Above: Ioudenitch playing another Debussy offering, ‘Beau Soir,’ with harpist Héloïse Carlean-Jones at The Curtis Institute of Music in 2015 (Credit: YouTube/Héloïse CJ).

Fragments trapped in dissonant alliteration itch for lyrical release. Through iterations of motifs that teem with variations on one letter – D sharp followed by D natural then D flat and finally a double octave – a denial of poetry evolves. What makes for euphony in stanzas forfeits unity in staves.

Exhibits of their frenzy raged sedatedly in a recital by violinist Maria Ioudenitch and accompanist Roman Borisov at Wigmore Hall last night. Beginning with the iridescent traceries of Lili Boulanger’s ‘Nocturne’ from her 2 Pieces for violin and piano, the performers wove a crude embroidery. Ioudenitch’s diminuendo dented tenderness by hurtling into quiet; decrescendo and crescendo sketches met in equal parts with mf. Piercing pitches peeled off skimpily before a tribute to Debussy’s ‘Prélude à l’après-midi d’un faune,’ which leapt with loud aplomb despite its marking of ‘très doux’ (‘very gentle’).

Staccatos on piano chords sprung sprightly but with excess force in ‘Cortège.’ Lugubriously floating notes designing the first movement of Prokofiev’s Violin Sonata No. 1 soon ceded to composure. Demisemiquavers on the violin marked ‘freddo’ (‘cold’) spilled warmly and sextuplets threatened with mere scratches. At Ioudenitch’s behest the music’s eerie creaks were meek attempts at menace. Semi-finished were the frights.

Deserting certain notes too early in ‘Allegro Brusco,’ the interpreter turned triplets into thuds unsubtle. Melody intent on hypnotizing scrambled like the rant of an erratic toddler: petulant but unperturbing. Double stops became indignant stomps, not programmed chokeholds. Borisov’s dapples in the treble clef of third movement ‘Andante’ bandied staid tones. As the instrumentalists engaged in imitation, symbiosis splintered into paled-out snippets of a scrapbook: patchy captures of a dream. Ioudenitch’s hushed demisemiquavers offered tenderness toward the end of the instalment nonetheless.

‘En serrant’ – French for ‘whilst embracing’ – loosened its caress too early at the start of Debussy’s Violin Sonata in G Minor, which commenced with the violinist’s peak-crescendo perky turn of phrase. Ioudenitch later drew tenuto notes with languid sensuality embodying the piece, yet only intermittently. Despite her effervescent efforts, fervour waned.

In second movement ‘Intermède. Fantasque et léger,’ Borisov’s section of rubato dwindled prematurely while Ioudenitch’s cadenza spanned too short an interval. Her three-bar trill on C sharp dizzied like pristine white light. Pellucid precision ignited the mirroring second.

Coquettishness pursued a sotto voce theme on violin to open Brahms’ Violin Sonata No. 3. In tandem triplet chords stormed pyrotechnically on the piano. Channelling a quibbling, quick vibrato for the vulnerable ‘Adagio,’ part, Ioudenitch hovered slumber’s swimming silhouettes. Emotions surfaced furiously in forte or demurely in abrupt diminuendo but eschewed cohesion. Scraps of sound derived from off-beats in the ‘Un poco presto e con sentimento’ movement and the two musicians’ tempi drifted at the start of ‘Presto agitato.’ Apices of strife propelled Ioudenitch’s renditions of the main F major theme with ardour but soft moments faded.

Zipping through Debussy’s La fille aux cheveux de lin for her first encore, Ioudenitch once again applied a shimmery vibrato stripped of passion. Flourishes evoking clarinet tones ended up dismissed. Jascha Heifetz’s arrangement of ‘It Ain’t Necessarily So’ from Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess conflicted likewise with the soloist’s trill-emulating sheen.

A myriad of scenes misplaced comprised this stream of consciousness. Deprived of fluxing style, its episodes dozed off in monochrome.

Above: Lise Davidsen sings ‘Gretchen am Spinnrade’ live at the Metropolitan Opera in 2023.
Credit: Lise Davidsen (YouTube)

Ecstasy is death in opera. Perishing from lovesickness, its heroes hail surrender as a victory, survival as a vice. Despotic passions stupefy and impulse conquers all.

Pangs clang as ragingly in Sturm und Drang: a movement of Romantics spearheaded by Goethe among others. Dramatizing many of the author’s poems in his lieder, Schubert rendered epics pocket-sized: odes charting odysseys in song. Soprano Lise Davidsen recounted them for a recital with accompanist James Baillieu last night at Wigmore Hall’s 125^th Anniversary Concert.

‘Am Bach im Frühling’ (‘By the stream in spring’) let ripples linger in the languid phrasing of ‘Du brachst sie nun die kalte Rinde’ (‘Now you’ve broken the cold rind’): an opener that Davidsen rewarded with a dapple of appoggiatura. Natural cures were hardly apt for heartache, nonetheless. ‘Der Erde allgemeine Blüte / Kommt meinem Herzen nicht so gut’ (‘The flourishing of the whole earth cannot relieve my heart’) led the lamenter back to love’s entrapment in a slow diminuendo.

Exultation hastened ‘Mit tausendfacher Liebeswonne’ (‘With thousandfold delights of love’) in Schubert’s ‘Ganymed’ – a Goethe work that sees a Trojan prince enamoured with his halcyon surroundings. ‘Ah, on your breast I lie and languish’ (‘Ach, an deinem Busen / Lieg’ich und schmachte’) climbed in sensual bliss through Davidsen’s illustrious instrument: a landscape in itself. As a melisma limned his plea to be consumed by heaven’s ‘Alliebender Vater’ (‘all-loving Father’), the young regent earned celestial peace.

Pulsations stung pp chords with ‘Der Zwerg’ (‘The dwarf’): a sinister vignette of deadly envy. Strangling a defenceless queen, the villain casually reviled, ‘Du Selbst bist Schuld an diesem Leide,’ (‘You yourself are to blame for this suffering’) – filling the vocalist’s voice with colossal contempt. Repentant trepidation crept however into ‘einzig mir noch Freude,’ (‘your death alone can gladden me’): invidious vibrato hiding guilt. Vicissitudes of sharps and naturals executed with extreme precision intimated hesitance.

Seduced by Faust, a proud ex-virgin relished her delirium through ‘Gretchen am Spinnrade’: ‘Gretchen at the spinning wheel.’ ‘Mein armer Sinn / Ist mir zerstückt’ (‘My poor mind is shattered’) sank like hope in Davidsen’s diminuendo; ‘Ich finde sie nimmer, / Und nimmermehr’ (‘I shall never, ever find peace’) spelt out an entrancing tantrum. Thunder threatened in the accents of ‘An seinen Küssen / Vergehen sollt’!’ (‘May I perish in his kisses!’), stunning with forzando’s deadly strokes.

Nostalgia steered commands in Mignon’s reverie ‘Kennst du das Land?’ (‘Do you know the land?’): the dancer’s invitation to a young man saving her from taunting acrobats in Goethe’s Wilhelm Meisters Lehrjahre. Envisaging her birthplace – an Italian coastline where the ‘oranges grow golden by dark leaves’ – she cried ‘Dahin! Dahin / Möcht’ ich mit dir, o mein / Geliebter, ziehn’ (‘I long to go there with you, my love’) through Davidsen’s exquisite tones. Amid piano chords’ devoted outpour the soprano shaped Mignon’s sweet epithet of ‘mein Beschützer’ with intrepid preciousness. Hypnosis stoked the girl.

Humility encumbered her next song, ‘Heiss mich nicht reden’: ‘Bid me not speak.’ Mignon has promised to conceal abuse afflicted on her by the troupe. In Davidsen’s solemnity ‘heiss mich schweigen’ (‘let me be silent’) finished in the shame of a diminuendo; the melismas in ‘das Schicksal will es nicht’ (‘Fate does not want it’) echoed doom.

Escape from consciousness ensconced piano chords in eerie dreaminess to open ‘Nun wer die Sehnsucht kennt’ (‘Only he who knows longing’). Mignon’s undoing hushed the tremulous reflection ‘was ich leide’ (‘what I suffer’) with a deferential diffidence. In Davidsen’s last iteration of the phrase a pining pitch implied her peril.

‘Der Tod und das Mädchen’ (‘Death and the Maiden’) led the vocalist to incarnate two foes: a nubile woman desperate to preserve her life and leering Death. While anguish rang in terrified vibrato through the first, the second guided with imperialism. ‘Gib deine Hand, du schön und zart Gebild!’ (‘Give me your hand, you lovely, tender creature!’) ordered Davidsen’s contralto range: the bastion of a bass. Deictic was this deity descended from the devil: a beguiling healer.

Palpitations scintillated in piano chords unravelling ‘Der Musensohn,’ (‘Son of the muses’). Galloping through ‘Feld und Wald’ (‘fields and woods’), they offered trying tempi and high pitches that occasionally tripped up the soprano.

Reminiscence tinged the brisk chords of ‘Suleika I’: a poem penned by Goethe’s muse, the married Marianne von Willemer. Elation slaked a thirst for nature’s nourishment as the narrator sang of the East Wind’s wings ‘cool-[ing] the deep wound in [her] heart.’ Imparting grandeur to its magic, Davidsen adapted this idyll to operatic rapture. ‘Kühlt auch mir die heissen Wangen’ (‘and [the East wind] also cools my burning cheeks’) was doused with forte; ‘Von dem Freunde tausend Grüsse’ (‘a thousand greetings from my friend’) missed tenderness.

Euphoria’s phosphorescence soared in pristine pitches of ‘Du bist die Ruh’: Schubert’s renowned ‘You are repose.’ As the piano’s figures of appoggiatura trickled like the tips of whitecaps, Davidsen envisioned her love’s heart being ‘filled with joy’ (‘Von deiner Lust’). Proclamatory tremolos accompanied the entrance of ‘Die Allmacht,’ a religious panegyric whose peak notes she wielded like a pilgrim on a mission.

Creeping chords across a double bass clef, Baillieu imitated stirrings of a house disturbed by thunder in ‘Die junge Nonne’ (‘The young nun’), which told of ‘rafters groaning.’ Diminuendo in ‘zittert das Haus’ (‘the house quakes’) roused consuming fear in Davidsen’s embodiment. ‘And the night is dark as the tomb’ (‘Und finster die Nacht, wie / das Grab!’) portended doubt but the resplendent high F in ‘getraut’ (‘wedded’) renewed her vow.

