TWO CHAMBER CONCERTS

Purcell School with Estonian guests

While the Colosseum remains closed for alterations, orchestral concert organisers in Watford have a problem, which was especially acute on Sunday, January 30 when there were two concerts on the same day. The solution adopted by Watford Musical Heritage, long-standing collaborators with Classic Concerts Trust, was a recital of chamber music at the Constance Pilkington Hall of the Purcell School of Music.

Jonathan Brett, the regular conductor of the orchestral concerts, explained to the audience how, when teaching at a summer school in Estonia, he had met the performers at this recital: Anna-Lisa Bezrodny (violin) and Henry-David Varema ('cello), accompanied on this occasion by Alexander Karpeyev (piano).

The first half of their recital included several comparatively unfamiliar works. Estonian culture is influenced by its position and its difficult history (in my lifetime it has passed from independence to German and then Soviet rule and now back to independence). Its music has been influenced by its neighbour Finland, by Russia and by Germany and, underlying these, the Estonian folk tradition. So there was special interest in the Novella for solo piano by Medtner (1880-1951). He was of German extraction, born in Moscow and spent most of his life in Russia; he travelled widely, and from 1930 lived in London. This is an impressionistic work, in which one could perhaps notice reminiscences of Chopin in its lyricism, Brahms in its seriousness and the folk tradition in its liveliness.

Mendelssohn provided models for innumerable romantic works by composers in the century that followed the composition of his Piano Trio, opus 49. It is, of course, more familiar. Energetic as this Trio is, its inspiration falters. Perhaps that is why the interpretation by the Estonians, though almost impeccable technically, lacked conviction. Sometimes the virtuoso pianism almost drowned the strings.

Other works played were by Turina, Aarne and Rimsky-Korsakov. The promoters had made a virtue of necessity by giving us this adventurous programme.

Octagon Music Society

The Octagon Music Society too, in their recital earlier in the afternoon at the Clarendon Muse, provided novelty in the framework of familiar works, played by the Plane Dukes Rahman Trio - Robert Plane (clarinet), Phillip Dukes (viola) and Sophia Rahman (piano). Mozart's Trio in E flat (K. 498) for these instruments received a well balanced performance.

The viola has few solo opportunities, so the Konzertstueck for viola and piano, composed in 1908 by the Romanian Georges Enesco, was a good choice. Phillip Dukes explained that he was playing a modern instrument with some design features of the archaic viola d'amore, giving it a particularly full and sensitive tone. This was effectively exploited in the composer's romantic idiom, using the expressive lowest string, double stopping and contrasts in volume.

Among English composers, the reputation of Gerald Finzi (1901-56) for his instrumental compositions, as well as his songs, has grown in recent years. The Five Bagatelles for clarinet and piano are in various appealing forms. The two instruments achieved a good partnership and expressive phrasing. In the fifth piece, a Fughetta with a folk-song character, the players boldly ended pianissimo, as the score requires.

A folk character is also important in the Eight Pieces for clarinet, viola and piano, opus 83, composed in 1910 by Max Bruch. As contemplated by the composer, the Trio had selected two of these pieces, an Allegro con moto and an Allegro vivace ma non troppo. The Octagon Music Society did well to bring us this tuneful music by a composer mainly known for his more ambitious violin concerto.

Graham Mordue