Intermezzo

Schiff shaped Haydn

András Schiff - Wigmore Hall, 29 May 2009 and 31 May 2009
Quatuor Mosaïques - Wigmore Hall, 29 May 2009

Even in this, his anniversary year, Haydn remains curiously overlooked and undervalued. Wigmore Hall redressed the balance a little this weekend with a minifest that ended with acutely Haydnesque precision on the exact bicentenary of his death. I managed half of it, missing out on the opening evening of piano trios and two of Quatuor Mosaïques' three string quartet programmes.

My starter was András Schiff's Friday afternoon lecture recital, based around some pieces he would play in full on Sunday morning. His format - plays a bit, talks a bit, plays a bit more, etc - has the estimable advantage that he can demonstrate precisely what he's going on about, bar by bar. He picks his words carefully as if he has a limited supply and doesn't want to waste any, but he spreads them broadly - history, theory, anecdote, opinion, example. All without sheet music and without notes. Haydn's sense of humour doesn't leap out and grab you (as this recent article by Schiff points out) and neither does Schiff's. But he is far, far funnier than you would ever expect, and again like Haydn, understands how to time a moment's silence to perfection.

And not just that. Such are the Schiff skillz that he could also demonstrate Haydn's inventive genius by showing the opposite. His extemporised reworkings in lesser composer style, complete with safe modulations and predictable phrases and obvious cadences, brilliantly illustrated his comments on the solidity of Haydn's architecture and the daring of his harmonic language.  Understanding what something is, especially something as elusively-wrought and intangible as timeless music, is made so much easier when you find out what it isn't.

A lengthy unscheduled break to deal with some sort of audience medical emergency stretched the afternoon to two and a half hours. That's longer than the Sunday morning recital itself, which at two hours for £12, free sherry included, was something of a bargain.

One of Schiff's contentions is that by relegating Haydn to an opening act, modern concert programmes further his undeserved reputation for dullness. Neither performer nor audience - and no composer demands your full attention like Haydn - is warmed up and receptive. So why not chance a 100% Haydn programme now and again?

His utterly captivating Sunday recital proved it can work. The early Capriccio in G major is based on the faintly silly premise of an Austrian folk song about castrating a pig and sparkles with inventiveness, not least in the startling chromaticism (in 1765!) of its central episode. Schiff's crisp articulation and sparing pedalling respected its harpsichord origins.

The Sonata in G minor HXVI:44 displayed his talent for bringing out voicings as the tiny three-note theme recurred again and again. He held the suspended bass note in the C major Fantasy exactly as the composer requested - finche non si sente più il suono - until the sound is not heard any more - a pause of several seconds. And repeated it a few bars later. Technically, if you know the work, neither should surprise, but Schiff has mastered the actor's trick of seeming failure to anticipate. Haydn's humour is not the sort that builds up to a punchline. It's abrupt, unexpected and it has to seem fresh-minted every time if it's going to work. Schiff is naturally attuned to this, as his lecture showed.

The Sonata in E minor HXVI:34 perhaps demonstrates Haydn's prolixity more than his genius but Schiff lavished it with no less care and respect than anything else he played. Schiff displayed Haydn's rarely-exposed introspective side with a winning intimacy in the F minor Variations, and he finished with perhaps the greatest of Haydn's piano works, the Sonata in E flat HXVI:52.  

I regretted only having time to make one of Quatuor Mosaïques' three recitals. Their performance of the first three Op.20 quartets was marked by the warmth of their gut strings, near vibrato-free clarity and perfect balance. The odd squeak and flaw merely emphasised that in a live performance, anything can happen.

 

What's on in London in May

There's always plenty on in London musically speaking, but May looks particularly busy.

For starters, at the Royal Opera House, Diana Damrau and Giuseppe Filianoti take a roll in the hay for the first revival of Laurent Pelly's L'elisir d'amore. Il trovatore and Lohengrin are still around too.

At the ENO, David Alden's hotly-anticipated new Peter Grimes opens. Stuart Skelton, Amanda Roocroft, Gerald Finley and Felicity Palmer sing, Edward Gardner conducts. The second new production of the month is film director Abbas Kiarostami's first venture into opera, Così fan tutte.

Purcell's King Arthur is performed in concert at the Barbican on 6 May by Le Concert Spirituel. There are limited *free* tickets for under-26's for this one (check out the freeB link on the Barbican site).

