CHELTENHAM
MUSIC FESTIVAL 2007
Ivor
Gurney: Ludlow
and Teme; Ralph Vaughan
Williams: On Wenlock
Edge; Sir Edward Elgar:
Piano Quintet in A minor,
Op. 84. Andrew Kennedy (tenor);
Aronowitz Ensemble. Pittville
Pump Room, Cheltenham, 15.07.2007
(JQ)
Over
the weekend of 14-15 July
the Cheltenham Festival
teamed up with BBC Radio
3 for four concerts under
Radio 3’s admirable New
Generation Artists Scheme
http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio3/classical/newgenerations/
This Sunday morning concert
was the third in this mini-series.
Quite apart from their own
intrinsic merits these concerts
were adroitly planned so
that three of them included
the trio of chamber works
that Elgar wrote between
1918 and 1919. The Violin
Sonata, Op. 82 and the String
Quartet, Op. 83 were included
in other programmes. The
inclusion in the Festival
of these three works, which
are often undervalued, is
welcome though, personally,
I find it very disappointing
that in a programme of nearly
sixty concerts the Festival
could only find room for
two Elgar miniatures besides
these three chamber works.
I know there’s an American
theme to the Festival but
in his 150th
anniversary year could not
room have been found at
least for one of his major
orchestral works?
The
programme for this concert
showed a particular degree
of imagination. Taking advantage
of the presence of a piano
quintet, two major English
song cycles that both specify
precisely this accompaniment
were included. But I believe
that the thoughtfulness
went beyond juxtaposing
the cycles by Gurney and
Vaughan Williams simply
on account of the similar
forces required for each.
The opportunity to hear
these two works side by
side in concert made the
listener aware of the fascinating
contrasts between them.
Both
cycles, of course, set poems
from the collection of sixty-three
published in 1896 under
the title A Shropshire
Lad by A E Housman (1859-1936)
– though there are no poems
common to both cycles. Hearing
them one after the other,
as here, makes one acutely
conscious of the great divide
between the two works that
is the First World War.
Vaughan Williams’s cycle
dates from 1909 but Gurney’s
was composed in 1919-20,
after he’d endured the harrowing
experience of the trenches.
Thus Gurney looks on Housman’s
regrets for lost youth in
a way that is wholly different
from Vaughan Williams. Housman’s
laments for an innocent
rural youth that, once lost,
can never be regained is
refracted by Gurney through
a very dark glass. The sorrowing
undercurrents in his ‘Pastoral’
Symphony (1916-22) make
one wonder how Vaughan Williams
might have treated these
Housman poems had he too
made his settings after
the War. In fact it would
have been very interesting
to hear the works in chronological
order but Andrew Kennedy
and his colleagues chose
to begin with the Gurney
cycle.
Ludlow
and Teme gets off to
a fresh, eager start in
the opening lines of ‘When
smoke stood up from Ludlow’
and this was well conveyed
by Kennedy, but the mood
audibly darkens at the third
stanza before becoming more
ardent. I thought the performers
captured these mood changes
very well. There was much
sensitive playing and singing
to admire in ‘Far in a western
brookland’, a setting full
of aching nostalgia. ‘Ludlow
Fair’, the fourth song,
sets a poem that is perhaps
better known in the version
by George Butterworth (The
Lads in their hundreds).
Once again, the contrast
between pre- and post-war
settings is marked. Both
Gurney and Butterworth employ
a triple-time metre that
is almost jaunty. But Butterworth’s
response to the poem, published
in 1911, is more amiable
and openhearted than Gurney’s.
Writing in the aftermath
of war, Gurney seems to
take his cue from the last
line of each stanza, reflecting,
for example, on "The
lads that will die in their
glory and never be old".
The fourth verse of Gurney’s
song is particularly dramatic
and the song was given an
impassioned performance
by Andrew Kennedy, supported
by some biting playing from
the Aronowitz Ensemble.
Another poem that was also
set by Butterworth is ‘When
I was one–and-twenty’, the
sixth song in Gurney’s cycle.
Both settings sound quite
jaunty and have the character
of a folksong but once again
it’s Gurney who provides
the darker music. Kennedy
sang this song very well.
The
cycle concludes with ‘The
Lent Lily’, a bittersweet
song, tinged with regret
for the mortality of flowers.
Gurney puts gentleness and
passion side by side in
a quite short span of music
before bringing the song
– and the cycle – to what
sounds like a peaceful close.
These seven songs contain
strong and varied emotions
and Andrew Kennedy seemed
to me to convey all these
emotions very successfully.
The performance benefited
hugely from sensitive, highly
responsive playing on the
part of the Aronowitz Ensemble.
The
account of On Wenlock
Edge that followed was
no less successful. Again,
I was consistently impressed
with the playing of the
Aronowitz Ensemble. The
refinement and excellent
internal balance of their
playing ensured that all
the strands of the accompaniment
came through. In the opening
song, from which the cycle
takes its name, they conjured
up superbly the aural images
of the wind-tossed landscape
and one could discern the
influence of RVW’s then-recent
studies with Ravel. Both
the players and Andrew Kennedy
brought out admirably the
timeless quality of ‘From
far, from eve and morning’.
