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Guest review by Anthony Hardwicke

Rosendal Chamber Music Festival- day 3 evening

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On Friday night we heard the iconic Brahms Op.115 Clarinet Quintet played by charismatic clarinetist Sharon Kam and the Dover String Quartet. The very same piece received an equally enlightened but far more unconventional treatment on Saturday night by the UK based group, ZRI.

Bear with me, dear reader, while I explain about ZRI: The band’s name stands for ‘Zum Roten Igel’, which translates as ‘to the Red Hedgehog’ – the tavern that Brahms frequented in Vienna in the 1880’s. They’re from the UK and, wonderfully, they pick apart classical masterpieces like Schubert’s String Quintet and Brahms’ Clarinet Quintet and mash them up with the Gipsy folk tunes that inspired them.

If you know your Brahms, you will be aware that the middle section of the Clarinet Quintet’s second movement is actually supposed to invoke gypsy improvisation. (According to Bruce Adolphe’s talk for the Chamber Music Society of the Lincoln Centre, Brahms is reminiscing about his adolescent concert tour with the Hungarian violinist Ede Remenyi.)

The rest of the group (Max Baillie on violin, Matthew Sharp cello, Jon Banks accordion and Iris Pissaride on cembalon) looped the chords from the second movement, while Ben Harlan embellished the clarinet part with increasingly complex improvisations.

(Photo credit: Liv Ovland)

In the third movement, as the improvisations became faster and more energetic, Harlan succeeded in doing something that none of the other superstar classical musicians had quite managed to do in this year’s Rosendal concerts. He let go. There was an uplifting moment of flow with Harlan playing and whirling to the music. It’s inconceivable that this ‘spirit of the dance’ wasn’t an ingredient in Brahms’ music making in the 19th century. What’s seriously great about the ZRI approach is that it allows the players (and their audiences) to get closer to Brahms’ musical truth.

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Guest review by Anthony Hardwicke

Rosendal Chamber Music Festival – Day 3 afternoon

Some of the highlights from Saturday afternoon’s concerts at the Rosendal Chamber Music Festival included a symphonic Brahms string quintet Op.111, a fresh and compelling performance of Clara Schumann’s G minor Piano Trio, and a memorable and overwhelming Brahms Piano Quartet No. 3 in C Minor Op.60, with Tabea Zimmerman calling the shots, but Sheku Kanneh-Mason predictably stealing the show with the big cello tune in the slow movement.

An all-star cast of James Ehnes and Guro Kleven Hagen on violins, Tabea Zimmerman and Ida Bryan on violas and Julia Hagen on cello enjoyed Brahms Op.111. The blend and balance was excellent and the overall sound was like an excitingly agile string orchestra. The dynamic range was impressive, especially in the outer movements. Zimmerman was at the centre of all the good communication. The last movement grew steadily to a bustling climax.

Clara Schumann’s G minor Piano Trio sounded light and fresh in the hands of an all-female trio of Yoel-Eum Son (piano), Guro Kleven Hagen (violin) and Julia Hagen (cello). The strings were very together in the unison passages in the first movement. There was plenty of detail in Guro Kleven Hagen’s beautifully shaped melodic phrases. She is not a showy player, sparing in her use of vibrato and always tasteful. Son didn’t have much to do in the slow movement, but got a chance to say more in the last movement with some deliciously judged arpeggios and graceful pedalling.

Leif Ove Andsnes and Bertrand Chamayou

As the Artistic Director of the Rosendal Chamber Music Festival, Leif Ove Andsnes attracts the most astonishingly superb musicians every year. Every one of the 11 concerts features several chamber works with different combinations of players and I have found it fascinating to see who plays well with whom. One particularly successful grouping was Bertrand Chamayou (piano), Guro Kleven Hagen (violin), Tabea Zimmerman (viola) and Sheku Kanneh-Mason (cello) and they served up a sumptuous Brahms C minor Piano Quartet to die for (actually it’s all about death). The first movement was rich and orchestral, with the strings competing to see who could produce the darkest, most malevolent tone. The piano gets more thematic material in the second movement and it was delivered immaculately by an authoritative Chamayou. And then comes the big cello tune at the beginning of the slow movement. Kanneh-Mason allowed it to speak and grow with intuitive emotion. It was a beautiful moment of discovery and the audience were holding back the tears. The last movement had shape and structure. Zimmerman controlled the strings with her dark tone, leading towards the exhausted and desolate final page.

