Steven Isserlis

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Bach, Gyorgy Kurtag, RNCM, Steven Isserlis

Steven Isserlis

RNCM Concert Hall, 15 June 2017

Steven Isserlis looks like a rock star and he delivers a concert of thunderous splendour.

Here we heard works by Gyorgy Kurtag, a fine composer, framed by two Bachs, the Suite No 1 in G major and the Suite No 6 in D major. It was beautiful, brilliant, beyond compare.

Or, if a comparison is needed, it was as good as the Andras Schiff concert that I saw at the RNCM a few years ago. That too featured Bach, I recall.

This time we had the cello, that extraordinary instrument, its colours bold and bright or shrouded in shadow. Steven Isserlis made it sing and lament, tear its hair out and (you know) ride a bicycle.

A very fine evening’s music.

RNCM Symphony Orchestra

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Manoj Kamps, RNCM, RNCM Symphony Orchestra

RNCM Symphony Orchestra

RNCM Concert Hall, 5 May 2017

This was another fine concert by the RNCM Symphony Orchestra, with the programme of music for the evening chosen by the conductor, Manoj Kamps.

There was Sibelius’s fifth symphony at the end, its jagged tones evoking icy colour and bleak landscapes. This was an epic journey, complete with Sherpa dogs and Kendall Mint Cake. Sitong Meng played piano in the middle work, Bartok’s Piano Concerto No 2 in G major, and we saw before our eyes the construction of a monument, such was the force of her performance. No sense in expending such energy on an easy piece. The concert began with a shimmering memorial to Bartok by Witold Lutosławski. It was elegiac but joyful as well.

I am looking forward to the next one already!

RNCM Symphony Orchestra

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RNCM Symphony Orchestra

RNCM Symphony Orchestra

RNCM Concert Hall, 31 March 2017

A very enjoyable, no-nonsense concert – you came for the music, that’s what you got.

We heard Schoenberg at the start, the whole of his Five Pieces for Orchestra, then after the interval it was time for Mahler’s ninth symphony. In approach and aesthetic they are two very different composers, of course, still they’re both children of Beethoven – one a devoted, another a prodigal son – and, like him, were living in Vienna when they met and became friends.

The two works shared a sumptuous sweep and required a rich, varied palette of instruments: violins and harps, drums and gongs, horns and trumpets and much else. The stage was full of musicians. You were immersed within the music while it lasted and when the waves of melody receded, you stood up and strode homeward.

Nine symphonies he wrote did Mahler, ten if you count the one unfinished at his death, which is not at all bad. He had been busy.

Budafest: RNCM Chamber Music Festival

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Bartók, Brahms, Budafest: RNCM Chamber Music Festival, Dohnanyi, Gabor Takacs-Nagy, Haydn, Kodaly, Liszt

Budafest: RNCM Chamber Music Festival

RNCM

10-12 March 2017

For this year the RNCM Chamber Music Festival focused on Hungary: a so-called Budafest.

Bartok featured prominently, notably in Saturday’s evening concert, so too did Kodaly and Dohnanyi, and space was found too for a few of the many great composers influenced by Hungarian folk music. During the festival you could hear works by the likes of Brahms, Haydn and Liszt.

Perhaps the highlight of the weekend occurred in the second half of the aforementioned Saturday evening concert, where Gabor Takacs-Nagy conducted a group of experienced and promising, young musicians as they performed Bartok’s Music for Strings, Percussion and Celeste. It was a magical work, possessing a quicksilver shimmer and a rare transformative quality. After you heard it, there was an afterglow and the world seemed chockfull of possibility.

Margarita Wood

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Margarita Wood, RNCM

Margarita Wood

Carole Nash Recital Room, RNCM

9 March 2017

This wonderful concert, rich in tone and colour and variety of mood, showed the width of Margarita Wood’s range.

There was heartfelt emotion, wry humour, and particularly in the final piece, sassy attitude to be found in the songs, which included pieces by Mozart, Schubert, Liszt, Sibelius, Debussy and a couple of others besides. They asked lots of different questions of Margarita Wood yet her powerful performance answered them all with aplomb. She displayed an impeccable technique and her expressive rendition drew you into the drama of each song. You, the audience, had no choice but to succumb.

A superb programme, and demanding with it, superbly executed.

Ran Feng

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Liszt, Ran Feng, RNCM

Ran Feng

Carole Nash Recital Room, RNCM

26 January 2017

It takes a lot of Liszt to make a concert, as Alan Ladd almost said to Veronica Lake in The Blue Dahlia (screenplay by Raymond Chandler).