17 May is Handel-fest day. Christopher Hogwood's Academy of Ancient Music bring Arianna in Creta to the Barbican. Miah Persson, Lisa Milne and Sonia Prina appear as originally scheduled, but Kristina Hammarström replaces the previously-announced Angelika Kirchschlager.

The performance starts at 6.30pm, so there should be (just) enough time to get there from Zurich Opera's Agrippina, which begins at 2pm in the Royal Festival Hall. The impressive cast joining Marc Minkowski and Zurich Opera's specialist period ensemble, Orchestra La Scintilla, includes Vesselina Kasarova, Eva Liebau, Marijana Mijanovic and Anna Bonitatibus.

The other operatic event worth mentioning is not in London at all, but in Manchester.  Over two nights, 9 and 10 May, Mark Elder and the Hallé Orchestra perform Götterdämmerung in concert at the Bridgewater Hall, with Katarina Dalayman as Brünnhilde. If this was in London, tickets would go in a flash, but there are still plenty of seats available.  Manchester is clearly a harder sell. It rather underlines the folly of the Royal Opera House's plans to create a Mancunian outpost. Northern opera lovers may be dedicated - there just aren't a lot of them.

On 31 May, Rene Pape joins Vladimir Jurowski and the LPO at the Royal Festival Hall for the UK premiere of Torsten Rasch's 2003 song cycle Mein Herz brennt. This is (loosely) based on the music of headbanging German industrial metallers Rammstein - a fact the Southbank promo guff intriguingly fails to mention. Not as scary as it sounds though, as the source material is engulfed by Jurowski's favoured big-boned retro-nouveau Eastern bloc neo-romanticism (or Vladcore for short).

On a smaller scale, there are lots of recitals this month, including the big one, Anna Netrebko and Dmitri Hvorostovsky at the Royal Festival Hall on 19 May.

At Wigmore Hall Kate Royal sings Schumann and Brahms on 7 May, and there's a solo recital from the great Jordi Savall the day after. On 19 May (the same date as Netrebko/Hvorostovsky unfortunately) Mojca Erdmann, Christian Gerhaher and Gerold Huber tackle Wolf's Italienisches Liederbuch. The Wigmore's busy Haydn weekend begins on 29 May with an András Schiff lecture recital at 2pm.

And there are a few more Wigmore day time events worth mentioning. On 12 May at 2pm there's a *free* recital of Kurtag and Schubert by Jonathan Biss, which will be recorded for the Wigmore's own label. On 18 May at 1pm Anne Schwanewilms sings Debussy, Strauss and Wolf, and on 25 May at 1pm Ingrid Fliter plays Chopin and Schumann.

Philip Glass makes a rare appearance at the Barbican on 26 May for an evening of chamber music.

The fabulous Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain plink and twang at the Cadogan Hall on 5 May.

One of the most intriguing events of the month is a Barbican concert on 30 May. Various artists including the Britten Sinfonia perform the Music of Moondog , and there are companion pre, post and interval events, including an 11.30pm concert at St Giles Cripplegate, Moondog Around Midnight .

Hanno Muller-Brachmann and Andras Schiff at Wigmore Hall

Hanno Müller-Brachmann / András Schiff - Wigmore Hall, 8 January 2008

Schubert Willkommen und Abschied; Versunken;
An Schwager Kronos; Meeres Stille; Prometheus
Mendelssohn Variations sérieuses in D minor Op. 54
Busoni 5 Goethe Lieder
Wolf 3 Michelangelo Lieder
Brahms Four Serious Songs

Encores: Schubert Der Musensohn   Brahms Wiegenlied

How do you fill the house for a Wigmore Hall debut by a little-known singer? Simple. Hanno Müller-Brachmann may not be a big name, but András Schiff doesn't share the stage with just any old singer. Result - a capacity crowd.

Some may have been aware of Müller-Brachmann from his frequent and highly-acclaimed appearances in his native Germany - though I suspect many were simply curious about this seeming unknown who nevertheless bears the Schiff stamp of approval.

But judging by some of the disparaging comments I heard in the interval, not to mention the number of glaringly empty seats for the second half, a fair few were disappointed. 

For like Fischer-Dieskau before him, Hanno Müller-Brachmann is not afraid to chop up a musical line or two in service of the text. The result, from a purely sonic perspective, can be forceful and disjointed. Not at all pretty.

