karr interchanged solo and "accompaniment" to considerable effect.
Schumann's Spring Song, in which Masanori Ichikawa was the other bassist, produced some gorgeous high harmonies between the two stringed instruments.
Bottesini's Fantaise Sonnambula is based on themes from Bellini's opera. Although clearly fearsomely difficult technically, it is not quite so frivolous as some of his other works. Karr and Lewis played it beautifully, although I will admit that it is not my favourite Bottesini.
Of Saint-Saëns' The Swan there is little that can be said. Karr first made his name playing this with Bernstein over half a century ago. The few minutes the piece took to perform would alone have been worth the price of admission. And Lewis's pellucid pianism in the final bars will stay with me for some time.
There followed a beautifully gentle rendition of the "Air from County Derry" (rather better known as "Danny Boy") with Jung "Rosy" Hin joining Karr and Lewis; a charmingly played — and surprisingly moving — arrangement of "Over the Rainbow" from Mackenzie Carroll, Christie Echols, Ben Havinden-Williams and Julide San; and the Prayer from Humperdinck's Hansel und Gretel ethereally performed by Victoria Jones, Adriana Ruiz García, Barb Cleary, Eva Stoumbos, Aina Fortez Gómez, Noriko Okamoto, Ayaka Katsumata and Sarah Klein.
The entire ensemble reformed for the final (ever) group of short pieces: a galumphing Danish traditional song, Skovtrolden, which required the players to shout out loud a couple of times; "My Girl" (which turned out to be the 1969 Smokey Robinson song of that name, rather than the 1979 offering from Madness), during which the real stars of the show — the Karr-Lewis Kanines Shiro, Sumi, Chai — made their final onstage appearance; and then Scott Joplin's Maple Leaf Rag brought two decades of basso profundity to a close.
I confess that concluding this review is difficult, how does one sum up two decades of extraordinary and unique music-making? Aside from mentioning the one (infinitesimally small) item on the plus side: I shall no longer spend countless hours every July trying (and often, I am certain, failing) to come up with something new and different to write about Basses Loaded, I am simply going to paraphrase the close of Goethe Chorus Mysticus (German speakers, or fans of Goethe, of Liszt's Faust Symphony or of Mahler's 8th will need no assistance; the rest of you can rush over to Google translate):
Das Unbeschreibliche
Hier ist's getan
Der Ewigen-Bassliche
Ziet uns hinan!
The Bassists: Richard Backus; Megan Baker; Daniel Carias; Mackenzie Carroll; Barb Cleary; Christie Echols; Ryan Ford; Adriana Ruiz García; Aina Fortez Gómez; Ben Havinden-Williams; Jung "Rosy" Hsin; Masanori Ichikawa; Victoria Jones; Gary Karr; Ayaka Katsumata; Noriko Okamoto; Sam Okawa; Mary Rannie; Julide San; Eva Stoumbos; Ruei Chi Wang.
The Pianist: Harmon Lewis.
The Bass Mom: Sarah Klein.
The Kanines: Shiro, Sumi, Chai.
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