Blind faith betrayed a boy in Schubert’s setting of ‘Erlkönig’, another Goethe poem. As he caught sight of the grim reaper, the unwitting son fell victim to deception. Father warned against the sirens lullabying him to sleep to no avail: the child was taken. Through alarming notes of torment Davidsen performed this dialogue with rising tension but selective notes careened off pitch.

Dreams teetered in ‘Am Tage aller Seelen’ (‘On the day of All Souls’), dropping off in the diminuendo of ‘Die vollendet süssen Traum’ (‘those whose sweet dreams are over’). With performances of ‘An die Musik’ and ‘Naturgenuss’ as encores, Davidsen regaled a dark anthology with hopeful ardour.

Awe enthralled this nearly flawless Schubert spree. By steeping pieces into Sturm und Drang, soprano Lise Davidsen ensorcelled listeners. Experimental spells put lieder to the test, however – sometimes skipping intimacy.

Above: The Julia Fischer Quartet plays Tchaikovsky String Quartet No. 1 in a 2022 performance at the Rheingau Music Festival.

Exposed like bones on robbed mass graves, lone characters stick out in postwar sketches. Skeletons swerve helter-skelter in glissandi; glinting rubble flits in swift motifs. Shrill feats of insubordination rail against despotic themes unnoticed: no one hears.

Dissembling errors in their dissonance, these compositions have escape doors for the rhythmically unhinged. Beginning last night’s Wigmore Hall recital with Schubert’s single-movement String Quartet in C Minor, The Julia Fischer Quartet applied anachronistic tactics. Tremolos were mollified by rushed diminuendo and unnuanced runs tripped on a skimpy timbre. While Alexander Sitkovetsky’s second violin and Nils Mönkemeyer’s viola offered tranquil scintillation in staccato quavers, they deferred to torrid forte over Fischer’s first violin. Minatory minims snapped like batting raindrops on their bows but deafened other music. From this illustration of a thunderstorm effects fell uncoordinated, sheltering the instruments in separate quarters.

Triplets indistinct were sinking trinkets on viola at the start of Brahms’ String Quartet No. 2. Stringency on Fischer’s first violin delivered a decree in monotone. Despite some effort at legato in the lusingando (‘caressing’) section, lack of unison among the foursome echoed overlapping chatter; tender strokes that poked from bows knocked tentatively at the door.

This crude articulation skewed the piece’s subtleties into combustion.

Snippets of a nimble melody emerged in second movement ‘Andante moderato.’ Daintily dispersed motifs remained unheard however. In the throes of clanging anger triplets jarred like scorching pebbles underfoot. Precision printed them pristinely in third movement ‘Quasi menuetto, moderato – Allegro vivace,’ but staccato chords were overheated in the fourth. Diminuendo on viola and the second violin skimmed strings in diffidence; a coarse composure tore the marking grazioso.

Overloud staccato startled Shostakovich’s String Quartet No. 3 in F’s first movement ‘Allegretto,’ once subtitled ‘Calm awareness of the future cataclysm.’ Though the score dictated poco rit., rebellion led the pace to swell and belted it with thuds. Proclamatory players couldn’t keep their stories straight in changes from 2/2 to 3/2 time that flipped them out of sync. Piqued syllables seethed fiendishly through Fischer’s fast-ascending runs and Benjamin Nyffenegger’s cello pizzicato pitted fierce attacks.

Denunciation fumbled fast quintuplets in the second movement. Masterfully styled staccato quavers quaked uncannily: the wagging finger of an apparition. Moments executed with a mute soon wavered nonetheless. Descending chords dropped ploddingly like burning coals; Fischer’s glissando pulsed like gunfire. Arms didn’t cool for fourth movement ‘Adagio,’ originally termed ‘In memory of the dead.’ Although cohesion stabilised, the reading lacked a compromise between conformity and loss. Coercive turns on cello were commands at a correctional labour camp, not repressed mourning.

Painfully shy diminuendi rendered vulnerability in final movement ‘Moderato.’ Juxtaposing perfectly timed pizzicato with hypnotic doses of staccato, the ensemble started on another mirror of subservience that cracked in crass fortissimo. Mismatching tempi turned out blows of discombobulated bombing until Sitkovetsky’s trills chimed like an eerie siren. After staves of devastation the musicians were unwilling to relent. Nothing was left to lose but still they played in boisterous protest. Threatened synchronicity recoiled from dying bars described morendo.

‘Andante cantabile’ from Tchaikovsky’s String Quartet No. 1 pressed with a zest homogenous at Fischer’s helm for the quartet’s Romantic encore. Skirting solacing vignettes on Nyffenegger’s cello and both Mönkemeyer and Sitkovetsky’s whispered pizzicato, the reflective theme seemed militant.

Litigiousness was literal in these incarnations. Aiming for a mimicry of carnage, they fell prey to technical missteps. Creative artefacts took refuge in a ravaged landscape.

Above: Another performance by Chloe Jiyeong Mun and Sir András Schiff at the 2024 Rudolf Firkušný Piano Festival in Prague.

Pining hides in corners of acciaccaturas, dotted chords and slow-to-rise staccato smiles through Schubert’s repertoire. Far from Romantic cries of majesty the self-repressing master passes notes unsigned. Sighs writhe between disguising staves and strain refrains from fluster. Little fuss disrupts. But under languid exhalations triplets quiver.

Veneration tailored duos by the Austrian composer at the nimble fingers of Sir András Schiff and Chloe Jiyeong Mun yesterday evening. Schubert’s Rondo in A Major (Grand Rondeau) was first to pose for worship. Turns unfurled with the distinction of exquisite bells in Mun’s articulation; octave-higher pitches scintillated. Demisemiquavers dressed their sparks in equal measure, glittering like strings of pearls. This diplomatic showmanship meant no gem dared upstage the other. At the same time Schiff’s secondo part extended slow solemnity in bars occasionally delayed.

A stately pace regaled the ‘Andantino varié’ of Divertissement sur des motifs originaux français. Here regal variations galloped like the Lipizzaner stallions leading patrons of Imperial Vienna. To the taste of lofty sensibilities motifs were modest: seamstresses arranging sequins. Though the pianists’ pristineness was enriching, expressivity seemed loath to test polite society.

The third of Six Grandes Marches saw fierce attacks incarnate a redressing general at the helm of Schiff’s primo piano. Playing a battalion’s rank and file, Mun’s second part took orders in an overshadowed phrasing: ff and sforzando notes fell out of earshot. Storming chords adorned the second of the works with strife but Schiff prized daintiness in his acciaccaturas. Teasing decrescendo barely registered.

Lebensstürme – German for ‘Life’s Storms’ – revealed the menace of its ‘Allegro ma non troppo’ next. Despite ferocious strikes in the secondo part, Schiff played staccato with a ladylike demureness – springing thunder like the flutter of a fan. Mun’s diffident ppp chords surrendered vulnerability: her double octave dolce section beautified a daydream. Miniature entreaties characterised triplets and staccato chords waged frantic battle. All the while Schiff’s passages of accidentals twirled like pretty crinolines: attractive twists devoid of drama.

Affectation catered to the opening of Schubert’s ‘Fantasia in F minor’: sullenness too frightened to encumber. Throughout Schiff’s realisation of the primo staves, crescendo was a decorous accessory; the double octave theme mere pleasantries. Synchronisation faltered in the fz figures but the second movement ‘Largo’ sang resplendent trills. Finishing touches on a set of triple-dotted notes deferred like curtseys. Dignified distress arrested animation in ‘Allegro vivace,’ whose scrambling scherzo spoke like an expounding orator. Octave-higher runs in final movement ‘Tempo primo’ sparkled like champagne coupes.

Nuance nudged in Mun’s primo interpretation of the first of Deux marches caractéristiques: an unneat treatise picturing a pompadour colliding with a door. Its coquetry poured forth in chords delectable. Simultaneity between the pianists was consummate throughout this and the second march, which offered rapturous articulation.

No. 4 of Schumann’s Bilder aus Osten, ‘Nicht Schnell,’ emerged as the performers’ encore. While the agile Mun presented tremulous legato, Schiff’s secondo themes sustained propriety. A candid shyness nestled in Mun’s final whispered chord to seal the piece with feeling.

In compliant concinnation Schiff and Mun designed an intricately patterned tapestry of Schubert duos for this dedicated concert. Many moments were enrobed in their contemporary mores – and monotony was very much in vogue.

Above: Quatuor Ébène plays Franck’s Piano Quintet in F minor with another pianist, Bertrand Chamayou, at a France Musique concert in September 2018.
Credit: francemusiqueconcerts (YouTube)

Scissored histories insist on dissonance: a furore obfuscating truth. Through twisted imitations music plays an unreliable narrator teasing with derision. Seizing on perceived faults, penitent motifs self-edit; themes test other keys. Lyrical riddles ripple in a labyrinth of mysteries.

Split targets parted players tackling Dvořák’s ‘Terzetto in C major’ at the second concert of Beare’s Chamber Music Festival last night. In untight tempi violinists Ning Feng and Alexander Sitkovetsky chose contrasting strategies. While Feng unleashed first movement ‘Allegro ma non troppo’ with a steely tone and brash attacks, his fellow player unrolled rich legato. Staccato straggled at the helm of violist Amihai Grosz, who lagged behind. Entwining melody in gentleness at the beginning of ‘Larghetto,’ Sitkovetsky let his instrument fade into dissolution next to Feng’s stressed quavers. Morendo (‘dying’) was deployed with militant mf while decrescendo failed to surface. Stronger unison lent ‘Scherzo’ harmony but with a slew of violent accents. Clangour angered rolled chords and sul ponticello beats came clumsily apart.

In darting codas petulant displays of tantrums overrode the nuances of ‘Tema con variazioni,’ the Terzetto’s final movement. Abrupt bursts of vibrato or ff on Feng’s violin reviled the moderato tremolo on Sitkovetsky’s and crescendo collapsed the score into cacophony.