Photo credit: Liv Øvland
Photo credit: Liv Øvland

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Guest review by Anthony Hardwicke

Rosendal Chamber Music festival – Day 3

Some slight adjustments had to be made to the Saturday morning concert programme here at the Rosendal Chamber Music Festival because the trumpet player Hakan Hardenburger had been taken ill. Yeol-Eum Son and her husband Svetlin Roussev (who was travelling with Son, but not expecting to play) very gamely stepped in at late notice to play some Brahms: the F-A-E Scherzo for violin and piano. As you would expect of a husband and wife duo, they were very “together”! Roussev produced an exciting, focused sound, and Son was right with him adding to the intensity. They certainly make a charming couple.

After the Dover string quartet gave a compelling account of the A minor Brahms string quartet Op.51 No.2, Ligeti’s Trio for piano, violin and horn finished the concert. The response of this audience towards the more modern contemporary pieces so far in the festival had been somewhat cool, so I was delighted by how enthusiastically they reacted. We really were wowed by Bertrand Chamayou (piano), Guro Kleven Hagen (violin) and David Guerrier (horn).

The excitement started in the second movement with Chamayou’s rock solid but propulsive double ostinato. Leif Ove Andsnes said the pianist needs two brains to play this passage! Like a lot of Ligeti, this Trio gives virtuoso players an opportunity to push their instruments to the limits. Hagen’s unearthly vibrato-less harmonics climbed so high, my ears stopped being able to hear them! Guerrier’s rude, raspy low note at the end of the last movement seemed to rumble on for ever, and Chamayou punched some truly brutal sounds from the Steinway’s bottom few notes with finger and thumb together. What a treat to see such extravagant chamber music virtuosity!

David Guerrier
Leif Ove Andsnes and Bertrand Chamayou
Photo credit: Liv Øvland
Yeol Eum Son & Svetlin Youssev
Photo credit: Liv Øvland

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Guest review by Anthony Hardwicke

The early afternoon concert was all about the stylish French pianist, Bertrand Chamayou. He started off by metaphorically holding the audience’s hand as he guided us through Ligeti’s early masterpiece Musica Ricercata. Chamayou’s versatile technique was deployed to lovingly characterise each of the 11 short movements, ending in a dazzling 12-tone fugue with immaculate legato fingerwork. Chamayou was every bit the pianist as a servant to the music.

Leif Ove Andsnes then joined Chamayou for some sumptuous, sensitive, carefully thought-through Schubert for four hands. The Allegro in A minor D.947 is one of the lesser known of the numerous masterpieces that Schubert wrote in the last year of his life, 1828. It’s of ‘heavenly length’, and Andsnes (playing secondo) affectionately controlled the huge sonata form structure while Chamayou’s light, ethereal running quavers moved the music forward. It is not often we get the chance to hear piano duet playing in concerts, let alone of such amazing quality and it was lovely to see the obvious mutual respect that Andsnes and Chamayou had for each other.
The concert ended with the Israeli-German clarinetist Sharon Kam and Julia Hagen (cello) joining Chamayou for Brahms’ Op.114 Clarinet Trio. I’m sure Kam has lived and breathed this piece her whole life. She had her eyes closed and there was so much bodily movement, it was almost like she was dancing the piece, using her clarinet almost as a conductor’s baton! The result of all this bodily movement was to give shape to each one of Brahms’ long phrases. Hagen and Chamayou sensibly made space for Kam’s soft, lush low register. Kam led the intensely private second movement with her sultry, smoky sound. All in all, a very satisfying performance which made an elusive piece of late Brahms easy to appreciate.
 
How many pianists could play three such huge and diverse pieces, consecutively and perfectly: a challenging Ligeti solo masterpiece, the primo part of a neglected Schubert piano duet and then a full-scale four-movement Brahms chamber work? Chamayou is the complete package.

Bertrand Chamayou & Leif Ove Andsnes
Sharon Kam
Julia Hagen
Photo credit: Liv Øvland