Franck : Violin Sonata
Chausson : Concert for violin, piano and string quartet
Augustin Dumay, violin
Jean-Frédéric Neuburger, piano
Quatuor Modigliani
This was a lovely programme for an early evening concert in the context of the International Piano Festival of La Roque d'Anthéron. Written within 3-5 years of each other, the Sonata by a much-revered composer near the end of his life, the Concert by a still-developing thirty-something student of the former, and both given their premieres by the great Belgian violinist Eugène Ysaÿe, we're in high Art Nouveau mode, the musical equivalent of Mucha posters, or Lalique jewellery, rich, elaborate, colourful and passionate. If the Franck, however, has been a staple of most solo violinists' repertoire since its creation, the Chausson is, regrettably, far less well known, despite being a true masterpiece of the French Late Romantic repertory.
On the other hand, under the circumstances, it's as well the Franck is as much of a standard as it is, and that Augustin Dumay has surely played it a hundred times or more. Open air concerts always carry an element of risk; this time, it was a playful little wind that kept flipping the performers' scores. The pages were eventually fixed (with judicious application of clothes' pins), and fortunately Dumay needed his more as a prompt than anything else, but it did mean that the first movement came across as (understandably) a trifle distracted.
The other matter that was less than ideal was the acoustic for the piano. Both of these pieces have complex, virtuoso, even volcanic piano parts, and while Jean-Frédéric Neuburger was certainly giving it his all, the projected sound, particularly in the middle of its range, sounded more than a little mushy, which was a pity. Dumay, however, was well up to the expected standard, his playing free-flowing and whole-hearted. To call it idiosyncratic would be putting it too strongly, but he does have his own way with phrasing at times, but it all functioned admirably, and with the addition of the Quatuor Modigliani for the Chausson, the control tightened up noticeably.
It's hard to describe the Concert; it's not a piano sextet, which implies an equality amongst the players that doesn't exist, but neither is it a violin concerto with piano and quartet filling in for an orchestra. It's more like an elaborate violin sonata, with quartet augmentation. Whatever it is, it's a breath-taking work, a forthright first movement flowering out of a minatory three-note cell, a nostalgic, lilting sicilienne, a brooding slow movement wound up to a pitch of frenzy mostly by the piano's obsessive repetitions, and the whole wrapped up in a fervent, ecstatic finale. It's a glorious piece, and was given a lustrous, impassioned reading from all concerned.
The lower instruments of the quartet in particular made a wonderfully rich sound, while Dumay's violin rode above, singing radiantly of untrammelled freedom. Like all the outstanding instrumental virtuosi, Ysaÿe left his mark on violin-playing as a whole, and the pieces associated with him, or written around him for a soloist approaching his calibre, have similar qualities in the violin writing, a wild, sweet-timbred lyricism, which is something that Dumay transmits extremely well. Whatever slight shortfalls were present in the Franck, apart from the acoustic of the piano (about which nothing could be done), there were none in the Chausson, and it was a delight to hear a performance of such conviction.
[Next : 27th July]
No comments:
Post a Comment