Emboldened even in its bleeding bars, Quatuor Ébène’s rendition of Franck’s Piano Quintet in F Minor mined its rage. First violinist Pierre Colombet’s sustained A flat upstaged his partners’ starts; their subsequent attacks were scathing. Sunwook Kim applied excessive use of pedal to his opulent piano part. Undertones on strings teemed in suspense but Colombet’s persistent forte was a persecuting force. Embracing warm vibrato, second violinist Gabriel Le Magadure attempted a lament; bombastic chords oppressed him. Kim’s rallentando un pochettino (‘slowing down a little’) episode interpolated pauses into mournful bars; his molto espressivo (‘very expressive’) section staggered speed.

Officials fidgeted with strings’ vibrato tingles in an autocratic tempo that displaced them. Terrorising surges in dynamics ritually denounced. In this restricting context pianist Kim extended triplet chords whose tenderness comprised a dissident’s rebellion. While hemidemisemiquavers’ sweeps alluringly resembled rolled chords on the strings, most of the movement charged to chase and chastise.

Sorrow borrowed from the limping of dishevelled violins in second movement ‘Lento con molto sentimento’ (‘Slow with great feeling.’) In lulling tones the fractured strings recalled the snapped wing of a cot mobile. A victim’s cries incarnated Kim’s cross-stave chords but pleas for rescue went ignored. Pernicious tremolos gleamed in ‘Allegro ma non troppo ma con fuoco’ – spinning furiously until the first violin converted them into corrective scoldings. Legatissimo displays on Kim’s piano went unheard and pizzicato on the other strings seemed incidental.

Synchronicity enriched the opening of Enescu’s Octet for strings in C major. A ticking time bomb found mimesis amid Daniel Blendulf’s cello pizzicato; Marie Chilemme’s viola mirrored shivers in its tremolo. First violinist Janine Jansen slimmed her tone to sketch a skimpy poltergeist.

In second movement ‘Très fougueux’s Sfff and fff instalments strings proved threatening and dainty pizzicato masked deceit. Cohesion seethed pristinely till a splintering diminuendo sent it veering on chaotic ventures in the rising-falling series of sextuplets. Muted strings depicted stalking silhouettes of generals in the town square in third movement ‘Lentement’ but their timing was ill organised. Though second violinist Clara-Jumi Kang lent plangency to her vibrato, ‘Mouvement de Valse bien rythmé’ pitched its attacks’ as scare-tactics in battle for dominion. Bow-tapping unrequired in the score beat like a truncheon in a race to punch the finish line.

Opining mostly on composers’ potency, musicians in this concert fired at full blast – at times defying curfews of pp or dolce in a fiery showcase. Victory was seized but art lost ground.

Above: Alisa Weilerstein, Stefan Jackiw and Inon Barnatan play Beethoven’s Archduke Trio at La Jolla Music Society. Credit: @theconradprebys (YouTube)

Opulent compulsions drop indulgence into late Romantic music. Clustered chords lust after luxury; effulgence floods arpeggios. In cathartic glory stories of defeat are steeped in self-expression, stumbles sumptuous.

Precious presses opened Rachmaninov’s Trio élégiaque No. 1 with depths of pedal courtesy of pianist Inon Barnatan at last night’s Queen Elizabeth Hall concert. Clocking melancholy with the rocks of triplets, the performer turned glissandi into gleaming tears. Pride beautified a bold crescendo of ascending chords presenting the panache expected of Tchaikovsky’s First Piano Concerto. Configuring this dirge into fierce grief, Barnatan rhapsodised angst’s rapture in a grandiose design.

Lugubriousness loomed in teetering vibrato borne of Stefan Jackiw’s violin. Nerves scintillated at scant intervals through the technique’s mimesis of involuntary twitching, sketching scenes of instability. The four-note melody’s ‘Appassionato’ incarnated peril with a stunning interplay of steel legato and unstill dynamics.

Sticking to a wide vibrato over almost every tone, Alisa Weilerstein delivered Trio élégiaque No. 1 with stirs of fulsome feeling. Languorous avowals disempowered the strings’ unison at times; a slow pace straggled behind Jackiw’s. Portents of impending torture moulded tremolos close to the piece’s end but oftentimes the cello was a shadow of its partner.

Dappled pedal chords played raindrops to dose ‘Modéré’: the opening movement of Ravel’s Piano Trio in A minor. Flitting in and out of consciousness through brisk staccato, memories teased sparingly. Arpeggios pledged exquisite tokens of lost souvenirs – embellishing in three-clef parts as complex as rewritten diary pages. Fioriture fought in urgent elegance and calligraphic rage.

Strings synchronised superiorly in this apotheosis of experiment. Jankiw’s long-held middle C diminished eerily, ‘perdendosi’ (‘dying away’) according to its ominous expression marking.

Prancing pizzicato chords unfolded second movement ‘Pantoum: Assez vif’ with toying coyness. Coquettish triplets over violin and cello mimicked games of hide and seek then issued brisk directives. Glissandi on piano wrangled in delectable dispute; strings’ shrieks piqued in crescendo’s terror. Weilerstein’s unvacillating volume compromised the vulnerable lament in ‘Passacaille’ but the pianissimo on Barnatan’s piano shimmered like a stormy lake’s deranged reflection. A con sordino violin and cello section tipped its hat in mournful recognition and the octave-lower portion on piano proffered torpid hope.

Vanquished minds unravelled neverending trills on strings’ C sharps in the finale ‘Animé.’ Barnatan’s antsy double sharps and triplets pitted voices in one’s head against each other and his colleagues’ menacing double appoggiaturas posed a threat to reason. Tremolos split by two octaves fed the fear of self-effacement; triplets pierced the psyche.

Mordents poured refinement on the strings’ beginning of Beethoven’s Piano Trio in B Flat, the Archduke Trio. A dazzling zeal pealed on piano trills in delicate propriety while sf ventures on the violin evoked a frazzled mind. Vibrato on the cello’s underbelly quelled a sense of doom until a high G6 trill on piano loosed an anxious scramble.

Pizzicato pitched with itchy grandeur in the ‘Scherzo’ movement, oozing a flirtatious playfulness. Weilerstein’s tender sotto voce moment touched in ‘Andante cantabile, ma però con moto’ but her espressivo part seeped excess exposition. Diverging urges throughout Jackiw’s stalking triplet-chord motif and Barnatan’s crescendo sparked a flinty inner conflict. Sextuplets on piano bustled brightly at the start of final movement ‘Allegro moderato,’ but abrupt diminuendo on the strings lent its conclusion stifled glee.

Effusive suffering unfurled throughout the cellist’s shaping of the encore, Mendelssohn’s ‘Trio No. 1 in D Minor’s second movement. Strings lost a fraction of cohesion but their softer bars imparted sorrow. Though Weilerstein’s hearty vibrato sometimes imitated trills, light strokes on Jackiw’s instrument were fading aches.

Majestic masochism characterised this performance of contrasting epochs. Positing the gainfulness of pain, Barnatan, Jackiw and Weilerstein emblematised art’s premise. Styles filed dissenting dissertations, nonetheless – confusing with mixed messages about hurt’s virtues.

Above: A YouTube recording of The Elias String Quartet playing Beethoven’s String Quartet No. 5’s ‘Andante ma non troppo e molto cantabile’ in 2018. Credit: Elias String Quartet – Topic Channel.

Crepitations taint restraint with stains of ache in cryptic string quartets. Arpeggios offer watercolour tears; diminuendi drip impressionistic brushstrokes. Hushed beneath motifs’ false smiles, the symbols stifle sorrow until torment storms the shore.

Glamour moored Beethoven’s fifth at The Elias String Quartet’s Wigmore Hall performance last night. Panache attacked as first violinist Sara Bitlloch entered trills with forte and a forceful absence of vibrato. Scratches of unsure sound lent the portrait patchiness: cello arpeggios climbed too subtly while a shy viola surfaced late. Paces delayed at the unravelling of second movement ‘Menuetto,’ whose acciaccaturas scrambled into hiding. Turns unfurled too bluntly and the variations’ imitations raced into obscurity.

Marie Bitlloch’s cello levelled fine staccato in the ‘Andante cantabile’ but all musicians’ pp clamoured in the fourth variation. A high A trill spilled brusquely from the first violin and synchronicity crunched into drunken revelry in the convivial fifth. Though ‘Allegro assai’ proffered feistiness from both the cello and the violins, crescendi came with violent bents, high pitches with shrill quibbles.

Trills tipped off secrets at the start of String Quartet No. 9, the third of Beethoven’s ‘Razumovsky’ trio. In brazen voices the ensemble cast a lurid spotlight on its ornaments: each was adorned with indiscretion. Diminuendi went and came abruptly and the cello’s second movement pizzicato groaned with omens. Hidden by façades of dancing masks, trimmed triplets were denied a chance to make admissions; whispered runs ran out of breath. Urgency purged Simone van der Giessen’s ‘Allegro molto’ viola solo of vicissitudes but vigour in the perpetuum mobile bars was inviting. Quavers raged unfazed across all instruments in the finale of this movement, which deployed apt despotism.

Despondent ponder pleads repentance at the eeriness unwinding String Quartet No. 14: a peer into a mournful past. A fast grasp of this introduction to a fugue glossed over guilt on Bitlloch’s first violin. Donald Grant’s second’s entrance was a tad suspended; decrescendos fell too suddenly. First movement ‘Adagio ma non troppo e molto espressivo’s climax splashed with ill-timed lashings of the lower strings and brassy higher pitches. A diminuendo memory on cello in the second slithered in and out of hearing like a whining bystander.

A flute seemed to unspool in van der Giessen’s superficial landings on viola at the start of third movement ‘Allegro moderato.’ Demisemiquavers vaunted elegantly but without the score’s recitativo obbligato discourse. Dialogue stayed amiss until the variations’ ‘Andante moderato e lusinghiero’ imitation, where bombastic higher strings impinged on the viola’s eloquence. A sotto voce orderliness opened ‘Adagio ma non troppo e semplice,’ but livid volumes soon became the shots of open warfare. Pizzicato on the cello in both this part and the ‘Presto’ packed a punch that seemed to blast from outside Beethoven. Harsh garishness dressed the pianissimo sul ponticello section in the sparks of excess glitter.

Tempestuousness crested in ‘Allegro’: the quartet’s fierce climax. Militancy taunted with entrancing cannon fire but the cello’s crass attacks procured bow-tapping. An outlier motif seeped on viola and the poco ritenuto portion shunned restraint. Despite a fighting finish final chords stressed dissonance.

