**** (4 stars)
“Another excellent evening”
Another excellent evening in the Brunton’s series featuring principals from the Scottish Chamber Orchestra. This time viola player Max Mandel strolled into the spotlight and gave us the opportunity to get to know him a little and really to hear the viola’s distinctive, smoky-rich sweetness separated out from the orchestral texture in which it usually plays its often overlooked but essential part. Why were so many composers viola players? Mozart , Benjamin Britten, Frank Bridge, to name a few – perhaps because it meant they were right in the middle of the action, central to the harmonies, and able to hear everything going on around them…
Some of Schumann’s Märchenbilder opened the programme, with Max’s viola singing alongside John Cameron’s piano – sometimes the latter’s enthusiastic playing meant that the viola’s rich tone got lost, but overall it was a lovely exercise in 19th century romantic music, lyrical and flowing, flavoured at times with gypsy overtones.
Pieces by the 20th century composer Frank Bridge immediately brought a clearer, cleaner sound, with more modern harmonies. The two instruments conducted more of a dialogue, overlapping and interrupting each other, and at times going their individual ways, each hardly taking notice of the other. There was enthusiastic skittering about, still, lyrical moments, a wonderfully hypnotically swaying berceuse and a lively serenade with a guitar-like accompaniment.
Ralph Vaughan Williams was, like Frank Bridge, a pupil of Anglo-Irish composer Charles Villiers Stanford. His Romance featured a gentle accompaniment reminiscent of Debussy’s Cathédral engloutie [the drowned cathedral] above which the viola soared. There was a great feeling of spaciousness within the music, which swelled passionately and then sank gently, like the sea, before a final virtuoso outburst from the viola ended with a final shining high and quiet note.
Listening to a whole evening of ‘new to the ear’ music is challenging and, though I was enjoying all I heard, it was also proving quite hard work. Yet another new piece now faced me – Max Bruch’s Romanze, originally written for viola and orchestra. Up to now, I’d been listening with my brain – this piece took me by surprise and spoke directly to my heart. The opening’s soaring wistful melody nearly reduced me to tears, the whole piece wore its heart on its sleeve, and all I could write was ‘magic’.
American composer Morton Feldman is another known to me by name but not by music. The viola in my life, written for the violist in his life, was an extraordinary succession of small, delicate, elongated notes launched into long silences and underpinned by small, delicate chords on the piano. I was slightly distracted by the nearly-but-not-quite silent small person sitting behind me, and found it hard after a while to connect all these interjections into the silence. There was a rapidly climbing phrase and then – it was over. Very impressive technically, but hard for me to relate to.
The final offering of the evening was Rebecca Clarke’s viola sonata – yet another piece I’d not heard before, by a composer who was equally unknown to me. Born in 1886, she became internationally known as a viola virtuoso and one of the first female professional orchestral players in London. Although not prolific in her output, she wrote a number of pieces for instruments including the viola. My companion had come to this concert specifically to hear this sonata and really enjoyed it. I loved the impetuoso first movement and the skipping virtuosity of the two players in the second movement. I have to confess to losing the plot somewhat in the third and final movement – my brain was beginning to turn to jelly from the effort of making sense of yet more new-to-me music – but I enjoyed the piece and would welcome the opportunity to hear it again soon.
The small but perfectly formed audience were loud in their applause for both Max Mandel and John Cameron but they were not to be tempted into an encore – we had, Max had said, heard them earlier in the evening! It was a very enjoyable evening all round: and I look forward to the next concert in the series, though as yet I don’t have any details – watch this space!
Music at the Brunton: Max Mandel (viola) with John Cameron (piano), Northesk Parish Church, Musselburgh, RUN ENDED.
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