DOHNANYI & SHOSTAKOVICH / VCH Chamber Series / Review

DOHNANYI & SHOSTAKOVICH

VCH Chamber Series

Victoria Concert Hall

Sunday (28 February 2016)

This review was published in The Straits Times on 1 March 2016 with the title "Light-hearted ambiguous finale a teaser".

The Victoria Concert Hall Chamber Series organised by the Singapore Symphony Orchestra often brings out and dusts off interesting corners of chamber repertoire not regularly heard in concert or on disc. This offering of Hungarian and Russian music was no exception.

The Hungarian composers Zoltan Kodaly and Erno Dohnanyi were contemporaries and colleagues. While the former espoused nationalism and revolutionised music education, the latter made his name as a piano virtuoso. As creators, both were conservatives beside their compatriot Bela Bartok.

The trio of violinist Lillian Wang, violist Tan Wee-Hsin and cellist Chan Wei Shing made no secret that their selection of music by both Hungarians was little more than delightful lollipops. Kodaly's Intermezzo (1905) was infused with rustic charm, led by a folksy violin melody gliding over rocking rhythmic accompaniment, with contrasts provided by a bucolic drone in its central section.

More substantial was Dohnanyi's 5-movement Serenade in C major. Ever the academic, he included a lyrical Romanza, a furious fugal Scherzo and Variations on a chorale theme, bookended by two march-like outer movements. There was much to enjoy in the fine interplay and balance achieved by the threesome, with all voices sharing equal honours.  

These were pleasant diversions, distressingly slight next to the imposing Piano Quintet in G minor by Dmitri Shostakovich. The original pianist, the Russian Viktoria Postnikova, was indisposed for undisclosed reasons, and her place filled by Filipino pianist and conservatory don Albert Tiu.

Any hint of disappointment was immediately dispelled as Tiu was as rock-solid as they come, registering an earth-shaking G minor chord and opening flourish that was to set the tone of the work. The first two movements comprised a Prelude and Fugue, looking forward to his  monumental set of 24 Preludes and Fugues for piano in homage to Bach. 

Alongside Tiu was the excellent string quartet of violinists Ye Lin and Cao Can, violist Zhang Manchin and cellist Wang Zihao, all of whom have or had conservatory ties. One would be hard put to find the elegiac Fugue played with such utmost clarity, building from the first violin's simple line and rising to an impassioned climax before gently receding.

The jesting Scherzo had a bounding and bumptious quality that was to catch listeners by surprise. After so much seriousness, was this brief punch-drunk detour meant to be a tongue-in-cheek riposte? The music sobered up again in the Intermezzo and here was an outpouring of grief that only strings know how. Its sobbing quality was perfectly captured by the players, which led directly to a most puzzling of finales.

Was its apparent light-heartedness a sly dig against Stalinist authoritarianism? The wry humour and quiet ending was played straight and without irony by the quintet, which left its ambiguous conclusion all the more teasing. The hearty applause garnered suggested that nobody in the audience was going to ask for their money back.  

CD Reviews (The Straits Times, April 2014)

PROKOFIEV The War Sonatas

BORIS GILTBURG, Piano

Orchid Classics 100023 / *****

The three greatest piano sonatas of Sergei Prokofiev (1891-1953) were composed during the years of the Second World War, when the Soviet Union waged a life-and-death struggle against Nazi Germany at a cost of over 20 million lives. The Sixth, Seventh and Eighth Sonatas or “War Sonatas” (Op.82 to 84) were written at the same time, and share the common qualities of being brutally dissonant and percussive but tempered with a paradoxical lyricism and sentimentality. These diametrically opposites become clear when one considers that even temporary relief from the ever-looming spectre of death becomes a valued luxury.

Mortality and beauty sit uneasily in these masterpieces. The Sixth Sonata has a pulverising belligerence but its third movement is a slow waltz. The compact Seventh Sonata juxtaposes tolling bells with precipitous machine-gun fire, the toccata-like finale being its most famous three minutes. The Eighth Sonata is the longest and most subtle, with languorous bittersweet emotions being swept away by ruthless and unyielding hard reality. Ironically, all three sonatas were written in the major keys. Russia-born Israeli pianist Boris Giltburg, 1^st prize-winner of the 2013 Queen Elizabeth International Piano Competition, possessing a steel-clad technique allied with razor-keen intellect (he also penned the very perceptive sleeve notes), is the ideal exponent of this trilogy of doom.