Frissons of stirrings were upstaged in this guns-blazing bash that axed soliloquies. Without a hint of subtext Beethoven was shushed at his own party.

The Philharmonia takes its bows. Credit: Luca Migliore

Eluding deluges of gloom, the ‘Liebestod’ of Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde holds its lovers in a trance. Before nirvana devastation spares the star-crossed.

Cradling the enamoured girl with sleepy cellos, maestro Thomas Søndergård unwrapped a placid orchestra last night at Royal Festival Hall. The Prelude of the opera’s opening dispersed its woodwind themes in spatter. As crescendos seemed suspended, volume was upended. Horns lagged in their first attack: a long and laboured birth. Strings climbed pedantically but with a quick vibrato – coming fashionably late and leaving time to pose.

In plodding doses they interpreted ‘Nicht eilen!’ (‘Do not hurry!’) with excessive reverence. The solo on bass clarinet discorded with the score – transforming its assigned shy p into a proud mf. Horns soared in soured tones while tremolos took modest strolls. Although endearing imitation took place when the oboes caught a dolce motif from the clarinets, the arpeggiated chords on harp took muted shelter. Triplets on the violins slipped timidly into elation.

At the cusp of effervescent awe soprano Masabane Cecilia Rangwanasha drank in nature to unravel Richard Strauss’s Four Last Songs. Torrential runs and twinkling summits glided on legato. ‘Vogelsang’ (‘birdsong’) emerged in a hypnotic onomatopoeia at the start of ‘Frühling’; ‘selige’ (‘blessed’) flew celestially through four tied notes. A reference to how summer ‘lingers for a long time still by roses, yearns for rest’ (‘Lange noch bei den Rosen / Bleibt er stehen, sehnt sich nach Ruh’) sparked sympathy for the spent season of ‘September.’

Lending death acceptance, Rangwanasha illustrated slumber with a humble resignation at the closure of ‘Beim Schlafengehen.’ ‘Meine Sinne nun / Wollen sich in Schlummer senken’ (‘Now my senses long to sink to sleep,’), she contemplated in complacence. Triplets over ‘freien flügen’ (‘wings of freedom’) glimmered liberally. In Strauss’s gleeful paean to life’s end ‘Im Abendrot,’ the vocalist serenely limned a crepuscule. ‘Wie sind wir wandermüde — ist dies etwa der Tod?’ (‘How tired are we of our travels – is this really death?’) relied on a refined vibrato in a tight diminuendo of relief and fear.

Expressive peaks of characterisation are a challenge in the songs. At certain moments Rangwanasha struggled to keep pace: the ‘sehnliches’ of ‘sehnliches Verlangen’ (‘yearning urges’) in ‘Beim Schlafengehen’ had rushed arpeggios; ‘Wie ein Wunder von mir’ (‘like a miracle for me’) incurred an extra breath in ‘Frühling.’ Yet a hybrid of unbridled rapture and frayed life was palpable.

Flutes crooned indelicately under Søndergård’s direction of the first song but bewitching pizzicati mimicked chirps. ‘September’ introduced a diffident bassoon. Staccato triplets on the woodwind dwindled out of earshot. Horns blew raspberries and instruments delayed distinctly behind strings.

Trills on the flutes tipped piquant pleasure at ‘Im Abendrot’s euphoriant onset yet impeding horns defeated. At best this rendering of Strauss’s Four Last Songs enjoyed a languid guile.

Violas’ lacquer crackled at the start of ‘Pathétique’: Tchaikovsky’s sixth and final symphony. A cornucopia of life’s inconstant loves, the masterpiece paints aches of different measures; treasures of lost peace. Coincidentally it premiered only nine days after the composer’s death.

Here subtlety was swept away. At Søndergård’s undiplomatic helm strings sang full throttle. Flutes trod lethargically and oboes took slow bows. Yet when the score instructed cellos to play ‘molto cantabile, con espansione’ (‘very songfully and with effusion’), warmth abstained. Between the opposites of ‘incalzando’ (‘getting warmer’) and ‘ritenuto’ (‘held back’), violins lingered like a waiter near a table.

Horn chords marked ‘pesante’ (‘heavily’) were lost amidst a scuffle in hot protest. Though Rebecca Gilliver’s ‘Adagio non mosso’ clarinet solo bore melancholy longing, trumpets and trombones blared in cacophony. Strings overpowered even timpani toward the ‘Adagio – Allegro non troppo’ movement’s end.

Pristineness teemed across strings’ rhythms in ‘Allegro con grazia’; woodwind and brass limped in the distance. Convivial triplets on the violins implied a ballroom’s ambience and pizzicati sprung in dexterous thunder. But the imitations between solo instrumentalists on strings and woodwind fell asunder, shunning nuance.

Trombones and tubas roamed in search of resolution in third movement ‘Allegro molto vivace.’ As violent violins’ septuplets tumbled cleanly, colleagues had to shuffle through. Triplets intended to be played ff along bassoon, oboe and horn chords stopped at p. Bars hardened both dynamics and their speed to spearhead a bombastic march of squawking brass and stumbling trumpets.

Legato darted with no elegy in the ‘Adagio lamentoso.’ Though tenuto notes on strings were forceful, incohesion was heard more. Trombones droned clumsily but the last blast on tam-tam crammed in the grim reaper’s supercilious sneer. A passage designated varying selections of p, pp, ppp, pppp and ppppp unsealed in brash panache on brass. The muted double basses’ final chords were boorish.

Lording over Søndergård’s recital was an absence of surrender. When the strings singed other timbres, demonstration could be heard. ‘Death wouldn’t last!’ they cried.

A veneration for its victory was lacking in this incarnation.

A little late (apologies for the delay), but here is a link to my recent OperaWire review of Jakub Hrůša’s transfigurative concert of Bartók and Dvořák at the Royal Ballet & Opera.

Enjoy!

Sophia

Above: Véronique Gens performs Kurt Weill’s ‘The Saga of Jenny’ with the Orchestre national de France. Credit: YouTube (@francemusiqueconcerts)

Glints linger in belittling embers slow to quiet. Flickering with sighs, the flames deride serenity. Like a rank amateur who shuns the curtain flashes lash those craving to forget; past secrets are remet.

Vicissitudes insist on keeping sleeping minds awake. Nowhere is their reflecting-dimming, remitting and relapsing nature more apparent than in mélodies: capricious canvasses. Their lovers swoon then sour; croon and collapse. Bypassing flats, sharps turn to naturals; duplets fluster. At the cusp of ardour brusqueness waits in vain: pained minds prefer composure.

In a token of such repertoire last night soprano Véronique Gens offered glimpses of refinement. Unravelling Gounod’s ‘Où voulez-vous aller?’, the singer sculpted dainty rhythms but elided drops of lyrical delight. A high D stayed too loud for a diminuendo; rapturous coloratura rushed. In the composer’s ‘Viens, les gazons sont verts’ select notes surfaced strident.

Turning to Reynaldo Hahn’s ‘Le rossignol des lilas,’ Gens performed a calm piano section in brash mezzo forte; pitches fluxed. The exultation in ‘Ta voix m’est douce à reconnaître!’ (‘Your voice is sweet for me to hear!’) incurred a hastened slur. Anticipation illustrated with the marking ‘à peine retardé’ (‘a tad delayed’) was charged.

Triplets rippled delicately through Hahn’s ‘Trois jours de vendange,’ which finished in a sensual pp whisper. But Gens slid up to certain notes in ‘Néère’ from his Études latines. Erring pitches tipped its tale askew.

Disowning loneliness in Hahn’s song ‘Séraphine,’ the vocalist omitted a cruel anticlimax. ‘Est-ce mes propres larmes / Que j’entends couler doucement? Ou se peut-il, réellement, / Que tu viennes, pleurant à mes côtés?’ (‘Are these my own tears I hear flowing? Or could it really be that you’re here weeping at my side?’) emerged in an enraged fortissimo instead of its rhetorical crescendo-turned-diminuendo. A faux pas marked the onset of Saint-Saëns’ ‘Désir de l’orient’ with an unhinged D5. Gens generated excitation with distinctly detached semiquavers nonetheless, superbly spacing tones.

Ropartz’s ‘Ceux qui, parmi les morts d’amour’ – a monologue of one bereaved by suicide – developed in contrarian accents. Several tones were shaped seductively in a misguided effort at pp. The ending ‘Au clair de lune se balance / La fleur des damnés de l’amour’ (‘In moonlight sways the flower of those cursed by love’) rang operatically.

A panegyric to the healing properties of love was simplified in Gens’ coarse portrait of Duparc’s ‘Chanson triste’ (‘Song of sadness’). Accelerating its epiphany, she turned a poco cresc. to a molto cresc. in ‘Et pour fuir la vie importune, / Je me noierai dans ta clarté’ (‘To flee a troubling life, I’ll drown myself in your illumination’). The line ‘J’oublierai les douleurs passées’ (‘I will forget past sorrows’) marched with the resolve of an enlisting soldier. Miniature trinkets such as the transition of B flat to B natural in ‘mes pensées’ (‘my thoughts’) were skipped. A sedative diminuendo aptly decorated ‘Et lui diras une ballade’ (‘and you will read [my poor head] a ballad’), but the next was abrupt.

Debussy’s details trailed in rudimentary spotlights at the singer’s crafting of his ‘Fleur des blés,’ which hurried syllables. While duplets dappled piquantly through his ‘La belle au bois dormant’, top notes veered on strident. Gens’ treatment of the line ‘Et j’entends l’âme de ma mie / Tressaillir dans le bois rêveur’ (‘And I hear the soul of my love tremor in the dreaming woods’) in the composer’s ‘Nuit d’étoiles’ stepped out in stately fashion – shuttering the chance for onomatopoeia.

Quibbling quavers animated the soprano’s take on Joseph Canteloube’s ‘La pastoura als camps’: a song penned in the Auvergnat dialect. Gens pronounced the modulated French with crisp distinction, keeping to its racy pace with ease. In the composer’s ‘La delaïssádo’ she missed a melisma by breathing midway.

Embarking on Louiguy’s beloved ‘La vie en rose,’ the vocalist succumbed to airiness. Love’s apogee appeared laid back in breezy treatments of ‘l’homme auquel j’appartiens’ (‘the man to whom I belong’) and ‘ça m’fait quelque chose’ (‘it does something to me’). A wobble roiled the E of ‘l’a juré pour la vi—e’ (‘he’s sworn it for life’), and other notes shirked likewise.

