The second pianoworks festival at Blackheath Halls has established this annual
event as unique, and as one of the most worthwhile international piano festivals,
well worth the attention of visitors from Europe (City Airport is only a
quarter of an hour away!). It is masterminded by Stephen Coombs, a quiet
man and undemonstrative but brilliant pianist, who recruited this year an
impressive array of master pianists, several of them regular recording artists
for Hyperion. They included two Leeds first prizewinners. All the concerts
were shared, and there were no solo recitals.
This scheme provided socialising for the artists, which they very evidently relished, and for listeners the special enlightenment which resulted from the unusual opportunity to hear different players in immediate succession on the same Steinway. The pianists also took their turns in duet and duo piano, in chamber music with instrumental ensembles and in concertos with orchestra, and there were public masterclasses for advanced conservatory students, a quiz, a silent film with improvised piano accompaniment, a demonstration of recording studio procedures and Brian Kay's Sunday Morning (the entire festival was recorded for BBC Radio 3, and there will be a week of broadcasts early next year). A feast indeed!
The chosen repertoire ranged widely, avoiding standard works in the recital and concerto canon. The programme book did not tell us who would be playing what, and there were some surprises. (It was widely rumoured that the players themselves sometimes did not know what they were going to be asked to play until very late in the day!)
I enjoyed (mostly) a dozen of the score of events. Some performances were under-prepared. Attendances varied, perhaps because there is still a 'Thames barrier' for people who live north of the river, and I regretted that many more did not taking advantage of so marvellous an opportunity to combine pleasure with illumination.
Mention here of just a very few of the highlights may whet readers' appetites to catch the broadcasts in the spring, and to book for pianoworks2000 next autumn.
Stephen Coombs and Artur Pizarro were uncannily synchronous in duo, whether on two pianos in Mozart, Bartok (with percussion, Pedro Carneiro and Matthew Rich) and in Malcolm Arnold's attractive Concerto for Three Hands (composed for Cyril Smith after his stroke), or as duettists on one piano in Rimsky Korsakov's Scheherezade, delicious! In that spectacular Saturday morning recital, Jonathan Plowright joined Stephen Coombs, after a short pause, for the duet version of Stravinsky's Rite of Spring. It was extraordinary, and quite unpredictable, what a well-balanced programme these two orchestral showpieces made, and how little we missed the orchestral colours.
Chopin's death 150 years ago was reflected in variations on his themes by
Balakirev, Busoni, Mompou and Rachmaninoff, and by his 2nd Concerto, played,
to everyone's delight including his own, by Artur Pizarro, who combined bravura
with delicacy in the wholly successful version with string quintet (Vellinger
Ensemble). Many listeners preferred this to Chopin's always problematic
orchestration.
There was a whole evening concert, which I had to miss, devoted to contemporary British piano music. David Wordsworth writes for S&H about Kenneth Leighton's piano quartet, and similar good impressions were left by that composer's Fantasia on BACH for viola and piano (Yoko Inoue with Jonathan Plowright) and his Alleluia Pascha Nostrum delivered with commanding authority by Raphael Wallfisch (cello), always a welcome visitor to Blackheath Halls.
The Saturday night concert in the Great hall, in which seven pianists took
turns with Barry Wordsworth and the BBC
Concert
Orchestra accompanying, was not quite the promised experience of a lifetime.
Kathryn Stott gave a nice account of the Faure Ballade and Piers Lane reminded
us of Gerald Finzi's talent in reviving his Eclogue. Jonathan Plowright
(left) (a sterling pianist
and musician who had given a memorable Brahms recital at pianoworks98 but
is generally not much heard in UK) played the worst music we heard marvellously.
Prologue, Scherzo and Variations by Zygmunt Stojowski (d. 1946) is over the
top, but seemed just the thing for an occasional airing in a festival.
Unfortunately, it proved to be extravagantly high tosh, (probably from fairly
early this century - no date given, and the composer is not mentioned in
New Grove) and this UK premiere may well be its derniere too, despite the
programme
note writer's surprise at Stojowski's 'almost total neglect'.
Frederic Chiu clattered his way through Saint-Saens' empty Wedding Cake
caprice-valse and Vladimir Ovchinnikov was masterful in the Rachmaninoff
1st Concerto, but did not quite give the concert the lift at the end which
it needed. Perhaps time was restricted for orchestral rehearsal? Next morning,
however, he delivered the outstanding single performance that I heard,
Rachmaninoff's Corelli Variations, one of my favourites, and a piece which
many present did not know.