Schubert suffered but Goethe gained from Müller-Brachmann's almost conversational delivery. The tunes were rendered unwhistleable but the diction was immaculate, each syllable precisely weighted, each word considered. Even the languorous line of Meeres Stille was translated into a deliberate and disturbing recitative. An Schwager Kronos galloped; Prometheus thundered. Schiff took something of a back seat, his usual tendency to pick out and accentuate inner voices nowhere apparent. Here his contribution was muted, faster passages often lightly smudged, cushioning the vocal line rather than framing it with precision.

The Busoni selection - more Goethe - showed a a genuine comic sensibility, without resort to any silly effects.

The second half's Wolf and Brahms displayed a few chinks in Müller-Brachmann's armour, with their greater demand for smoothness of line. A slight wavering on held notes and a dry tone lacking in true luxuriance were the main drawbacks, though his lowest bass notes were admirably rich and chocolatey.

The programme was put together by Schiff, and his immaculately-constructed reading of Mendelssohn’s Variations sérieuses punctuated the first half. A little something for those unconvinced by Müller-Brachmann.

Radu Lupu wishes Steven Isserlis a happy birthday

Steven Isserlis Birthday Concert (Radu Lupu / András Schiff /Joshua Bell / Dame Felicity Lott / Mark Padmore /Jeremy Denk) - Wigmore Hall, 16 December 2008

Bach Italian Concerto in F BWV 971 (Schiff); Haydn She never told her love; The spirit's song; Dvorák Die Stickerin Op. 82 No. 2; Frühling Op. 82 No. 3; Am Bache Op. 82 No. 4; Lasst mich allein Op. 82 No. 1 (Lott/Padmore/Schiff); Schumann Arabeske in C Op. 18; Kinderszenen Op. 15 (Lupu); Janácek Violin Sonata (Bell/Denk); Fauré Clair de lune Op. 46 No. 2; Nell Op. 18 No. 1; Soir Op. 83 No. 2; Mandoline No. 1 from 'Cinq mélodies de Venise' Op. 58   (Lott/Padmore/Lupu); Schubert Fantasie in F minor (Lupu/Schiff) 

Encore: Schubert Rondo in A Major (Lupu/Schiff) 

Extra: Beethoven Bagatelle Op.119, No.10 (Schiff) 

This concert was by some distance the hottest ticket of the Wigmore season. Just look at what was on offer. To start with, András Schiff, Joshua Bell, Felicity Lott and Mark Padmore, any of whom could sell out the hall in no time on their own. Plus the elusive legend Radu Lupu, rarely seen, ever coveted. And it was all in honour of the fiftieth birthday of the much-loved Steven Isserlis, here of course in person though not on stage.

Normally, it's not hard to pick up a returned ticket from the Wigmore Hall website close to the day, even for sell-outs, but not this time. There was a long and mostly to be disappointed queue for last minute returns in the foyer when I arrived. How I treasured my own ticket. A crappy corner seat, but a seat, nonetheless.

A swift Happy Birthday from the audience, accompanied by house manager David on piano, then it was on to the real business. Or not quite.  After reminding us that it was Beethoven's birthday today, not Steven Isserlis's (which is really on Friday) András Schiff paid tribute with an unscheduled dash through a tiny Bagatelle (Op.119, No.10) - then ran through it again for luck. Here it is - the whole piece:

 

Schiff began the programme proper in celebratory mood with Bach's sunny Italian Concerto, enriching it with luxuriantly arpeggiated chords. Here's one he made earlier, for Japanese TV:

He was joined by Felicity Lott and Mark Padmore for a group of Haydn and Dvorák songs. Schiff, always a generous and intelligent collaborator with singers, captured beautifully the veiled resignation of Haydn's lengthy prelude to the first, She never told her love (from Viola's speech to Orsino in Twelfth Night). It tells the story almost better than the words do - delivered here compellingly and occasionally stridently by Mark Padmore.

Felicity Lott handled the eerie chromatic runs of The spirit's song, as so often with 'minor' Haydn sounding at moments about a century before its time. Her voice is now sounding rather fibrous at the top, but still has great allure, and the ability to shape a song intelligently remains entirely undimmed.

The biggest draw of the evening though was Radu Lupu, who appears to favour village halls far from London for his rare UK appearances these days. Unassuming to a tee, he shuffled looking like Fidel Castro's chubby elder brother. He settled into his habitual sawn-off chair to commune with the piano, singing quietly to himself as he played - as if he were in his own front room playing to an audience of none.

