pianomania: ROMANTIC AIRS: HANS GRAF AND JAMES EHNES / JAMES EHNES IN RECITAL / Review

ROMANTIC AIRS –

HANS GRAF AND JAMES EHNES

JAMES EHNES IN RECITAL

Singapore Symphony Orchestra

Victoria Concert Hall

Friday & Sunday (21 & 23 October 2022)

This review was published in The Straits Times with the title "Violinist James Ehnes' high wire act earns cheers".

Conducted by music director Hans Graf, this was a Singapore Symphony Orchestra concert which had a bit of everything. Its odds and ends made for initial confusion but good sense eventually prevailed. Opening with two works sung by the Singapore Symphony Chorus and Youth Choir, both Brahms’ Nänie and Beethoven’s Elegischer Gesang (Elegiac Song) centred on the pity of death.

The heroism associated with both German composers was far away, replaced by comforting solemnity. The Brahms was a fugal setting of words by Schiller (of Ode To Joy fame), an extension of his great German Requiem, while the briefer Beethoven was as retiring as it was short-winded. Both glowed in the warmth of the chorus’ good discipline and well-enunciated German. One wondered why these were not more often heard.

Closing the concert was Schumann’s Second Symphony in C major, his longest and arguably best symphony. Beethoven’s influence was apparent, with a slow and deliberate introduction leading to an energetic Allegro that flexed collective muscles and busted guts. Just as impressive were slick string-playing in the scherzo and the finale’s all-encompassing sweep.

Its bleeding heart was the long-breathed nobility in the slow movement, which must have given ideas to the young Brahms for his symphonies to come. Within 12 years, Schumann would be dead after sliding into insanity and pathetic decline. See how the three works were innately synergistic, united by spiritual and thematic connections.

The concert’s centrepiece was renowned Canadian violinist James Ehnes performing Samuel Barber’s lyrical Violin Concerto of 1939. The famous story goes that the American composer had written two slow and relatively non-virtuosic movements but over-compensated with a short finale that was technically too difficult for the intended soloist.

Ehnes handled all this in his stride, exuding a majesterial calm and simply beautiful tone in the first two movements. An underlying tension was maintained through its musings, only letting rip with the arduous runs of triplets in the finale’s breathtaking high-wire act. Responding to loud cheers, he offered two solo encores by Paganini and J.S.Bach, an enticement for his solo recital on Sunday afternoon.

Photo: Pianomaniac

Built around J.S.Bach’s Sonata No.2 in A minor (BWV.1003), Ehnes’ unaccompanied recital drew a rare full-house for a chamber concert. This comes as no surprise, as his live performances are every bit as pristine as his many CD recordings. A full-bodied singing tone, ease of articulation and faultless intonation made every work pleasures to behold.

Each of Bach’s four movements defined every facet of his glorious technique. From perfect phrasing in the opening Grave, polyphonic mastery of the Fugue to the final Allegro's free-wheeling, this came as close as possible to the ideal reading. Particularly moving was the Andante's song-like countenance, gently accompanied by a constant throbbing pulse, the musical representation of the human heartbeat.

Almost every important composer of unaccompanied solos was represented, beginning with Georg Philipp Telemann’s Fantasia in B flat major. Its four short parts, alternating slow and fast, exhibited a fine sense of proportion later mirrored and writ large in the Bach. Ehnes emerged with a viola for Paul Hindemith’s Sonata (Op.25 No.1), which was the recital’s big surprise. Anyone who could make the viola sound this coherent and gorgeous, even in a movement marked Rasendes Zeitmass.Wild (Raging tempos.Wild) deserves recognition.

Returning to the violin in the well-known Eugene Ysaÿe “Ballade” Sonata (Op.27 No.3), it was not just mastering the notes that mattered, but getting all the nuances right for the searing showpiece. His recent Gramophone Award (Instrumental category) for the recording of six Ysaÿe Sonatas was thus richly deserved.

A selection of popular Paganini Caprices, exploring a panoply of jaw-dropping technical tricks, completed the afternoon’s sumptuous fare. For the record, these included No.1 “Arpeggio”, No.9 “The Chase”, No.16 in G minor and the evergreen No.24 in A minor “Theme and Variations”. It would not have mattered what he had chosen, as everything Ehnes touched turned into violin gold.