Sunday morning offered an opportunity to relax and enjoy coffee and Sunday
papers in the company of Brian Kay, giving his regular morning broadcast
from pianoworks99 in the Great
Hall at Blackheath. Coombs & Pizzaro, with their two percussionists,
played
from Michael Daugherty's witty Lounge Lizards and, for
'something completely different', Radio 3 brought in the popular Jewish music
ensemble The Burning Bush to sing and play traditional music
of the middle East, and quickly had everyone clapping to the rhythms of Yiddish
klezmer music. Many of the pieces they gave us can be enjoyed on their CD
Best of Yiddish, Klazmer & Sephardic Music (ARC EUCD 1375), of which
my only (unfair) criticism is that they don't always manage to kick over
the traces of their classical training!
I was able to hear parts of two master classes, which are always rewarding to take in. Coaching two young women students in Prokofiev sonatas, Vladimir Ovchinnikov helped to enhance their communication skills by broadening dynamic range and tonal colour, "- - a kaleidoscope, different characters, more colours in one moment, the whole orchestra in the piano - - ", "- - more rubato, less speed, breathe between phrases, a human voice not hammers - - ". Artur Pizarro, in his class, warned one of his students that with her small hands she was "not genetically equipped" for Scriabin's Sonata No 3. Its physical demands would be bound to damage her hands, a painful but pertinent lesson. He helped another both to respect Brahms' notation "an explicit phrasing writer, more than other composers" and to free herself emotionally (I had heard Lord Menuhin describe his method of preparing a performance in very similar terms) "- - don't be scared to wallow, go for broke, don't be afraid of excess - - start by exaggerating, then pare it down". That was a good thought to take away from pianoworks99.
Suggested recordings:
Stephen Coombs demonstrates his virtuosity in the sort of richly romantic music in which he excels: Bortkiewicz (1877-1952) Lamentations and Consolations, Andersen fairy tales and Preludes (Hyperion CDA66933)
Stephen Coombs with Artur Pizzaro have tremendous fun with a generous selection of Milhaud's music for two pianos - I loved it! (Hyperion CDA67014)
Raphael Wallfisch includes Alleluia PaschaNostrum in a CD of Leighton's chamber music, CHAN9132 ,
and I can strongly recommend Jonathan Plowright's Brahms recital on Kingdom KCLC2016.
Peter Grahame Woolf
Kenneth Leighton at pianoworks99 Blackheath Halls 22nd October
The marvellously enterprising pianoworks, now in its second year, is continuing its policy of featuring as many pianists as possible in a few days (the artistic director Stephen Coombs is quite clearly an expert arm twister !). It has again explored a diverse collection of composers - this year including Mompou, Rubbra, Gottschalk and one Zygmunt Stojowski ! - none of them exactly over represented names on the concert scene. Add to this no less than nine living composers and healthy portions of Rachmaninov, Chopin and Mendelssohn (none of their more popular works), and the phrase "something for all" seems to be no exaggeration.
One of the welcome features of this year's festival was the inclusion of
several works by Kenneth Leighton (1929-88) as featured composer; interesting
that they chose one no longer with us for a retrospective survey. This year
would have seen Leighton's 70th birthday and serves as a reminder of what
a great loss his early death was to British music. Although Leighton's large
output of church music is frequently heard, the chamber and to some extent
the piano music seems to languish in unaccountable obscurity. This is all
the more surprising considering the fastidious craftsmanship of the music
and the absolute understanding of instrumental technique (not least of the
piano, of which Leighton was a considerable executant himself) - the music
is very rewarding to play and poses no greater threat to a audience than
late Shostakovitch. Now that the music of Alan Rawsthorne is enjoying something
of a small revaluation, (at least as far as recordings are concerned), can
we hope for the same to happen to Kenneth Leighton?
The performance of Leighton's Contrasts & Variants (Quartet in one movement), given by Piers Lane and members of the Vellinger Quartet in the Recital Room, was as good an advertisement as one could wish for this music. All the players responded to the almost Waltonian longing of the slower sections and the typical jazz inflected syncopations that underpin Leighton's craggy and jumpy melodic lines. Like Rawsthorne and to some extent Arthur Bliss, there is a feeling of a nervous energy, bubbling under the surface, even in Leighton's slower movements. The overwhelming climax of the work was beautifully paced, as was the slightly quizzical, but again entirely characteristic conclusion.
Kathryn Stott joined Emma Johnson for Poulenc's much loved Clarinet Sonata (a moving memorial to Honegger). The players clearly enjoyed themselves as much as the audience, perfectly capturing the work's quirky humour and equally the air of melancholy that inhabits the slow movement. The concert ended with an exciting account of Bartok's wonderful trio Contrasts, in which yet another pianist (Fredric Chiu) joined Emma Johnson and violinist Stephanie Gonley, idiomatic in her playing of each composer as always, her bow rasping as she dug deep into the strings.
pianoworks should have the widest possible coverage and encouragement -unfortunately, most of our leading critics seem to think that nothing much happens in London outside the confines of the South Bank Centre!
David Wordsworth
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