In another Edith Piaf song, ‘Hymne à l’amour,’ Gens brought imperial inflection to the phrase ‘Peu m’importent les problèmes / Mon amour, puisque tu m’aimes’ (‘Problems mean nothing if you love me’). The piece’s selfless nature was amiss. Stylistic twists occasionally bore resemblance to the strife-enriched recitatives rife in La fille du régiment.

Kurt Weill’s ‘The Saga of Jenny’ (from Lady in the Dark) extended tongue-in-cheek rubato but its final high G quivered. The musical One Touch of Venus’s ‘Speak Low’ was offered operatic flourishes while Jerome Kern’s ‘All the Things You Are’ took extra breaths.

Scintillating latently, accompanist James Baillieu dallied in a cornucopia of colours. Acciaccaturas tainted chords with premonitious curses in Hahn’s ‘Néère’; arpeggios pleaded in his ‘Séraphine.’ Ignited runs were fiery drizzles in ‘Désir de l’orient’ while ‘La delaïssádo’s stagnant tempi painted struggles. Timing their protagonist’s denial as she awaits a long-gone lover, Baillieu’s last diminuendo staggered hope.

Gleams of mosaics coruscated in the pianist’s characterisation of the mélodies. At Gens’ inchoate aegis chromas came in rust. The paradox was parcels fresh from misremembered dreams: a tale left unrecited.

Klaus Mäkelä, here pictured with the Orchestre de Paris. Credit: Mathias Benguigui

Cadences dent dreamscapes in the playful peril rich in 20^th-century music: reason gone awry. Defining anarchy in gestures besting bygone trends, its lines expose the instruments to clobber censorship. Through such a lens sublimity is painful to achieve; hard work a dated creed.

Impeding on pedantic norms, Luciano Berio papered over Schubert’s incomplete Symphony No. 10 in 1990 to compose the equally elusive Rendering: a reinterpretation. Pristine serenity unsealed it at the hands of Klaus Mäkela and the Royal Concertgebouw to open last night’s Prom. In sombre tones an oboe roamed behind the slim glissandi of a shy celesta. Spiralling in lissome twirls, the strings tinged the ensemble with a spectral aura to reflect pellucid parcels from the past. Subconscious shimmers slipped along their slender texture to subdue a proud bassoon.

Spent memories seeped into hearing through the taciturn celesta’s start of the ‘Andante.’ Ebullient yet nebulous – as if resisting realisation – trills and triplets slithered out of woodwind. Horns’ tired tones paled this mosaic of subtle shades. Awakening dark corners of the mind, unwinding figures drifted between strings and woodwind. A solo oboe’s implorations halted suddenly but clarinets resumed peregrination. Aching notes incarnated an erring journey sullenly pursued by solo flute: ‘Immobile e lontanissimo’ (‘immobile and extremely far’) as bar 13 described.

In octave-higher pitches on the violins portentous signals set the ‘Scherzo.’ Pulsing flutes alluded to unbending trepidation. Celesta trills limned dizziness and swift, capricious triplets on the strings impinged on pinging flutes until an armistice prevailed. The piece’s whimsy made for limber textures, most becoming to its restlessness.

A rumbling trumpet heralded the opening of Mahler’s Symphony No. 5: the pinnacle of risks. Slips pilfered harmony at the climactic ff entrance of percussion, brass and woodwind; horns disgorged tones sour. Posturing politely with a steady undertaking of the ‘Etwas gehaltener’ (‘Somewhat more restrained’) section, Mäkelä tempered tender strings with palpable finesse. Bassoons loomed hushedly nonetheless, resounding like the extras of a next-door play. Violas lashed with sensual languor with and without mutes but trumpets growled. Stripped of defence, most sections in this symphony are subject to polyphony. Such nakedness did not sit well with squawking horns.

In ‘Stürmisch bewegt, mit grösster Vehemenz’ (‘Moving stormily, with the greatest vehemence’), the timpani struck promptly yet in moderation. Brass chasing runs on strings came sloppily untied but brisk staccato ditties over flutes chirped perfectly. A trill on triangle suggested faces flushing before sin – designing a delectable vignette before a late bass clarinet came limping to Confession. Cellos sloped with elegant rubato; an ashamed bass drum released a bashful shudder. Mesmerising portraits circled till the horns returned with poor aplomb.

The vagaries of gamely courtship tilted violins with tantalising rhythms in the ‘Scherzo’ movement – oozing waltzes loose from sweaty palms. Disarming flutes trialled sweet acciaccaturas they abruptly scrapped; evasive trumpets fled without being ‘keck’ (‘saucy’). An English horn meant to transition from ff to f to pp boomed unchecked.

In swelling crests the ‘Adagietto’ soared with haunting souvenirs. Hard-earned diminuendos and crescendos on the lower strings leant them the sceptre of involuntary memory. Mäkelä’s marked delays of entrances reshaped the work’s most potent moments – drawing from its inner conflict even sorer anguish. Bar 30’s pivotal acciaccatura could have nonetheless been more pronounced, and harp-played triplets dwindled in strings’ shadow.

Trenchantly timed solos across woodwind opened the fifth ‘Rondo’ movement: a pastiche of the fourth’s central themes. In precious imitation strings delivered delicate diminuendos; trumpets triumphed in staccato turns. Attacks on violins arrived intact while heightened pitches itched in accuracy over piccolos. While trumpets and trombones bumped muffled tones, the horns unravelled minims in disunion. Poco a poco outings of crescendo teased sublimely till the finish.

Indulgently effulgent, Mahler’s Fifth bares every instrument at its most vulnerable. In this display Mäkelä clasped control of some but shortchanged others. Defiance fiddled with the mores but most deviations came from technical faux pas. Experiment perched uninvited in the wings.

From left to right: Mélissa Petit, Jasmin White, Joyce DiDonato, Michael Spyres and Cody Quattlebaum. Credit: Mark Allan/Barbican

Lulling sullenness to sleep, uplifting Jephtha – Handel’s final oratorio – extols a loveless god. When its protagonist resolves to sacrifice a life in firm exchange for his troops’ victory, he is (predictably) presented with his daughter. Stuck between this bloody obligation and a fear of losing, Jephtha grieves – but only momentarily. An angel surfaces to vow that Iphis need not perish for the Israelites’ success: virginity will be enough.

Gingerly surging over songful flights, the score deplores indictments of the deity – fêting instead the liberty of youth. At the baton of Francesco Corti last night at the Barbican baroque orchestra Il Pomo d’oro tingled with the thrill of strings’ staccatos, ominous arpeggios and portending cadences. Though Marta Gawlas’ transverse flute seemed a little muffled in her solos, Corti and fellow harpsichordist Guillaume Haldenwang intoned their Act 1, Scene 3 duet with serene auspices. Fiercely searing through the swifter passages, the strings occasionally lost cohesion but embraced a conflict between God and mortal.

Pristinely tinting notes with introspective chromas, Il Pomo d’oro’s choir echoed sentiments both heaven-borne and human – designating itself judge and confidant; priest and Greek chorus. Sopranos crafted slick staccati in the Act 1 proclamation ‘Chemosh no more we will adore’; angelic lilts were lent ‘They [Cherubims and Seraphims] ride on whirlwinds, directing the storm’ in Act 3. Incarnating archetypes from myths and legends, this kaleidoscopic chorus took turns playing ego to the solos’ ids.

Armour moored the oratorio’s hero to the call of duty in the form of Michael Spyres: a formidably commanding tenor. Valiantly attacking top notes, the performer offered freely tendered semiquaver runs and trills spectacular. Spyres decreed with alternating piousness and vulnerability – wracked both with Jephtha’s wrath against himself and against God.

Act 2, Scene 2’s ‘His mighty arm, with sudden blow’ was fortified with a crescendo on ‘Dispers’d and quell’d the haughty foe’ suggesting hubris on his part. And yet his inner battle in Scene 4’s ‘Deeper and deeper still, thy goodness, child’ submitted almost to parlando in the phrase ‘A thousand pangs that lash me into madness’ – masking ‘madness’s A and E flats in self-disdain. A glimmering appeal became his prayer in Act 3’s final plea, ‘Waft her, angels, through the skies.’ Concluding it with rising semiquavers on a wish for Iphis to ‘for ever reign’ in heaven, Spyres let pre-emptive mourning turn to hope.

Dolefully designing her maternal duty, Joyce DiDonato’s Storgè guided listeners through angst, augustness and nostalgia. A startled breath suggested imminent despair before the line ‘But ah! how trivial are a wife’s concerns when a whole nation bleeds,’ in Act 1, Scene 2. ‘And sighing wish thy dear return to liberty and lasting love’ not only held the final note of D for three bars but conjoined it to its repetition in a solemn portamento.

Long before the mother braced herself to lose an only child, the mezzo’s pitch-bends sculpted ‘As mourns the mate-forsaken dove’ with plaintive imploration. A contemplative pause divided ‘so’ and ‘good’ as Storgè listed Iphis’s innumerable virtues in her Act 2, Scene 3 aria ‘First perish thou, and perish all the world!’

Beset against her husband and beliefs, she was a woman rent asunder by conflicting loves. Select unsteadiness pinched certain high notes, nonetheless – especially in her last recitative, ‘O let me fold thee in a mother’s arms.’

Flutters uttered virtuosically throughout Mélissa Petit’s turn as Iphis. Ingeniously vocalising as the ingenue, she glossed her part in blithe vibrato and a glee invincible. Palpitations of excitement could be heard amidst the trills of her duet with Hamor, ‘These labours past, how happy we;’ melismas ran mellifluously as she planned her nuptials (‘Not cheerful day, nor spring so gay, such mighty blessings brings as peace on her triumphant wings.’) While certain top notes rang unsurely, many exited exquisitely and chirp-like. Iphis’s self-disciplining aria, ‘Happy they! this vital breath with content I shall resign’ (Act 2, Scene 4) extended a sublime high F♯ in ‘content’ and wispy deference along ‘I shall resign.’ Her sacrificial lamb was beautifully ennobled.

