PLG 50th
Anniversary Season: Carducci String
Quartet, Lancier Brass Quintet,
Alasdair Beatson (piano), Purcell Room 9.01 2006 (CC)
All credit to PLG for including Henri Dutilleux as one of their featured composers in their fiftieth
anniversary season (it is his ninetieth, as he was born in
1916). On this first evening, two major works (one well-known,
the other much less so) emerged as the clear highlights of
the evening – Ainsi la
nuit for string quartet (1977)
and the Piano Sonata (1948).
It was the young Carducci
String Quartet that gave an impressive Ainsi.
The Carducci won the 2004 Finland
International Chamber Music competition in Kuhmo
and this is indeed an impressive ensemble. The opening 'Nocturne'
of Ainsi was characterized
by real beauty of sound and a lyric undercurrent that went
on to underpin the entire performance. More, they understood
Dutilleux' world very well indeed,
clearly enjoying the more veiled sections as well as the more
angular, even angry ones.
The London premiere of Kurtág's
Six Moments musicaux, Op.
44 of 2005 preceded this, proving perfect in its own right.
Kurtág's micro-world is endlessly
fascinating, and these six pieces emerged as six little jewels.
Interestingly, the composer marks the fourth piece ('In memoriam
Gyorgy Sebok)
to be played 'as if from another world', an instruction that
could easily apply to several other movements, particularly
the harmonic-prevaded fifth ('Rappel
des oiseaux'). The Carducci
Quartet really can make tiny fragments speak volumes.
Michael Zev Gordon's Three
Short Pieces for String Quartet (no date, but presumably very
recent as this was its World Premiere) included tributes to
Stravinsky (No. 1) and Janácek. Even
in such a short time-frame (ten minutes all in) the slower
music had a tendency to meander, however. More interesting
was Joseph Horowitz' Fifth Quartet (another anniversary –
the composer's eightieth!). Premiered in 1969 by the Amadeus
Quartet, it reflects the theme of flight and danger experienced
by refugees from Nazi Vienna. It occupies a bitter-sweet world
(most evident perhaps in the shadowy waltz passages) while
including a rhythmic impetus that sustains its invention well.
Well worth investigating.
The 7.45pm concert juxtaposed brass quintet and solo
piano. Such juxtapositions are characteristic of PLG concerts
and are frequently illuminating. Just a note of caution here
though. It is tempting to suggest that the (solid physical
instrument) piano was provided because piano was a dynamic
generally missing from the Lancier
Brass Quintet's playing. Luciano
Berio's Call (1985) had the
players standing, spread across the length of the stage trumpets
at either end, spitting notes at each other. Very secure playing,
undoubtedly.
Timothy Jackson (born 1972) provided a brass response
to two Japanese Haiku, taking each line as the starting point
for a movement. Fragmentary, gestural
and elusive might sum this up, although the absence of the
word 'memorable' is rather conspicuous. Dwarfing the invention
compositionally, Dutilleux' twenty-five
minute Piano Sonata was given a superb account by the young
and extremely gifted Alasdair Beatson
(who has studied with Manahem Pressler
in Indiana). Beatson is very aware
of colour and shading, so vital in Dutilleux'
music; his definition is beyond criticism (no suggestion of
clumsy pedal blurring in challenging passages). He brought
out the Messiaen connections at
times, while at others celebrating the almost bluesy elements.
Difficult to say where Beatson was
at his best – maybe the phantasmagoric middle section of the
'Lied', or maybe invoking the impressive peal of bells in
the finale (a Choral and Variations). By the end of this performance,
the question was surely why don't we hear this major work
more often?
Opening the second half was Edward Shippley's The Rite of Lucifuge
(1990) for brass quintet. The programme
behind the work (a description of the magical Ceremony for
the conjuration of the violent spirit Lucifuge
as laid down by the Key of Solomon) was in fact far more fascinating
than the piece itself. Relentlessly fortissimo at times (ouch!)
but not particularly impressive for it, and calling on various
techniques that just sounded dated today (hitting the mouthpiece
of the instrument to make a 'popping' sound), this became
rather tedious at a full twenty minutes duration. I hope the
Rite itself is more frightening than this.
If Richard Causton's Non
mi comporto male of 1993 for
solo piano suffered from lack of harmonic direction, relying
instead on the final soft-jazz revelation out of a predominantly
grey sky, it was nevertheless well performed by Alisdair
Beatson. Infinitely more fascinating
were three of William Bolcom's Etudes
(1977-86). The spiky 'Hi-Jinks', the huge contrasts of 'Vers le silence' and the modernist 'Rag infernal (Syncopes apocalyptiques)' brought
great delight, not least the joy of Beatson's
own virtuosity.
John White (born 1931) provided the final (brass)
piece, Doggerel Machine, part of a sequence of 'Machines'
this composer has penned. Nine movements in eleven minutes,
there was plenty of fun to have, culminating in a horn dominated,
cor de chasse extravaganza to send
us away with a smile. But it is the memory of the Dutilleux pieces that remains from the whole evening.
Colin Clarke
