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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

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Review by Anthony Hardwicke

The first concert of day two of the Rosendal Chamber Music Festival took place at 11am in Kvinnherad church. The sun was shining and the panoramic view of Hardangerfjord and the surrounding mountains was amazing. So too the music.

Kvinnherad Church

Julia Hagen played Brahms’ E minor Cello Sonata Op.38, with Roland Pontinen on piano. Hagen’s sound is warm, genteel and poetic. She managed an unbroken mood line for the whole of the first movement and Pontinen supported her as the intensity ebbed and flowed. He chose an ambitious tempo for the last movement (Brahms’ fugue-like hommage to J S Bach) but then *ping* – Hagen’s A string broke! She wasn’t fazed, quickly replaced the string and they started the movement again. A shade slower this time.

Off went Hagen and Pontinen and on came the dream team of James Ehnes (violin) Sheku Kanneh-Mason (cello) and Yoel-Eum Son (piano) to play Brahms’ Op.87 – his second piano trio in C major. And boy did they play it! It was the best performance in the festival so far. Ehnes was the sensible grown-up of the group. Kanneh-Mason (who had performed the same trio recently in Oxford with his siblings Braimah and Isata) seemed nervous for the first minute or two, but quickly got into the zone. The outer movements were wonderfully fleet and joyful with big colours and wild contrasts. Son’s ravishing solo piano phrases lit up the second movement. The third movement scherzo was lightening fast and tighter than Count Basie’s rhythm section! The three musicians could be seen enjoying and appreciating each other’s playing more and more as they progressed. It was a very special performance. Five stars! 

View the full festival programme here

Review of Concert 1

Yeol Eum Son
Sheku Kanneh-Mason
Roland Pontinen
James Ehnes

Anthony Hardwicke is an Islington-based amateur pianist. He played Mozart and Scriabin for his LRSM diploma and attends Martino Tirimo’s class at Morley College. He also works part time as a chemistry teacher at Bradfield College.

(Images from Rosendal Chamber Music Festival)

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Anthony Hardwicke is attending the Rosendal Chamber Music Festival and has kindly offered to submit a series of reviews

Rosendal Chamber Music Festival- Day 1

Imagine a pretty Norwegian village in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by mountains and fjords. Add four of the most interesting and exciting pianists in the world; Leif Ove Andsnes, Yoel-Eum Son, Bertrand Chamayou and Roland Pontinen. Give them some first-class string players – Julia Hagen, Tabea Zimmerman and Sheku Kanneh-Mason to play with – along with many other fabulous musicians, such as superstar tenor Matthias Goerne, and you get this year’s Rosendal Chamber Music Festival. There are 11 mouth-watering concerts over four days and the focus is on Brahms and Ligeti.

The first concert opened with Brahms’ Violin Sonata Op.78, No. 1, played by James Ehnes and Yeol-Eum Son. Any preconceptions about Brahms’ chamber music being dense and stodgy, were brushed aside by Son’s exquisitely graceful piano playing. With impossibly smooth scales, sparing pedal and tonnes of detail, she gave Ehnes the space to use the full dynamic range of his Stradivarius, down to a whisper in the second movement coda. Their light, coy, bouyant approach to Brahms was refreshing and persuasive.

Ligeti’s outrageous ‘Mysteries of the Macabre’, arranged for trumpet (Hakan Hardenburger) and piano (Roland Pontinen) provided a complete contrast. Pontinen had a referee’s whistle attached to his right wrist, which he made good use of when acknowledging the audience’s applause, as well as during the third song.

To finish, Leif Ove Andsnes and the Dover Quartet played Brahms’ mighty F minor Piano Quartet Op.34. It felt like a gala concert, having five completely new performers on stage after the interval. Special mention to Camden Shaw, the Dover cellist, who barely looked at the score, so intense was his eye contact with the other players. You could tell the Dovers were listening to each other intensely too in the strings-only recitative section at the end of the first movement. Andsnes played solidly, but I would have liked him to have taken more risks. As the Artistic Director of the whole festival, Andsnes deserves huge credit for gathering such a dream team of chamber musicians.

Watch this space for reviews of the other concerts…

James Ehnes
Roland Pontinen
Yeol Eum Son
Hakan Hardenberger
Dover Quartet
Leif Ove Andsnes

Anthony Hardwicke is an Islington-based amateur pianist. He played Mozart and Scriabin for his LRSM diploma and attends Martino Tirimo’s class at Morley College. He also works part time as a chemistry teacher at Bradfield College.

(Images from Rosendal Chamber Music Festival)