This post is one in a sequence which lists (mostly) live music I have heard, as best as memory allows. I write to have a record of my musical experiences and these entries are intended as postcards from me to my future self. Other posts in this collection can be found here.
- The Sitkovetsky Trio at the Wigmore Hall, Wednesday 24 July 2024. The trio comprises: Alexander Sitkovetsky, violin, Isang Enders, cello and Wu Qian, piano. This was a very fine performance to a full house. The programme:
- Clara Schumann: Andante from Piano Trio in G minor, Op 17 (1846)
- Felix Mendelssohn: Piano Trio No 1 in D Minor, Op, 49 (1839)
- Beethoven: Piano Trio in B flat, Op. 97 (“Archduke”)
- Encore: Cécile Chaminade: Slow movement from a piano trio.
- After an unpleasant experience in the past week at a concert in Wigmore Hall, I have written a short reflection on what I believe are the responsibilities of audience members in classical music concerts, here.
- Jan Lisiecki in a solo recital, Preludes, at the Wigmore Hall, London, 18 July 2024. The programme was the same as that in his February 2024 recital in Cambridge, UK, which I described here. As in February, Mr Lisiecki played one encore, a Romance by Schumann (Op 28, No 2).
This was again an outstanding performance, which I felt very privileged to have heard. Mr Lisiecki’s playing was again assertive and confident, and was perhaps even more controlled than in February. I was sitting closer to the stage than I had been in Cambridge and did not feel that any work was being played too fast for me to process. The programme made increasing sense intellectually, which may indicate my own learning in the time since first hearing it.
Mr Lisiecki is still the only pianist I know who can make Bach sound like Ligeti. He achieves this by playing extremely quickly, thereby putting the performance on to the edge of impossibility and risking a breakdown in synchronization of his hands. At the same time (perhaps in consequence) his touch is very light, which produces an ethereal sound.
- Leslie Howard, in a piano recital of 19th Century Russian Masters, at the Wigmore Hall, London, 16 July 2024. The programme:
- Borodin: Petite Suite and Scherzo (1885)
- Glazunov: Theme et Variations, Op. 72 (1900)
- Anton Rubinstein: Piano Sonata No. 4 in A Minor, Op. 100 (ca. 1876-1880)
- Encore: Anton Rubinstein: Barcarolle No. 1
Mr Howard’s playing was superb, in a hall only about one-third full. For me, this concert felt like a companion concert to the recital by Ian Pace I was fortunate to hear on 28 May 2024 of 20th Century Russian and Ukrainian composers. Borodin’s Suite is pleasant, but slight. In contrast, Rubinstein’s 4th Sonata was substantial, and at times, thrilling. The second movement, with its recurring pattern of five repeated notes, brought to mind Boris Tchaikovsky’s Piano Concerto of 1971.
Glazunov’s work was also substantial, but suffers from a feature I find in most 19th century compositions in theme-and-variations form: the individual variations are too short to allow any development of the material, and so they simply create a mood or evoke an emotion. But there is no connection (or none which is apparent to a listener) between one variation and the next – in other words, there is no emotional or narrative arc across the entirety of the work. So, what we hear are a fleeting sequence of emotions, separate sound episodes one after another, like cloud shapes moving quickly across the sky, with nothing to connect them together or to justify the particular order in which they appear. Only the initial theme and the final variation felt to be positioned in those places for some good reasons.
- Domchor and Dombläser under Domkantor Benedikt Celler in a performance of Christopher Tambling’s Missa Brevis in B-flat in Frauenkirche, Munich, Germany, at 10am Mass, Sunday 14 July 2024.
This was an outstanding performance, with two trumpets, two trombones and tubular bells, as well as the Cathedral organ and choir. Prior to each of the communal hymns during the Mass, the organist played a prelude or voluntary, usually an interesting short fugue. For a chorale setting by Mendelssohn, the prior organ voluntary was an improvisation in the high soprano register on an ornament from the hymn, interspersed with successive phrases from the hymn. This treatment was quite magical.
At the recessional, a very robust organ fugue, with an assertive even strident theme, was performed by two organists playing four-hands (ie, sitting alongside each other at the same console). I have not ever seen an organ duo of this form before.
It is always nice to attend services of a universal church. The family of five (two parents, late teenage son and two daughters) seated in front of me were not speakers of German and the mother read the mass liturgy from her mobile phone in their own language, which perhaps was Catalan. Yet we all exchanged the sign of peace in English.
- Sophie Neeb and Vincent Neeb (Klavierduo), Peter Schöne (Bariton) and the Münchner Motettenchor under Benedikt Haag, Leitung, in a superb performance in Matthäuskirche, München, Germany on Saturday 13 July 2024. The programme:
- Johannes X. Schachtner: Vorfrühling (Uraufführung)
- Robert Schumann: Klavierquartett Es-Dur, Op. 47, Satz 3 (Andante Cantabile) (Arranged for piano 4-hands by Johannes Brahms)
- Robert Schumann: Dichterliebe (for Bariton, Chor and Klavier zu vier Händen, arr. Johannes X. Schachtner) (Uraufführung)
The songs of the composer Johannes X. Schachtner which opened the concert were very interesting musically, and used texts by Fritz Raßmann, Annette v. Droste-Hülshoff, Karl Marx and Heinrich Heine. These songs and the arrangement which Herr Schachtner made of Schumann’s Dichterliebe had many unusual musical effects, with choir members sometimes softly whispering and even playing hand bells, and playing in multiple time signatures. The choir acted like a Greek chorus, commenting on and responding to the soloist. This was a masterful arrangement of the Schumann cycle, sung and played superbly. I came away from hearing it on a high.
This was an outstanding concert and a superb performance by everyone, to a church only about half full. The modernist church, which is the home of the Lutheran Bishop for the region, has curved walls which bounce the sound around the room and so provided excellent acoustics for this concert. This evening was my first time to hear live a performance by Klavierduo Neeb, who deserve their very strong reputation. I was privileged and fortunate to have heard this wonderful concert.