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Christ Church Cathedral
August 1, 2020
The music of Ralph Vaughan Williams looms large in my early concert memories: on July 21 1965 I attended my first orchestral concert, a BBC Prom which concluded with his Symphony No.4 (Sir Adrian Boult conducted and the soloist in Bartók's Violin Concerto No.2 was Yehudi Menuhin); in March 1966 I sang in a performance of A Sea Symphony; and on September 7, 1966 I attended another Prom in which Sir Malcolm Sargent conducted A London Symphony (the recently-departed Ida Haendel played the Beethoven Concerto and the opener was Sibelius' 7th): incidentally, I can be so precise with these dates thanks to the BBC's Proms Archives, a wonderful resource. My memory may be good, but it is not that good, especially over half a century after the event.
It was this last-mentioned concert which was particularly summoned up in my memories during Saturday's concert, which was glorious on so many levels. My abiding memory of that 1966 Prom, particularly the epilogue of the Vaughan Williams, inspired by the last chapter of H.G. Wells' Tono-Bungay ("The river passes — London passes, England passes"), is reinforced by the fact that on our way home, my friends and I stopped for a drink at a pub in West London, which, although beside the Great West Road, one of the main highways out of London, was also at the end of a short street — only a couple of hundred yards long — at the other end of which, surprisingly, was the dark, ineffable, mystery of the Thames itself.
That, too, was a very warm night and, although the sparsely-distributed two-score-and-ten audience members on Saturday were a far cry from the 5,000 packed into the Royal Albert Hall, on both occasions I felt as if I were in a Cathedral.
And, of course, on Saturday I was.
But it was not simply the mood and weather which summoned up these memories and feelings: Vaughan Williams' Romance for viola and piano, composed around 1914 but only discovered in his papers after his death, contained echoes of A London Symphony, as well as hints of The Lark Ascending, both of which works date from this time.
It is possible that Vaughan Williams did not consider the Romance worthy of publication and it is arguably not top-flight "RVW", but I'll take second-tier Vaughan Williams over the best of many other composers on any day you care to mention. And violists would seem to agree: since its premiere in 1962, the work has earned a regular place in the their repertoire.
Listening to Jennifer MacLeod and Robert Holliston playing the Romance it was easy to see just why:
The music is in Vaughan Williams' signature rhapsodic style and was exquisitely played, Jennifer's (*) tone rich and full, Holliston's crisp palette the perfect foil.
I did not want the music to end, but of course it did.
The music of Fritz Kreisler conjures up another, somewhat more recent, musical memory. During our brief (363 days, but who was counting?) sojourn in Toronto I discovered The Classical Record Shop in Hazleton Lanes (almost certainly long gone). Despite its location necessitating a fairly arduous trip (and nightmare parking) from our house just inside the Northern border of Scarborough, I would make regular excursions and spent more money than I care to remember.
But the point (yes, Virginia, there is a point) is that my (rapidly failing) memory suggests that every time I entered the store the sound system was playing what was at the time unfamiliar violin-and-piano music, which I eventually discovered, after I failed to get it out of my head for days on end, was Kreisler's Liebesleid.
And although one might imagine that music composed for his own instrument by one of history's greatest violinists would not transcribe well, one would be wrong.
True, even when played by such a consummate artist as Keith MacLeod, there was inevitably a loss of that almost indefinable zigeuner feel, but that hardly mattered in the face of such delightful playing from both Keith and Holliston (*).
Although I had not recognised the title, it turns out that Schön Rosmarin was another bon-bon with which I was familiar. This too was gorgeous and featured some wonderfully dramatic rubato, superbly coordinated. I was left with the feeling that I should definitely have liked to meet the Rosemary who inspired such delightful music.
One final observation: I was quite surprised (only surprised?) to discover that one of Kreisler's teachers at the Vienna Conservatory was Anton Bruckner. It is hard to imagine a bigger contrast to Bruckner's monumental symphonies than these elegant and charming miniatures.
The opening and closing works on the all-too-brief programme both featured all three performers, although only the last was actually composed for the combination.
Brahms' Zwei Gesänge, Op.91, as the title suggests, were composed for voice, with the unusual addition of a viola to the normal piano accompaniment. Also unusual is the fact that the two songs were composed some twenty-one years apart. Both were written for violinist Joseph Joachim and his wife Amalie; what is now the second song Brahms wrote for their marriage in 1863, although it was not published at the time; Brahms revised it in 1884 and then composed the first song in an attempt to help what was by this time a troubled marriage: in fact the Joachims separated in that year and Brahms' sympathy for Amalie led to a distinct cooling of his friendship with Joseph, only mended when he composed the Double Concerto in 1887 as a peace offering.
Although Brahms is not particularly well-known for his songs he should be: he wrote dozens of them and Op.91, although a fairly late publication, was to be followed by no fewer than forty-two more. Moreover, these are echt-Brahms, his musical fingerprints writ large in every bar.
In the first song, the clarinet (i.e. vocal line) is interwoven with the viola, whose part was enlivened with occasional tasteful portamento. In the second there is less counterpoint and more simple harmony, but both were delectable and beautifully played by all three.
Max Bruch composed a good deal of music: four operas, three symphonies, sixteen concertante works — including three concertos for violin, and one for clarinet and viola (how about it, MacLeods?) — four string quartets, a considerable amount of choral music, some seventy lieder and part-songs, and more besides. And yet today the only works which are regularly performed are the first violin concerto, the Scottish Fantasy (also for violin and orchestra) and Kol Nidrei.
Does this make Bruch a one (or rather three) trick pony?
On the basis of the Eight Pieces, Op.83, for clarinet, viola and piano I should answer with a resolute no.
This was the third occasion in recent years when I have heard a selection of the pieces (and, without checking through my records, I am still not certain whether or not I have yet heard all eight). After the first time, each subsequent appearance on a concert programme has made my heart leap: these are lovely pieces and the combination, while hardly commonplace, a highly effective one, although it is one which is rarely heard — even the one acknowledged clarinet-viola-and-piano masterpiece, Mozart's "Kegelstatt" Trio, gets far fewer outings than most of his other chamber music.
Perhaps one of the reasons that most of Bruch's music languishes in not-quite-obscurity is that the majority of his melodic material hovers on the brink of the memorable but never quite makes it across. The opening Allegro con moto (in actuality, the second piece) makes this point very effectively. It is meticulously composed and wonderfully idiomatic for the instruments, but I doubt if any of the audience walked out onto Quadra Street whistling the tune.
The third piece, Andante con moto, came next and opened with a bold almost tragic statement from the viola, ameliorated by the softer reply of the clarinet in consolatory fashion. This to-and-fro between viola and clarinet continued throughout, although around the midpoint, Keith switched his A clarinet for a B flat instrument and in the second half the viola tended to comment on the clarinet, before a reconciliation was reached in the closing bars.
Perhaps the final piece we heard (actually number six) had a little less character, but it was still enchanting, as was the playing of all three musicians throughout the evening.
A joyful opening to the series and most definitely balm for the troubled soul.
(*) Forgive the apparent over-familiarity: but the reviewer, even armed with the The Chicago Manual of Style, is faced with a problem when more than one performer shares the same surname. I know it doesn't read well, but what can a poor critic do?
Answers on a postcard, please.
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