Sunday 6 December 2015

At Lunch 1 : More than two centuries of the horn in chamber music

This review considers Britten Sinfonia’s At Lunch 1 programme, given in Cambridge

More views of - or before - Cambridge Film Festival 2015 (3 to 13 September)
(Click here to go directly to the Festival web-site)

6 December (Britten Sinfonia Tweet added, 22 December)

This review considers Britten Sinfonia’s programme for At Lunch 1, given at West Road Concert Hall, Cambridge, on Tuesday 1 December 2015 at 1.00 p.m.


At Lunch 1, heard at West Road Concert Hall (@WestRoadCH), was an intriguing piece of programming from Britten Sinfonia (@BrittenSinfonia) – past experience would lead one to expect no less ! It looked at the connections between, and influence or resonance of, Beethoven’s Horn Sonata* and Brahms’ so-called Sonatensatz (please see below), which was not published until 1906 (after his death) :

Regarding the origins of the latter, there is a lovely account (on the web-site of The Kennedy Center), of Brahms, at the age of twenty, meeting violinist Joseph Joachim (five years after hearing him perform Beethoven's Violin Concerto, Opus 61), Joachim spending time with him and effecting an introduction to Clara and Robert Schumann, and how the latter was to acclaim Brahms, and thereby make his name known, in the Neue Zeitschrift für Musik (in an article called ‘New Paths’, which appeared in the edition dated 23 October 1853).

 As a result of meeting the Schumanns, as well as fellow composer Albert Dietrich, Brahms contributed a Scherzo** to a collaborative violin sonata, in honour of Joachim, and which was then presented to him : Dietrich wrote the first movement, and Schumann the second-movement Intermezzo and finale. This Scherzo is the Sonatensatz (which may sound grand in German, but just means a movement from a sonata).


1. Beethoven ~ Horn Sonata*, Opus 17 (1800)
2. Edward Nesbit (1986-) ~ Lifesize Gods (2015)
3. Brahms (1833-1897) ~ Sonatensatz (1853)
4. Huw Watkins (1976-) ~ Horn Trio (2008)


First, though, the Sinfonia’s principal pianist Huw Watkins and guest artist Richard Watkins on horn played (1) the Beethoven Horn Sonata*, Opus 17 (1800), after the latter had introduced it*** and, as we inevitably had an unvoiced query, answering it by telling us that they are no relation (though they first met through his having played with Huw’s brother ?).


Solo horn commences the sonata, which, in its opening, has strophic writing for the piano, with and around which the horn-player can then be both lyrical as well as declamatory (supported by the pianist). The writing of the Allegro moderato briefly gives us a moment of sadness, but Richard Watkins also brought out the score's considerable subtlety, and we could appreciate how the use of structure in the piece poses no obstacles to our appreciation of the instrument**, but is facilitative of its sound and of our embracing it.

 The very short Poco adagio has the effect, in the minor key, of more explicitly using the form of call and response, from the horn to the piano, and of so serving as a transition to the Rondo finale, marked Allegro molto, and which is characterized by lively triplets in the piano part, to performing which Huw Watkins brought great delicacy (as to the whole).

The mood and expressiveness of the movement do vary up and down, but, if a little ponderously, it builds to a climax, and then – on the verge of seeking harmonic resolution – the players are faced with the hesitancy with which Beethoven’s writing presents them. Needless to say, they enacted the emotion of this delay to perfection, and could then bring the work to its due conclusion.


If one had more time and concentration, novels such as this one would follow up Cambridge English graduate and novelist Ali Smith's excellent The Accidental


Edward Nesbit introduced his work (2) Lifesize Gods (2015), newly commissioned by the Sinfonia in conjunction with Wigmore Hall, and (as he no doubt was to do at Wigmore Hall (@wigmore_hall) - please see below) confirmed the programme-notes in telling us that the title refers to Ali Smith’s novel How to be both, and her character Francesco del Cossa’s himself being commissioned (to make a fresco), but without adding more context – one guesses that one has to refer to the novel. He said that the first movement was very short, had been worked on this time last year, and used repetitions of bars, chords, or even notes, whereas the second had been through-composed.
In that opening section, one was aware of a sense that, amongst these repetitions, there was a trapped space between the aetherial writing for violin (the Sinfonia’s leader, Jacqueline Shave) and that, of a ‘light’ and disembodied character, for horn (Richard Watkins). As it developed, there were further contrasts, and momentum built, but it did not break free long. In the violin part, though, there came an impression of an air, or of a gig, and the direction became less restrained, even fantasy like, as the back of the movement felt to be broken open. Nonetheless, hesitation, and the recurrence of the repetitive elements, led us to an end.



 The second movement definitely felt inspired by dance, and there were to be reminders, first of Stravinsky, and then of Messiaen. Also, the motif of call and answer that had been part of the Beethoven sonata, as well as Nesbit's using, at one point, a massive suspension of the sound of the horn over quite staccato piano and a light pizzicato : grasping a sense of the whole, or of its structure, proved fairly difficult, however, and not conducive of attempting to take more notes. Lifesize Gods was well received, and Nesbit took a bow.




Come (3) the Brahms, and, despite a description of it as good fun – and harmless (by William Murdoch, quoted on the web-site of The Kennedy Center), those who know and love his writing for chamber combinations such as violin and piano, or cello and piano, will concur with the Center, in going on to say that, although written when Brahms was still very young, the music bears his characteristic qualities : rich harmonic vocabulary, insistent rhythmic vitality, a sure sense of motivic growth and full textures.


 As Sinfonia leader Jacqueline Shave joined Huw Watkins as duo partner, one largely decided just to relish the Brahmsian flavour, so no note was made beyond :

* Vibrant, and at his spirited best

 * Was this completed by Brahms elsewhere ?


Continuing with this attitude, one abandoned the idea of making review-notes for Huw Watkins’ striking (4) Horn Trio (2008), and fully engaged with the work, and later, to sum up the experience, simply Tweeted :
End-notes

 * Apparently (according to Wikipedia®), the score bears the title Sonata for Piano with Horn or Violoncello (Sonate pour le Forte-Piano avec un Cor ou Violoncelle), and thus listing the keyboard instrument first…

** Brahms’ contribution to the sonata, whose manuscript score had been kept by Joachim, was not released for publication until just before Joachim died, and the complete sonata was only published in 1935 (although Schumann had incorporated his part in it into his Violin Sonata No. 3).</

*** History has never stood in the way of a good story about Beethoven’s score being unready for a first performance (e.g. what was famously reported by Ignaz van Seyfried, about the solo part’s incompleteness, when the composer played his own Piano Concerto No. 3 (in C Minor, Op. 37), and he had the job of turning what pages there were).

Whatever may be true, of exactly when (and in what way) the sonata for horn virtuoso Giovanni Punto came to be written (and, so, whether calls for an encore were compromised by Beethoven’s having only written out the cello part, not his own), we may never know. However, it is maybe just as much part of a myth as the one about Mozart (not borne out by autograph scores), and perpetuated by Amadeus (1984) in its way, that his compositions were written straight out perfectly.




 Unless stated otherwise, all films reviewed were screened at Festival Central (Arts Picturehouse, Cambridge)
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