Equally enamoured was beau Hamor, here sung by contralto Jasmin White. Vicissitudes of attitude stormed through a voice of brass and silver in this role to capture love’s mercuriality. Duty-bound Hamor pondered on his ‘darkness and despair’ in colours cello-like – but reminiscences of his betrothed’s ‘sweet smiles’ were sanguine flutes. White’s five-bar semiquaver-run on ‘glorious’ in the Act 1, Scene 3 duet gleamed with a blissful ease, dispersing with the lightness of a levitating butterfly. Part 2’s opening recitative, ‘Glad tidings of great joy to thee,’ was dealt a vacillation of emotions ranging from coarse bellicosity to halcyon content. In this display of chivalrous ferocity the artist reigned supreme.

Bass-baritone Cody Quattlebaum refined his Zebul (Jephtha’s brother) with a palpable panache, exhibiting contrasting timbres to portray the warrior. Crisp consonants wrapped certain syllables with ‘t’s contentious and contemptuous: a diction dealt to characterise. Cavernously rounded tones honed the low E and A along ‘profane,’ the final syllables of Act 1’s aria ‘Pour forth no more unheeded pray’rs,’ with a despotic zeal. Some runs were less secure, however – including the melisma across ‘vain’ in the same aria.

Bells cast the spell of an unebbing jubilance in Anna Piroli’s Angel: a limber instrument descended for the aim of liberation. Chiming delicately through her pledge, the agile singer stretched the ornaments elastically to bring this oratorio to its (semi-)happy ending.

A symposium of prayer and pyrotechnics, Jephtha fuses venerable pursuits with vehicles for the fearless. This performance worshipped both.

Lucas Debargue’s rendition of Fauré’s Préludes from another performance at the Istituzione Universitaria dei Concerti, Rome. Credit: YouTube (@iucsapienza2011).

Plying eyefuls of spectators with the spins of cellos, crooning saxophones and tacky scatting, certain showmen ooze a tameless entertainment. Chatter dims displays erroneous; raised shotglasses outsparkle notes. Inviting vice, the setting bets its repertoire against indulgence. Art is left to chance.

Romancing scores with similar stylistic tilts at Wigmore Hall, Lucas Debargue extended scintillating virtuosity last night. It alternately served and severed music.

At the opening prelude of Fauré’s Op. 103, the pianist’s right hand sang pings of splendour. Soon Debargue laid out the first of many modi operandi: he would tease the audience with a note’s approach, release it then delay a later tone.

Pearls of semiquavers pealed along the second prelude in precision but ‘Andante’ (No. 3) divided the two clefs with rhythms disparate. Insistent brightness rendered ‘Allegretto’s climbing chords exuberant – and yet their decrescendo was an anticlimax. Left- and right-hand triplets stormed through Prelude No. 5 at strife before the tempo eased away from Sturm und Drang, adopting milder temperatures.

Accenting the figure’s lead note in the sixth, Debargue appeared to shape surrounding measures with the aim of showcasing its spotlight – sweeping them away. Crescendos in the octave-higher range shone ostentatiously at the beginning of ‘Andante’ (No. 7); poco rit. (‘a little slower’) delayed Debargue’s impressive speed for a mere bar.

Although staccato stacks drove right hand chords with admirable aplomb in No. 8, the left hand’s leaps remained unceremoniously buried. A similar unevenness misshaped the harmony of the work’s final prelude.

Crunchy chords bunched at the start of Beethoven’s Piano Sonata No. 27 before quickly being scrapped for glittering, glissandi-like sextuplets. Accelerated quaver chords resembled rushed pedestrians ascatter in a storm until Debargue’s da capo pitted forte against pianissimo, released a series of sextuplets jazz-like and allayed the left hand’s treble clef with fleeting tenderness.

Brisk imitation in the blithe sonata-rondo second movement called to mind a programmatic piece. As semiquavers scrambled like a slew of mischief-makers, a disputing left hand’s triplets sounded the alarm of an upbraiding mother. In response the right hand’s runs grew skittishly self-pleasing – daydreaming but this time in restrained euphoria. This episode was one of the few moments in the evening when the pair collaborated to pursue a narrative, forsaking independence.

Flighty right-hand chords escaped the pace of monster-like intrusions in the left – fast pleading with their captors at the start of Chopin’s ‘Scherzo No. 4.’ Yet soon Debargue returned to churning them in a dichotomous avowal – illumining the right hand with fluorescent melody whilst its antagonist punched accidentals. Toward the close of this performance swift motifs arrived but skittered speedily away; rolled chords emerged inaudible. In Debargue’s trial-and-error method of experiment tales were missing in action.

Champagne’s shade pained Fauré’s ‘Quasi Adagio’, the theme of his Thème et variations (Op. 73), with a bevy of brassy bass clef notes. Sostenuto (‘Sustained’) said the score – but Debargue had other ideas, instead filling the opening lines with ebullient oratory. Where the left hand was to be performed pp, the right just p, Debargue declared the opposite but in a version more voluminous. Poco rit. here surfaced as a notable suspension of the central figure’s first chord.

Limber right-hand semiquaver runs lent calm to Fauré’s first variation, but diminished the left’s three-part figure. While the second harnessed the potential of both double sharps and naturals, synchronicity of hands was not consistent. By the third’s triplets and their corresponding chords, the clefs had gone their separate ways: ships passing in the night.

Glimmering high pitches and slick demisemiquavers tranquilly migrated along Variation No. 4 but the fifth’s prized acciaccaturas came out late. Lurking in the lurch, a left-hand rocking figure taunted semiquavers twirling like a ballerina in the sixth of Fauré’s outputs – screening one more image in a largely sceneless reel. Indulgence plunged descending chords of the ninth variation into excess luxury while the tenth’s rhythms argued.

Hypnosis seemed to be in order for the opening of Beethoven’s famed ‘Moonlight’ Sonata, No. 14. Unrolling its arpeggios with a honed homogeneity, Debargue let notes loom long and hopeless. Nihilism sounded till a forte broke through in one hand to combat its competitor’s pp.

Perfectly apportioned triplets in the left hand seemed machine-like while the central three-note figure beckoned like a cipher. Although the final chord is marked with an attack in the sonata’s score, Debargue struck lightly before starting the next movement.

Staccato chords explored with gem-like daintiness here sprung in brashness. Some were graceful but too quick. Across the ‘Presto agitato’ movement they beat winglike – shuffling their accompanying Alberti bass into oblivion. The A sharp’s trill shrunk out of earshot but Debargue’s two final chords adorned a grand finale.

A long-held pause succeeded the first chord of Chopin’s Ballade No. 3, which galvanised the first note of its triplets with a bang. The mezza voce section’s C-note broken octave came out like a grace note-spotted tone; rests barely registered amidst the pace. Acciaccaturas stressed the head note too excessively and the next broken octave of A♭ sang like a Gershwin lullaby. Runs twinkled in a bliss sublime at Debargue’s mastery, however.

Voltage tagged the left hand of Debargue’s first encore, his transcription of Fauré’s mélodie ‘Après un rêve,’ with white-hot clarity. In this rendition of the work our ear met the performer’s signature refinements: tardy entrances, rubato-scattered chords and racy grace notes. His second encore – another composition, this time inspired by the French master’s Cantique de Jean Racine – exposed more brightness in the right hand and abrupt swoops into hushed diminuendo. Semiquaver runs and hops transposed an octave higher populated both this piece and Debargue’s final encore: off-the-cuff improvisation.

Tailoring the staves to suit his purposes, Debargue designed majestic tributes to composers in this reconfiguring recital. Decoding the composers’ scores seemed to be missing from that mission, nonetheless, and so was magic.

Above: Yunchan Lim’s take on ‘Aria,’ the opening of Bach’s Goldberg Variations, in a December 2024 concert. Credit: YouTube (Encores for Everyone)

Elusive interludes defer familiarity in music – stalling chords or dimming notes to snuff out clichés. Clinching novelties, they spark anticipation. Out of stencils made of signatures and measures, pleasures kindle dreamy mysteries.

In misty straits of rain Hanurij Lee’s piece …Round and velvety-smooth bend made its UK premiere courtesy of Yunchan Lim last night at Wigmore Hall. A noir-like cityscape, it interleaves twin parts ‘Élégie’ and ‘Rudepoema’ to dapple in deluges.

Rolled chords implore a window not to crack from interrupting cadences. Cascades of anxiousness, they stream in hasty semiquavers and deranged attacks. A high-pitched figure stalks a passer-by at both the piece’s start and end – alighting as a menacing alarm. In Lim’s rendition …Round and velvety-smooth bend relayed a 1950s smog-fuelled New York morning, capturing commuters pressed for time. Despite its atmospheric modulations neither sentiments of elegy nor that of its inspirer Heitor Villa-Lobos’ Rudepoêma (‘Savage poem’) appeared palpable.

Prominent appoggiaturas alternated with demure long mordents as Lim journeyed into ‘Aria’: the first part of Bach’s Goldberg Variations. Lending higher notes in its descending trills a gleam, Lim brought a presentational pizzazz.

Sharps and naturals running counter to G major were supremely highlighted in Variation 1, which took a quickened pace. The second brought finesse to final notes in mordents played above the stave. First notes of semiquaver-driven figures stamped panache on the first canon, Variation 3 – which buried bass clef imitations in diminuendo. Staccatos were superbly tackled in the fifth part of the set but pedal presses overstressed the left hand.

Sprightly chords pinged piquantly in Variation 6: slick dashes reminiscent of a bashful debutante attending her first ball. ‘Al tempo di giga’ (‘At the pace of a gigue’), the seventh variation, came out with an overloud and brusque left hand that seemed at times despotic. Veering into Variation 8, Lim’s treble clef experiments prized certain beats at others’ poor expense; awarding accents to the highest notes. Whilst stirring briskness through this style the pianist stripped certain bars of daintiness.

Restrained trills tilted their successive notes to pop voluminously over Variation 10: a technically flawless but bombastic effort. Pulling digits too abruptly off the keys, Lim led us into shier trills through the eleventh variation but the series was soon scrapped to accent top notes.

A canon of immense precision incarnated Variation 12, whose left and right hands formulated mirrors of each other. Teasingly delaying semiquavers in the thirteenth variation, Lim limned a pre-Rococo lady tentative before the offer of a dance. In prancing semiquavers scrambles of the mind unwound in Variation 15’s right hand – though its final D could have been more withheld.