Just as you lean in to listen to someone who speaks quietly, so Lupu's playing invites almost conspiratorial attention. It's not just that he plays quietly (though that he does), it's the near-fetishistic attention to detail that pulls you in. Lupu observed Schumann's markings rigorously but entirely without the least breath of exaggeration. It was his own subtle inflections of these - an near-imperceptible acceleration into a ritardando for example - that turned every note into something intensely personal.

As with the Kurtág miniatures Isserlis himself exquisitely performed a couple of weeks ago in this very spot (a concert I didn't find time to write up), there was the sense that every single note of Schumann's Arabeske and Kinderszenen counted, that each had been considered and justly weighted. Even the usually brash tones of the Wigmore Hall Steinway seemed subdued beneath his fingers. Science tells us that because the piano is a percussion instrument, the tone quality of a note is the same whoever hits it, but those rare few like Lupu - and Sokolov is another - seem able to defy even the fixed laws of the universe.

Time for an ice-cream.

After the interval, Joshua Bell and Jeremy Denk were the unlucky pair who had to Follow That. If their immaculate and spirited gallop through Janácek's Violin Sonata didn't quite hit the spot, comparison was at least partly to blame.

Back came Radu Lupu in the unaccustomed guise of accompanist to Mark Padmore and Felicity Lott in a selection of dreamy Fauré songs. Mark Padmore found himself rather high up the stave for comfort, and though the notes themselves were achieved, his vowels suffered as a result in Nell and Soir. Felicity Lott demonstrated her expertise in this repertoire with the serene beauty of Mandoline and Clair de lune underpinned by Lupu's sympathetic piano. If he had seemed entirely self-contained for his solo performance, here he proved he could be a painstaking listener too as he cushioned and conversed with the vocal line.

The finale found Lupu's chair to the right of Schiff's more conventional piano stool for Schubert's four-handed Fantasie in F minor. Could they do better than the last pairing I heard, Lang Lang and his mini-me at the Proms?  The bar could hardly be set lower - and the response could not be more contrasted. The sympathy and generosity of both pianists was evident in their extreme restraint, even the epic climaxes handled with delicacy.

The loudly-demanded encore saw Lupu and Schiff swapping seats for Schubert's Rondo in A Major, in some aspects even more perfectly weighted than the Fantasie.

Some birthday present. Happy birthday Steven Isserlis!

Steven Isserlis leaves the stage, followed by András Schiff: 

Raise your handkerchiefs for András Schiff

András Schiff - Wigmore Hall, 9 September 2008

 

There's always one, isn't there?

This time, it was the total t1t who, like the rest of the audience, sat silent throughout the hundred non-stop spellbinding minutes of András Schiff's Goldberg Variations. Then erupted with an almighty cough about 2 milliseconds after Schiff had struck his last note. Before his fingers had even left the keyboard! 

Was it a set-up? Who knows (- Schiff is notoriously touchy about interruptions - and why shouldn't he be?)

Score-free and pedal-less, the performance had all the Schiff trademarks of intelligence and clarity. He made his points strongly and unequivocally, sometimes controversially. His tuneseeking tendency to cleave to a line could destabilise and unbalance. And though the strange dissonances of variation 25 were quite properly emphasised before resolution, I'm not sure they needed quite the bold caps double underlining they received. But he didn't, as some before him have done, chicken out when it came to the rapidfire super-virtuoso sections, appreciating the need for balance in tempos as in every other aspect of the work. It was a performance that reached the intellect more than the heart perhaps, but still a stunning achievement.

Afterwards, he seemed genuinely touched to receive the Wigmore Medal for his contribution (over 30 years!) to the musical life of Wigmore Hall. And despite his pianothon, he even managed a coherent and graceful speech of thanks, the coughing interloper apparently forgotten.

Andras Schiff's Schubert marathon

András Schiff - Wigmore Hall, 15 May 2008

Schubert – Impromptus, D.899, Moments Musicaux, D.780, Drei Klavierstücke, D.946, Impromptus, D.935

It rarely seemed that way, but this was an unusually long evening, with a 90 minute first half and another half an hour in the second. I'm not sure of the purpose of stuffing so much into the first half, but the main effect was to underline how much less consequential the six Moments Musicaux are than the Impromptus and Klavierstücke Schiff framed them with.

