First Schubertiade Evening

What a treat this week will be, to have some of my favourite pieces of music performed within the space of four days! The Vancouver Recital Society’s inspired Schubertiade, featuring the composer’s late works of Franz Schubert, began last night.

And what a start it was! I was particularly anxious to hear pianist Kuok-Wai Lio, who gave a remarkable recital on the Playhouse stage a few seasons back. Mr. Lio did not disappoint last evening. In fact, I believe that he has matured even more artistically since we last heard him. He began the concert with one of Schubert’s most dramatic, most Beethovenian work, the Sonata in C minor, D. 958. There were many magical moments in Lio’s playing of the work, but more than many artists, he really highlighted for me the kinship of Schubert’s instrumental works to his lieder. The spiritual and emotional world of this sonata is really that of Winterreise.

The artist navigated us through the many harmonic changes of the 1^st movement with great mastery, making them moving musical moments, as in the transition into E-flat major beginning at m. 27. In those mere two-dozen measures, the composer took us from the desperation of the opening chords to hope, and Lio really highlighted for me that magical transformation. The many pregnant pauses, especially in the first and second movements, were charged with meaning. Also remarkable was how he played the development of the opening movement, bringing out the absolute bleakness of the chromatic line in the left hand, and the restless broken chords in the right. The writing in this section is very much like the piano writing in Erstarrung, the fourth song from Winterreise.

In the second movement, marked Adagio, Schubert, through Lio, brought us into the emotional world of Das Wirtshaus, again from Winterreise. And again, the pianist acted as knowledgeable guide, taking us through the dramatic middle section before bringing us home (briefly) to the wistful opening theme. It was a remarkable journey. In the 4^th movement, I was reminded of Schubert’s early masterpiece Erlkönig. As in that earlier song, this movement is once again a wild ride through the forest. In the sudden appearance of the theme in C major at m. 67, Lio’s playing reminded me of the voice of the Erl-king, luring the child into his kingdom of death with his suave words.

Almost as a bit of an emotional relief, the next piece on the programme was the Fantasie in C major for violin and piano, D. 934, the composer’s attempt at virtuoso writing for the two instruments. If this work does not have the same emotional impact as the sonata, it is still a remarkable composition. The incredible collaboration between Lio and violinist Benjamin Beilman was stunning The two artists were together in every nuance of the piece. Although the violin part is slightly flashier, the piano part is much, much more than mere accompaniment. Both Lio and Beilman were at one from beginning to end, and it was a truly satisfying chamber music performance.

I had been really looking forward to the performance of Schubert’s String Quintet in C major, D. 956. The performers in this concert were the Doric String Quartet and cellist Gary Hoffman. I believe that in this incredible work, Schubert had already “crossed over” to the other side, and was staring at death in the eye. The performers last night were certainly in sync with the composer from the first note to last. The pacing in all four movements was impeccable. In the first and second movements, the hushed quality of the true pianissimos as well as the many moments of portentous silence were breathtaking. In the second movement - the emotional core of the entire work, the performers created the feeling that the music is only hanging by a thread, and found it difficult even to breathe, lest I break the magic of the moment. The explosion of sound in the third movement, and the almost wild dance of the fourth, although no less incredible musically, serve almost as a catharsis after the almost unbearable emotional intensity of the first two movements.

At a time when the recital season is winding to a close, we are so fortunate to have this mini-chamber music festival. I am certainly looking forward to the continuation of the musical journey in the next two concerts.

Patrick May

April 13, 2o16

On Hearing the Doric String Quartet

A performance by a string quartet is unusual fare for the Vancouver Recital Society, so when I was given tickets to a performance by Britain’s Doric String Quartet, I went with more than my unusual degree of anticipation for a musical performance. The quartet was only formed in 1998, and the musicians – violinists Alex Redington and Jonathan Stone, violist Simon Tandree, and cellist John Myerscough, who also acted as (eloquent) spokesman for the group – look like they are perhaps in their early thirties.

From the first notes of Haydn’s G minor quartet, Op. 20, No. 3, I felt that we were in for a very special afternoon. I can think of no higher compliment than to say that this group of young musicians produce a sound and play with a degree of maturity that reminded me of great quartets like the now disbanded Amadeus String Quartet.

In addition to the Haydn, the quartet essayed Erich Wolfgang Korngold’s String Quartet No. 3 in D major, Op. 34, the last of the composer’s three quartets, and Schubert String Quartet No. 14 in D minor, more famously known as Death and the Maiden.

Part of what makes a performance great is what goes on in between the notes. In the performance of the quartet yesterday, there was a magical quality in the silences, the spaces in between notes, and in between musical ideas. The musicians were helped by the wonderful acoustics of the Chan Centre of the Performing Arts, which gives the string sound a bloom, an “after-sound” that would have been missing in Vancouver’s other performing spaces.

I appreciated also the musicians’ choice of tempi in all three quartets, especially the tempo relationship between the movements of the three works performed. In the first and final movements of the Schubert, the quartet played it at a more than usually quick tempo, making the counterpoint extremely exciting. However, within the context of the work, these tempi, for lack of a better word, “worked”.

Of particular interest to me was the quartet’s performance of Korngold’s third quartet. An astonishing child prodigy, Korngold composed, in his early teens, works that were admired by Gustav Mahler. Forced into exile to Hollywood, the composer became the first of generations of film composers, a sort of John Williams of his day - but musically far more advanced and sophisticated. Written between 1944 to1945 and dedicated to conductor Bruno Walter, the quartet borrows significantly from the composer’s film music. Korngold’s last quartet alternates between passages of a post-Wagnerian chromaticism to lyrical and beautiful, and unapologetically diatonic melodies.

Korngold’s gorgeous violin concerto has a new found popularity in recent years. Perhaps the quartet’s magnificent performance of the composer’s quartets, both yesterday and in their recording, will lead to greater interest in his chamber music works.

Perhaps some members of the audience would have preferred the performance to have more of an “edge”. For me, the beauty, the quality of the sound made by these four musicians was what captured my attention yesterday afternoon. It would be interesting to hear this quartet playing the quartets of Shostakovich and Bartok, works that sometimes call for a bit of harshness in the sound.

Once again, we must be grateful to Leila Getz, artistic director of the Vancouver Recital Society, for bringing the Doric String Quartet to Vancouver for their Canadian debut. As for me, I would travel anywhere to hear this talented young ensemble again in a wide variety of repertoire, and in the very near future.