In
‘Is my team ploughing?’
Kennedy realized very well
the two contrasting tones
of voice that are required
for the question and answer
stanzas. The dramatic intensity
of the song was built up
compellingly until the last
pair of stanzas (numbers
7 and 8) which were searing
in their intensity. I did
wonder, however, if Kennedy’s
delivery of the very last
line – "Never ask me
whose" – wasn’t too
vehement. The penultimate
song, ‘Bredon Hill’ is a
masterly setting. There
was a marvellously rapt
quality in the way the Aronowitz
Ensemble unfolded the opening
measures and Kennedy matched
them for atmospheric sensitivity.
The mood changes significantly
at the start of the fifth
stanza and the music begins
to convey a sense of foreboding.
The performers built the
intensity in a compelling
way until by the last line
of the song - "I hear
you, I will come" –
the tension had been ratcheted
up so much that Kennedy’s
delivery of it sounded as
if it were a line from a
Britten opera. One might
not always wish to hear
that line done with such
intensity – it was almost
painful – but in context,
as the culmination of this
hugely committed and involving
performance of the song,
it was wholly convincing.
After this the relative
calm of the concluding song,
‘Clun’, was just right.
Both
these song cycles were given
very fine, committed readings,
which fully justified the
extremely warm reception
accorded the performers
by the Cheltenham audience.
I’ve commented more than
once on the excellence of
the accompaniment but have,
perhaps, given insufficient
credit to Andrew Kennedy.
Let me make amends. He has
a voice that is almost ideally
suited to this music. His
is a "typical"
English tenor, light and
heady for the most part
but with a touch of steel
where required. The combined
forces of a piano quartet
can produce quite a large
volume of sound and there
were times, at climaxes,
when I wondered if Kennedy’s
voice would be able to come
across over the accompaniment.
However, his voice has great
clarity, both of tone and
diction, and I found I was
able to hear him quite satisfactorily.
That said, my seat was only
eight rows from the front
and during the interval
I spoke to a member of the
audience who had been seated
at the rear of the hall.
This lady said, without
any prompting from me, that
the singer’s voice had often
been obscured by the accompaniment
in louder passages. Whether
that is down to the acoustics
of the building or miscalculations
of scoring on the part of
the composers is a matter
for debate. For myself I
enjoyed Kennedy’s performances
very much indeed.
After
the interval the members
of the Aronowitz Ensemble
came into their own with
a performance of Elgar’s
Piano Quintet. As I said
earlier, this piece and
its two chamber companions
date from the same period.
Crucially, this was also
the time of that introspective
masterpiece, the Cello Concerto
in E minor, Op. 85 (1918-19).
The Piano Quintet is much
less celebrated than the
concerto but a performance
such as this one makes one
wonder anew why this should
be the case.
The
quintet is cast in three
movements. The first, marked
Moderato – Allegro,
begins restlessly and during
the movement the music often
has a questioning tone.
There was great urgency
in the playing and all five
performers were responsive
to the atmosphere in the
quieter passages. Later
on, in the central section,
the music becomes much more
overtly powerful and the
Aronowitz Ensemble rose
to the challenge splendidly.
In these pages particularly
I found it easy to discern
that we were listening to
music from the same pen
that produced the Introduction
and Allegro for Strings.
I admired very much the
richness of the sonorities
and also the fine nuances
of the performance. It was
also easy to see and hear
that the players were very
much working as a genuine
ensemble.
The
second movement, Adagio,
begins with a lovely wistful
melody. Here, and throughout
the movement, the playing
was really eloquent and
obviously very deeply felt.
In this heartfelt movement
you sense that Elgar is
revisiting in his mind some
of his previous great slow
movements – the symphonies
and, above all, the Violin
Concerto. Elgar continues
the ruminative mood at the
beginning of the finale,
which is marked Andante
– Allegro, but once
the allegro begins the music
is more outgoing – we’re
back, in a way, to the Introduction
and Allegro. The Aronowitz’s
playing in these passages
was really ardent but when
the music became more pensive
they responded with no little
imagination and feeling.
The closing pages have a
glorious sweep and vigour
and the players caught the
mood here to perfection,
propelling the music to
a thrilling conclusion.
This
was an absolutely superb
performance, which thoroughly
merited the cheers and applause
it received. This may be
a relatively neglected work
by Elgar but the young players
of the Aronowitz Ensemble
made out the best possible
case for it in a reading
that was as dedicated as
it was idiomatic. A member
of the audience asked me
afterwards if they had recorded
the work and when I responded
that, to the best of my
knowledge, they haven’t
he strongly expressed the
view that they should. I
agree and perhaps the Hyperion
label, for whom they record,
will take the hint.
This
splendid concert was recorded
by BBC Radio 3 and it will
be broadcast on Thursday
19 July at 13.00. It’s well
worth hearing.
John
Quinn
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