A sizzling trill defined the virtuosity of Variation 16: an array of radiant staccato demisemiquavers. Sparkling with a finite luminosity, descending trills were accented so strongly, they risked falling out of context. Staccato segments in the bass clef were lent equal weight and hammered certain right-hand moments out of hearing. Serial demisemiquavers dripped along the seventeenth instalment in a delicate design of grandiose apologies extended in embarrassment: a characterisation of the period.

Guests were hushed and rushed away to mark the end of balltime in a sprightly haste born in the eighteenth.

Jester-like nevertheless were left-hand patterns in the twentieth, which met undue dynamics. Pounding past the staves, they shuffled treble clef trills urgently away. Despairing ornaments imbued the seventh canon (Variation 21) with solemn respite and the twenty-fourth unravelled two deliciously long trills.

Mourning mordents heralded the diffident adagio of the twenty-fifth Goldberg, whose delayed chords hoarded sombreness. Although the left hand remained tenderly repressed, the right eventually surrendered to explosive plops of figures – leaving little room to the imagination.

Generating electricity in Variation 27, Lim reeled off thrilling trills but let the left hand crudely overemphasise. Accelerated chords were effervescent in the twenty-ninth instalment but the final’s left hand dropped its notes like an invader. A taciturn entreaty was Lim’s reinterpretation of the ‘Aria’: one that assumed descending trills more preciously to underscore their sweetness. Too heavy nonetheless was the performance of the final G, which took an interval to stop.

Deploying Liszt’s Sonetto 104 del Petrarca for a celebratory encore, Lim attacked staccato chords throughout the bass clef, hiding timid right-hand runs. Tied chords and dotted pitches met with formulaic timing; higher notes were offered crowning accents. Lurking like a king, the left hand climbed its climax prematurely – fortifying the ensuing bars with extra forte. Eventually the sceptre passed to Lim’s right hand, which sparkled iridescently but with scant sentiment.

Devoid of treasure hunts for patrons lyrically inclined, this evening was a showcase of refined percussive tricks. Lim’s prowess on the keyboard proved unbeatable but overshadowed music in the process.

Above: Johan Dalene and Shiyeon Sung in rehearsal before Thursday’s concert. Credit: Timothy Lutton/RPO.

Scintillating over plinths, spared souvenirs of history enlist our awe – inspiring gasps and photographs. Scant relics far removed from current hearts, they’re amphoras embraced by phones; crass earbuds near a dodo bone.

Alone and contextless they spark no more than momentary fascination.

Revelations resurrect lost papers crumpled, rolled and dusted through performance: novel pages for a composition’s palimpsest.

Zestfully infilling the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra’s dynamics with brisk forte, conductor Shiyeon Sung sent the ensemble on a spree of escapades at last night’s Cadogan Hall concert. Sibelius’s ‘Night Ride and Sunrise’ opened with precisely tempered strings that struck anticipating beats – inviting other sections to create their fusions of adventure and anxiety. And yet the trill on bass drum seemed a little quiet, percussion instruments trailed woodwind and the latter’s triplets surfaced indistinct. Pizzicato on the lower strings was lacking in expected whimsy and the oboe figure lagged in tempo, leading its fast imitating flute astray.

Alighting at Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto with refined – and arguably Classical-resembling – string acciaccaturas, Sung sustained orchestral unity with pageantry becoming to the piece. Soloist Johan Dalene expressed creative pliancy by gradually attacking with a thin vibrato; lengthening the bow’s descent to stretch a note’s potential. Demisemiquaver runs sent virtuosic quivers winding in and out of brusque staccato, hushed diminuendi and a panoply of triplets. A canvas for a vast display of indisputable technique became Dalene’s instrument.

Surrendering to slick septuplets, the experimental player ventured in and out of slim vibrato – often leaving naked notes to sound in unadjusted glory. Portamenti met intriguing pitch bends in the section to be played an octave higher, coming out as trinkets crystalline.

Instilling pristine touches in his climbing chords, Dalene switched from operatic dirges to vibrato-missing tones akin to timbres common in Prokofiev’s repertoire. Disconsolate motifs fit into several bars before transforming into molto mosso (‘very animated’) staves.

Dalene’s stark baring of the instrument bent genres when it came to second movement ‘Canzonetta.’ This long romance was treated with the tempi and dynamics of postmodern music. While its central theme demurred in taciturn withdrawal, the middle notes of its surroundings were remarkably rolled out; extended almost beyond recognition. Such an approach was fascinating to the melomanic ear but also banished the work’s lovelorn lilts.

Double stops popped festively at Dalene’s helm at the start of ‘Allegro vivacissimo.’ Replete with stormy runs and fierce attacks, the violinist’s rendering made birdsong out of screechy pitches. A long diminuendo at the piece’s end emerged alluringly. Cementing his exceptional aesthetics, Johan Dalene accomplished a uniquely styled performance somewhat short on sentiment.

Sung’s orchestra deployed a set of regimented rhythms for the opening of the concerto but they lapsed with rumbling horns and a discordant duo of bassoons. The latter failed to gel with clarinets at the beginning of the ‘Canzonetta’; flutes were late to imitate the solo violin. Pizzicato on the upper strings was executed daintily in the last movement but the piccolo-oboe-flute interplay was obscured.

Strings tingled to unseal Carl Nielsen’s Second Symphony dubbed ‘The Four Temperaments.’ Sterling in their unison, they prompted well-timed dialogues between the flutes and oboes but the brass trailed sorrily behind. Romantic glory soared in radiant crescendo on the violins till horns fell out of place.

Serenely swaying in the ‘Allegro comodo e flemmatico’ movement, violins whisked wishful tones to wistful sways. But later chords marked ppp lacked delicateness and staccato; bassoons withheld diminuendo. Ill-combed textures pestered strings in the third ‘Melancholic’ movement, suddenly enmeshing them in disarray. The central figure of the oboe rode too ostentatious a dynamic while its imitator in the English horn suppressed the melody. A potent tremolo in the concluding bars restored tranquillity.

Fierce timpani defined the final movement ‘Allegro sanguineo – Marziale,’ whose staccato and marcato moments sounded with declamatory force. The most triumphant of the symphony’s contrasting foursome, its audacious punctuation suited Sung’s style best.

Aglimmer at the edges, this performance of Romantic greats swept much of their magnetic lustre to the sides – acquainting us with only fragments of these treasurable antiques.

Above: The Jerusalem Quartet in another performance of Shostakovich’s String Quartet No. 4 in D, Op. 83. Credit: International Chamber Players (YouTube).

Preeempting eeriness denies expressive bursts in Shostakovich’s fourth string quartet: an opus penned months after Soviet authorities had forced him to denounce his Formalist aesthetic. Self-contradictory like many of the master’s works, it stifles cries, touts lies and cuts off vigour at the bone.

Intoning gloom with droning cello strokes, The Jerusalem Quartet’s Kyril Zlotnikov allotted rationed yearning to the opening of this redacted ode last night at Wigmore Hall. First violinist Alexander Pavlovsky’s gradual diminuendo mirrored ebbing strength and a vibrato-thick motif on Sergei Bresler’s second violin suggested a split psyche. The ‘Andantino’ portion leaned on Bresler’s sapping pulse-like theme; a paradoxically lulling cello proffered calm. Later an unerasable motif tipped violist Ori Kam and Bresler into never-ending cadences deflecting cello presages: the warnings of an old man scathing youth.

Uncouth recriminations grew as Zlotnikov enlisted tackles of staccati for the ‘Allegretto (attacca)’ till a G string snapped, suspending music Shostakovich had feared scribing. Excusing himself first for five and then ten minutes, Zlotnikov was forced to make a switch while colleagues waited or endeavoured to assist. On stage a sense of urgency intensified but in the hall it sank.

Resuming the third movement, Zlotnikov attacked his notes more cautiously before succumbing to composure. Scrambling runs on violin suggested incoherent rambles of a racing mind but Kam’s viola passages met too quick a diminuendo. Romantic antics tripped into Pavlovsky’s first violin at the beginning of the fourth (another ‘Allegretto’) movement; joining dotted minims to successive quavers when they should have been distinct. Propulsive, wide vibrato also veered the work towards a contrary aesthetic. Accompanying Zlotnikov’s own tightly hemmed vibrato and its stomping bear-like notes, the first violinist sparked a clash of arts. But pizzicato on viola and the second violin brought onomatopoeic pops of pistol shots inviting to the piece.

Ticking clocks instilling shame in aspirant Stakhanovites unsealed String Quartet No. 5 in B flat through turbulent chords on viola and cello. Clamouring to mount its pitches higher, Pavlovsky’s violin became a rogue convinced to violate convention. Ripping pages entered high-pitched tones on the viola: Shostakovich’s response to earlier works that Kam presented with a chilling languor. Didactically the cello answered with corrective pizzicato. Soon a legato needlessly impinged upon Pavlovsky’s phrasing – leading sombre lines to peaks of truth this music had expunged.

Conspicuously wide vibrato threw the violinist’s pitch into excessive vacillation at the start of the ‘Andante’ movement, which transposes its first lines an octave higher. Inconsistently with the quartet’s constricting contours, Pavlovsky’s pulses fell out of conformity. A contrast surfaced in the form of Zlotnikov’s significantly less vibrato-ed cello’s penitent motif on alto clef.

Specious peace was similarly rendered by the cellist in the third ‘Moderato’ movement, but Kam overexerted his ‘with mute’ effect. Pizzicato double stops united all musicians in a vicious contrast but the end – marked in the score ‘morendo’ (‘dying’) – suffered from diverse vibratos outing different pitches.

Discretion wrested maudlin doses from Pavlovsky’s first violin to introduce the sixth quartet in G: an exercise in feigned felicity. Restraining glee, the instrumentalist presented slick staccato. Stomps were heard imposing on their writer’s creativity across sustained attacks until they ceased in second movement ‘Moderato con moto,’ which missed out on militancy. Delicateness sweetened pitches sickeningly high on violin: cries of a sparrow with clipped wings. Kam and Zlotnikov nevertheless applied their pizzicato to portray demands of patronising parents and false comfort rife in Mother Russia.

A gentility intrusive once again derailed Pavlovsky in the ‘Lento’ section with mellifluousness. The final movement pitted prisms of interpretation frequently against each other: where Kam’s viola echoed lines from first part ‘Allegretto’, Pavlovsky’s violin proclaimed its pain.