Schiff had performed the same programme in the Wigmore Hall the previous evening. How draining that had been is a matter of speculation. But Schiff made a surprising number of clunky errors in the first set of Impromptus. Painting with a broad brush, sparing of pedal, he took a bold and decisive line. His left hand sang out purposefully -- it was grave and relentless stuff, with little of the improvisatory flavour of his playful approach the last time I heard him perform these pieces.

He seemed reluctant to take a break between these and the Moments Musicaux which followed. Visibly itching for the applause to end, he launched in as soon as was decent, and seemed suddenly more relaxed and able to explore a lighter lyrical side, though again without great refinement of detail.

With the Drei Klavierstücke, again kicked off after a pause of mere seconds, he returned to the bold outlines of the earlier part of the programme, as if he had plenty to say but nothing left to ask.

The break between the first and second half seemed to rejuvenate Schiff. With the D.935 Impromptus he was fully alert to the interplay of line and gave a considerably more detailed, considered and frankly musical performance. Particularly in the startlingly forward-looking final F minor Impromptu, Schiff finally sounded as if he had unlocked something not only in Schubert but also in himself.

Encoring with Schubert's Hungarian Melody D.817, Schiff bizarrely sounded more far more energised and alive than he had at the start of the recital, cleverly leaving us wanting more. And after over two hours of performance, that's no mean feat.

This video is part of a masterclass Schiff gave - it's interesting in the context of what I noticed in the recital to see how he's focussing more on what his student should take out than on what she needs to put in:

Beethoven's piano sonatas - the Andras Schiff lectures

This may be a timely point for a reminder that in 2006 András Schiff gave a highly informative and insightful series of lecture-recitals at the Wigmore Hall in parallel to his Beethoven sonata series. They are still available on the Guardian website, here.

Angelika Kirchschlager shouts some Schubert

Angelika Kirchschlager/András Schiff - Wigmore Hall, 6 November 2007

Angelika Kirchschlager is capable of singing very beautifully indeed. A fresh-minted sweetness and purity of tone are her hallmarks, and that's exactly how she packaged most of her higher notes in tonight's Brahms/Schubert recital.

But it was disappointing (to those of us who go in for that sort of thing anyway) she chose to deploy her lower register in a semi-conversational style bordering on sprechgesang. In the lighter songs - like Brahms's Och Moder - it was comically effective. But elsewhere it was over-employed to the point of mannerism. I can't recall noticing this in her singing before (at least not to this extent). Not one true chest note all night, so I don't think it can be passed off as interpretive choice. Illness, affectation, nerves? -- baffling.

At the other end, her highest notes were paper-thin, so it's perhaps fortunate the programme had been judiciously selected to minimise these.

She remains at least a marvellous actress, with an ability to bring songs to life physically even where the vocals are lacking. In the elegant silky bias-cut dress pictured above, and painful looking high pointy stilettos she commanded the stage.

The evening was billed as 'Songs with and without words', and accordingly each half was bisected with a group of short piano solos. Although the sort of thing András Schiff might have had difficulty working into a regular piano recital, here they slotted in neatly. He gave a typically poised and thoughtful reading of three Brahms Intermezzi inspired by poems, and later on cut loose for three characterful Schubert pieces, from the songlike Hungarian Melody to the rumbunctious Grazer Galopp. They're pieces you might not get to hear very often, unless you play them yourself, so were all the more welcome.

Brahms Wach auf mein Herzensschöne; Es steht ein Lind: Da unten im Tale Op. 97 no. 6; Och Moder, ich well en Ding han!; Vor dem Fenster Op. 14 No. 1; Feinsliebchen, du sollst mir nicht barfuß gehn; In stiller Nacht;
3 Intermezzi Op. 117;
Von waldbekränzter Höhe Op. 57 No. 1; Wenn du nur zuweilen lächelst Op. 57 No. 2; Es träumte mir, ich sei dir teuer Op. 57 No. 3; Ach, wende diesen Blick Op. 57 No. 4; Unbewegte laue Luft Op. 57 No. 8

Schubert An Silvia D. 891; Der liebliche Stern D. 861; Geheimes D. 719; Wiegenlied D. 867;
Hungarian Melody in B minor D817; Allegretto in C minor D915; Grazer Galopp in C D925;
Am Bach im Frühling D. 361; Der Pilgrim D. 794; Lied des Florio D. 857 No. 2; An den Mond D. 259; Sehnsucht D. 636