Here Ran Feng played five works for piano by Liszt and they were all, in a sense, unloved children: little rated by public or critics or, it seems, colleagues. You read in the programme, for example, that Brahms fell asleep while listening to the last of these works, the Sonata in B minor.

The idea of focusing a concert on a great composer’s lesser known or appreciated works is an intriguing one – and I mean, it is Liszt, so how bad can it be? – and thankfully this turned out to be a very worthwhile experience. The best of the music had a thunderous quality together with a kind of melodic gold at its core. Ran Feng performed excellently throughout, industrious and attentive to the demands of the score.

I enjoyed the concert very much and have been inspired to learn more about Liszt.

Aurea Quartet

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Aurea Quartet, RNCM

Aurea Quartet

Carole Nash Recital Room, RNCM

19 January 2017

The eye is tied to the horizon but the ear is not.

Most likely not an original thought, it was evoked by listening to Schubert’s String Quartet in A minor, the final work in this evening’s concert programme. That music seemed to have been constructed out of richly textured memories, shards of cinematic images, moments of a life shared and time spilled.

Haydn’s String Quartet in C major, the first work we heard, was lovely and joyful and had just a smidgeon of melancholy. Very Viennese, it was the soundtrack to a sunny walk around Leopoldsberg and then a slice of Sachertorte and a glass of Blaufrankisch enjoyed in an outt of the way Heuriger.

As for Shostakovich’s Two Pieces, the middle one here, the first piece was full of sombre feeling while the second was, well, light – an accompaniment to a Laurel and Hardy film. You thought of brakes failing on a removal truck and it accelerating backwards down a hill, birthday celebration morphing into a custard pie fight. You saw a precarious descent from the window of a boarding house, on a rope of tied-together blankets. You looked in on a late, compromised return from a drunken spree, San and Ollie’s battle-axe wives waiting at home. And you watched the convoluted climb of a piano (ultimately unsuccessful) up three flights of stairs…

The Aurea Quartet are wonderful musicians and the concert programme was well chosen. Find out more about the Aurea Quartet here.

RNCM James Mottram International Piano Competition Concerto Final

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Beethoven, Brexit, Clement Lefebvre, Daumants Liepins, Florian Mitrea, James Mottram, James Mottram International Piano Competition, Mozart, Piano Concerto No 3, RNCM, RNCM James Mottram International Piano Competition Concerto Final, Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra

RNCM James Mottram International Piano Competition Concerto Final

RNCM Concert Hall, 3 December 2016

Our departure from Europe has been much exaggerated.

Clement Lefebvre won the competition, taking first prize from the international jury and the audience prize as well. Florian Mitrea came second and Daumants Liepins took third.

The concert itself, wherein each of the three finalists played alongside the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, was a dazzling affair. We heard Mozart’s Piano Concertos 20 and 21 (from Daumants Liepins and Florian Mitrea respectively) and Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No 3 (Clement Lefebvre). Each performance was received with fulsome, fraternal enthusiasm.

This Concerto Final was the climax of the fifth James Mottram International Piano Competition, a week-long event which attracted and showcased the talents of the best young pianists on the planet. They came from all over, including from Europe, as was plain to see. Long may it continue, until Brexit and beyond.

Duet

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Duet, Katharine Armitage, Lieder, Oskar McCarthy, Re:Sound Music Theatre, RNCM, Robert Schumann

Duet

By Katharine Armitage

Re:Sound Music Theatre

Carole Nash Recital Room, RNCM

28 October 2016

The set, first of all: you are surprised to find yourself in a cafe, at Poppe’s in Leipzig to be precise, a regular haunt of the Schumanns.

Music is played, several Lieder are sung, including ‘Die gute Nacht’, and we are shown scenes from Robert and Clara’s marriage. Of particular note was Oskar McCarthy’s performance: he gave us a Robert Schumann who was vulnerable and highly strung, teetering on the edge of insanity almost.

An excellent entertainment throughout, one where all the performers showed munificent talents. You were drawn back to Schumann’s work once more, which is a prime indication of the play’s power.

Arik Brauer

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Arik Brauer, Austria, Hitlerbild, Oho Halalali, Vienna

I have spent the weekend exploring the paintings & music of Arik Brauer.

Two websites devoted to the life and work are here:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arik_Brauer

http://www.brauer-meiri.com/ma/

A lot of his songs are on You Tube. As Austria may shortly elect a right wing president, two songs in particular are starting to sound disturbingly topical. ‘Oho Halalali’ is well worth a listen:

And here is ‘Hitlerbild’ – this is a put-on, isn’t it?