Seething underneath, the squeeze of self-repression characterizes Shostakovich’s String Quartets 4–6, suppressing vulnerability through musical experiment. While this recital kindled intermittent insights, twitching angst was mostly lacking.

In great anticipation of more international critiques, I am thrilled to present Crepuscular Music’s LA classical music correspondent Janelle Kim.

Janelle recently received her MA in Writing from the University of Exeter but she is a Southern California native. Her love for classical music began in high school, where it was fostered by the thriving orchestra scene in Orange County. At UC San Diego she co-founded the first student-run literary magazine while receiving her bachelor's degree in English Literature, and she continued learning and writing more about classical music, including opera. She has conducted and published interviews on artists from San Diego, Los Angeles, and London.

Here is Janelle’s review of Friday night’s Walt Disney Concert Hall concert featuring Paavo Järvi and pianist Seong-Jin Cho.

Enjoy!

Sophia

Seong-Jin Cho at the keys. Photographs taken by Elizabeth Asher at the Walt Disney Concert Hall, provided courtesy of the Los Angeles Philharmonic Association.

Despite this concert taking place on Valentine’s Day, there was no catering to the holiday with a romantic or intimate opening piece. Arguably, the most romantic aspect of this evening’s commencement was the dimming of the Walt Disney Concert Hall lights. The LA Philharmonic dove headfirst into an energetic full string orchestra performance of Bacewicz’s “Concerto for String Orchestra.”

The first movement was an explosive start to the night, crisp and polished. Although Bacewicz’s “Concerto for String Orchestra” kept the orchestra divided in parts and countermelodies, the orchestra displayed excellent unity and control under conductor Paavo Järvi. With a piece like this, full of snappy dynamic changes and quick transitions between pizzicato and arco, it was a delight to witness unfalteringly clean execution between ensemble and conductor. This mastery continued on full display through the second and third movements, and there was no shortage of fantastic soloists. One highlight was the solo at the beginning of the second movement: the violist perfectly set the mood and tone for the rest of the haunting “Andante” section.

A handful of reed, woodwind, brass, and percussion musicians joined the strings for Ravel’s “Piano Concerto in G.” As the piano was wheeled into the center, the audience fell silent. Then, to a loud and thunderous round of applause, guest pianist Seong-Jin Cho took his seat. The concerto started off with a bang – or rather, with a sharp whip of the slapstick. Immediately, a rapid exchange between piano and piccolo evolved. Cho was precise and expressive, unafraid to use an occasional flourish to emphasize the movements of his hands flurrying around the keys. He often leant over them as he came to the end of a particularly difficult section.

Ravel’s love for American jazz is apparent in this piece, which is full of moments of dissonance that ultimately resolve into passages that burst forward with brightness like a wintered forest opening up to the first hint of spring sunlight. In the “Adagio assai,” building tension and quiet tenderness were perfectly matched, and so were Cho’s solos with the various reeds and woodwinds. The third and final movement was equally brilliant – leaving an overall impression of a wandering, sometimes even scampering, melody. Oftentimes, pieces like this can be an acquired taste, especially since some might find the rapid changes of the third movement too easily comparable to chaos. However Paavo Järvi found unity in this chaos, keeping the piano soloist, orchestra, and band all tightly interwoven.

With a handful more band instruments than in the Ravel, the Philharmonic swayed and danced excellently through “Piano Quartet No. 1 in G minor" (Op. 25). If the Ravel was like a bursting forest, Schoenberg’s orchestrated version of a Brahms piano quartet began like a small grove of trees undulating in the gales of an unexpected summer storm. The orchestra easily navigated the first three movements; caressing mellow and peaceful moments and occasionally unearthing pockets of tension. The melody cascaded through the winds, the strings followed and for a brief moment there was a flash of unison, which fell away in perfect synchronicity.

Eventually the finale began and the atmosphere changed. The music was undeniably exhilarating and jaunty – I caught more than a few heads bobbing along with the beat set by percussionists whose bodies seemed markedly more animated than before. With this final and lively piece, each section had its own moment to shine, and the night ended with the same burst of energy with which it had begun, if not even greater.

Jakub Hrůša works magic. Photo credit: BBC/Sarah Louise Bennett

Masquerading as a raid by early dusk, black busts of smoke poke wholesome sky in search of slaughter: missiles dressed as night. Despite their distance terror strikes the mind.

Resistant to these truths, the brain succumbs to dances of denial. Opening this Barbican Centre concert with Pavel Haas’s ‘Scherzo triste,’ Jakub Hrůša squeezed staccato laughs from vicious violins until the brass released andante sermons of correction. Chords copying each another mimicked echoes in a mental turbulence then dimmed their chaos into tremolos of longing. Harps’ dapples played with the imagination to escort their victim back to dreaming; flirty trills’ staccatos leapt like crinolines. Surrendering to sensuousness, tremolos on violin distracted from a core of pain by lulling listeners with a hypnosis: fantasy replacing real life.

Ebullient lilts on flute embarked the audience on Beethoven’s Second Piano Concerto’s first movement, ‘Allegro con brio.’ Bristling at their trills, the violins lynched with superbly timed attacks. Tyrannically punctual strings began to self-efface – repeating chords at one third of their volume. The clan descended into cadences of solemn misery in the ‘Adagio’ movement; taming their excitement as the brass emitted growls of omens. Oboes bowed their heads in grave farewell as violins suspended animation with a poised surrender of their bows.

At the helm of this concerto’s solo, pianist Jonathan Biss shaped the contours of mordents and turns with refined adoration. Rill-like trills dripped irresistibly from the performer’s fingers, patterning the keyboard with a stylish virtuosity. A master at assembling mirrors of dynamics, Biss subtly imitated right-hand, bold crescendo chords with dainty, soft ones on the left in the first movement. Staccato runs made delicately figured exits at his hands and tuplets climbed in a pristine technique.

Sombreness impressed itself upon the second movement with remarkable diminuendi between wider intervals that called to mind reluctant partings. At the same time, left-hand arpeggios could have been more accented, and some fifth-finger right-hand notes demanded extra stress. Gallops of staccatos sped the ‘Rondo’ movement up vivaciously but high ends of ascending scales lacked culminative force.

Biss presented Schubert’s ‘Impromptu No. 3 in G-Flat Major’ as his encore: a nostalgic souvenir. Here left-hand broken chords seemed overly restrained by their andante; diffidence deployed right hand arpeggios. Though the rendition offered tender lyricism, certain moments could have been performed with more accentuation. The final chord conversely didn’t need to follow a long pause.

Bent hope made plods from harp chords to begin the eerie ‘Symphony No. 11 in G Minor, “The Year 1905”’: Shostakovich’s commemoration of the year’s failed uprising against the Tsar. An exercise in self-rebuttal, the arresting work stamps cries of agony till they are muffles. At Hrůša’s baton long-held notes on strings were shaking fists in cuffs with veiled vibrato; timpani triplets stayed perversely calm. Vibrato veered the muted trumpet into portents set to send more hands atremble; strings persisted in their stillness. A moderato mood enchained ‘Adagio (The Palace Square)’ until the instruments seemed totally transfixed: blurred figures swimming in a frozen lake.

Cellos’ scrambles burst with militance into the second movement: ‘Allegro: The 9th of January.’ Squawks of seagulls pinching a clear sky were manic flutes until fierce pizzicato mimed a ticking clock. Taps of bows were knocking fists insisting on a revolution but the harps played simultaneously in specious peace. Not only were the sounds suggestive of the texture of a coup d’état, the regularity of the motifs embodied stereotypical behaviours of shattered minds: obsessive orders to the self.

Violas’ languor introduced a slow lament for the third movement, ‘In memoriam: Adagio.’ At a rigidly andante pace they buried impetus and instinct – shovelling them gracefully away in notes of equal tone and reverent lengths. Cellos clambered in a pizzicato’s semi-protest with unstoppable propriety. Burgeoning trombones and tubas groaned with torpid notes but harnessed strings refused to shake in their containment. Behaving beats on tempered timpani were the defining moment in this censored requiem.

Inexplicit strictures of self-flagellation shaped the final movement, ‘The Tocsin: Allegro non troppo’ with an echo of the first. Punchy chords divided by politely ordered intervals engaged the brass to knock (but unobtrusively) on yet another barricaded door; pernicious repetition on the strings suggested instability. The snare drum’s irrepressible motif kept summoning its troops to fight – or to desist? Its despotism’s destination was unclear.

Returning to the yearning heard in the first movement, a cor anglais attempted a respectful mumble hoping to become an utterance that might evolve into a yell. Shrieks peaked on xylophone and bells warned of impending bloodshed until everything was dust.

Portraying angst about to burst a rattled mind, this concert offered listeners an otherworldly paradox: art’s opposite in tightened impulses, controlled responses and the madness of enforced conformity served through an apogee of art.

Here is another recent OperaWire review, this time of the Royal Opera’s revival of Aïda.

Enjoy.

All my best,

Sophia

Dear Readers,

I’m writing to let you know that from now on the formerly known Crepuscular Musings is Crepuscular Music: exclusively a classical music performance analysis site.

Up to now this Substack has comprised classical music reviews, excerpts of fiction and the occasional dive into cinema. This will no longer be the case. Given the number of writers, YouTubers, podcast hosts and other creatives online who blend genres, aesthetics and disciplines, I’ve decided to preserve these articles distinctly. All fiction-related work (including introductory essays and sneak peeks) will now be hosted at https://www.thecrepuscularpress.com/clp-essays. No more treatises on cinema or tv shall be published. For the sake of posterity older articles will be kept on the Substack.

I am also using this announcement to extend a call-out to my fellow classical music lovers. Rather than limiting Crepuscular Music’s output to my words alone, I am looking forward to publishing guest articles on classical music performance from writers all over the world. If you’re interested in contributing analytical pieces that capture the mostly intransmittable experience of live classical or opera performance, write to me at sophia [at] thecrepuscularpress.com.

I look forward to growing this Substack as a hub of classical music writing only. For those of you who subscribed on account of my fiction, please head to https://www.thecrepuscularpress.com/release-alerts to sign up there. You will be sent news of all future fiction releases and accompanying essays and sneak peeks.

To anyone who subscribed mostly to read cinema and tv explorations, sorry that they haven’t featured much. As a classical music devotee and novelist, I’m honestly not qualified enough to keep a Substack with consistent updates on those arts.

Thank you to all for subscribing and reading this note.

All my best,

Sophia