Part two
Day Two on Straddie dawned
bright and extremely fair. And with a whole lot of music in prospect.
At 8am, breakfast
was served at the concert hall … I broke my fast on a spinach and feta
(obligatory combo these days) muffin, a cheese and bacon muffin, and a nice cup
of tea and a chat before we all filed into the SRO hall. The back wall of the
hall is glass, so you look out past the performers on to the sunshiney sea …
when there’s no breeze the glass doors can even be opened, alas, not today …
The concert was
Spanish themed and we started with a mixture of Spanish poetry, familiar guitar
solos by Tarregas and Albéniz (Schaupp), and six of de Falla’s characteristic
Spanish songs (Suite populár Española)
transcribed for piano and cello (King, Hankinson). The audience, which was
already tapping its feet to the guitar dissolved into hilarity as the two
artists put on a veritable high-comic double act, before launching into their
music, accompanied by an obbligato from a tree full of crows.
Then came the
serious stuff. The heart of the concert. Francis Poulenc’s only extant Violin
Sonata. Not Spanish, Monsieur Poulenc, but the connection here with Spain is
that the composer dedicated the work, goodness knows why, to the bones of the
writer Garcia Lorca.
Apparently, so the
programme note tells us, Poulenc disliked writing for solo string: ‘the violin
prima donna over piano arpeggio ..’. Well, he certainly didn’t write like that.
The violin in his sonata is a prima donna only to the piano’s primo tenore and
the tenore frequently takes the front stage in a genuine partnership which, I
have to agree with the musician, is vastly more satisfying than the
old-fashioned way.
The work
encompasses a mountain of moods, beautiful melody, excitement and, if it does
not showcase the players’ technique in such an obvious way as the Szymanowksi,
it has all those other human qualities that the earlier piece lacks. This is a
very wonderful piece of music, it was beautifully played (Smith, Hankinson),
and I shall be vastly surprised if it does not walk off with the Kurt Award for
the Best Item of the Straddie Festival 2017.
But it will be no
walkover. If there were an Audience Prize I have a suspicion that this morning
it might have gone to the cleverly-placed last item on the programme: good old
Boccherini’s quintet number 4 in D major (Rowell, Smith, Henbest, King,
Schaupp). After a delightful pastorale and allegro maestoso, and a touch of
assai grave, Signor B launches his players into a vigorous and lively Fandango.
Ball, game, set and match. You can’t do better for a finale than can-can or a
fandango. And this is a super one. It brought our audience to its combined
feet, cheering and bubbling with felicity. I’ve never seen so many beaming
countenances heading for the ‘Way Out’.
So, back to the
digs for a wee bite and breather and then … a lavish afternoon of Teutonic
tones: Schubert, Schumann, Brahms …
Well, concert number
three rendered nothing to the first two in glory and enjoyment. We started off
with the Schubert Fantasy in F minor for piano duo (Emmerson, Hankinson), moved
on to the Schumann Märchenbilder for
viola and piano (Henbest, Hankinson), and finished up with Brahms’ Clarinet
Trio in A Minor (Stafford, de Wit, Emmerson). All mature works, as Eric de Wit
reminded us in his introduction. He also twinklingly commented on the fact that
this was ‘a concert without a violin!’. Mrs de Wit is violinist and festival supremo
Rachel Smith.
What can you say
about three such masterpieces? Not a lot! Just that they are masterpieces and
that each of them was wholly given their due. I think the audience’s favourite
this time was the piano duo, which rises so effectively from its delicate and
familiar little theme to great storms of passion. Mr Piano was given a through
workout in all his registers. His voyage across the bay for his annual working
holiday on the Island has been a ‘none shall sleep’ one.
The viola suite is
full of Schumannic charm. I don’t think the ‘stories’ are meant to represent
any specific fairytales which we know today, but they have a personality, each
one, of its own, and – well, admission time, I have a particular affection for
the viola, especially when played as it was here by Caroline Henbest. The last
‘melancolische’ one was my favourite.
For the stayers
amongst us, the evening brought a performance by the Joseph Tawadros Quartet.
Mr T is an outstanding performer on the oud. No, not the Oxford University
Dictionary. It is an Arab instrument which … well, I’ll find out today at the
last concerts at Dunwich. For, for me, it was panned barramundi and chips and a bottle of
Oyster Bay at Cisco’s delightful new little café, near the hall, and – while Mr
Piano had his legs removed, prior to the next leg of his tour, from Lookout
Point to the second date’s hall at Dunwich, I folded myself into my comfy white
bed and slept very, very soundly…
No comments:
Post a Comment