Rosendal Chamber Music Festival

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.

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)

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.

View the full programme

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…