BOOK IT:

BORIS GILTBURG playing 

Rachmaninov’s Piano Concerto No.1

with the Singapore Symphony Orchestra 

conducted by Neeme Järvi

Esplanade Concert Hall

Saturday, 12 April 2014 at 7.30 pm

Tickets available at SISTIC

DOHNANYI Piano Quintets

Schubert Ensemble of London

Helios 55412 / ****1/2

Ernö Dohnanyi (1877-1960) was the great Hungarian Romantic at an age when his contemporaries Bartok and Kodaly were experimenting with dissonance and use of folk music in works of a more contemporary vein. His idioms lay in the Austro-Germanic past, best illustrated in his two piano quintets.

The better-known First Quintet in C minor (1895), a teenage effort, could have come from the quill of Brahms himself, who delighted in infusing his music with a Magyar flavour and vibe. The slow movement’s languorous cello melody, reminiscent of Brahms’s Third Piano Quartet, provides the work’s most memorable minutes.

        

The Second Quintet in E flat minor (1914) is just as conservative and accessible, but with darker and more introspective shades. British pianist William Howard and his colleagues of the Schubert Ensemble give lively and beautifully detailed performances. A substantial filler is the five-movement Serenade for string trio, which makes for engaging listening. All this represents extremely good value at a budget price.

CD Reviews (The Straits Times, September 2012)

DOHNANYI Piano Music Vol.1

MARTIN ROSCOE, Piano

Hyperion 67871 / *****

Although Erno Dohnanyi (1877-1960) was one of the great pianist-composers of the late Romantic era (ranking alongside the likes of Rachmaninov, Scriabin, Busoni and Grainger), his solo piano music is rarely heard these days. Even the popular Variations On A Nursery Tune gets a rare and very occasional airing, if any. This first volume of complete piano music by British pianist Martin Roscoe is a sympathetic and timely reminder of the Hungarian’s craftsmanship and virtuosity.

The Four Rhapsodies Op.11, laid out like a Brahmsian four-movement sonata, is perhaps his best known work. The scherzo-like Third Rhapsody was once a very popular encore of the rapturous, barnstorming kind, and the concluding Fourth Rhapsody sounds like the definitive apotheosis of the Dies Irae theme.

The Ten Bagatelles of Winterreigen (Winter Round Dances) are more ambitious than the title suggests, looking back to Schumann’s lyricism (the first is titled Widmung, for example) and ahead to Busoni’s complexities. Dohnanyi’s last piano work Three Singular Pieces (1951), while rooted in the Romantic past, does however attempt some modernisms. The final Perpetuum Mobile is a forerunner to Ligeti’s kinetically-charged Etudes. Finally, his Pastorale (Hungarian Christmas Song) and transcription of Delibes’s Coppelia Waltz are elegance personified. Warmly recommended.   

ARGERICH. KREMER. MAISKY

Complete Duo Recordings

Deutsche Grammophon 477 9524 (13CDs) / *****

This very substantial box-set is the fifth part of a retrospective documenting Argentine pianist Martha Argerich’s prodigious recorded output on the German yellow label over the decades. Among her favourite partners in chamber music are violinist Gidon Kremer and cellist Mischa Maisky, both originally from Latvia, with whom she has recorded the complete Beethoven duo sonatas. Kremer’s rather dry and wiry tone is an acquired taste, which you either love or loathe, but his approach works well for the two discs of 20^th century music – sonatas by Prokofiev, Janacek and Bartok. The Hungarian’s First Violin Sonata receives the most blistering, hell-for-leather performance thought possible.

Maisky is more congenial, and his contributions include J.S.Bach (sonatas originally for viola da gamba and harpsichord), Beethoven’s sets of Variations, Schumann (including the Cello Concerto sans Argerich) and two love concerts in Romantic (Chopin and Franck) and 20^th century Russian (Stravinsky, Prokofiev and Shostakovich) repertoire. Argerich’s role is pivotal to the success of these collaborations. More than mere accompanist, she is the livewire that sparks her partners like never before and perhaps after. The original sleeve art has been reproduced for all 13 discs, and this budget-priced release retails for $79.90 at HMV. This is, in reality, a steal.