Friday, April 1, 2022

Harpsichordist Mahan Esfahani was in Israel to perform at the Felicja Blumental Music Festival - "Magic Carpet" with Myrna Herzog (viola da gamba) and pieces from Bach's Well-Tempered Clavier at a concert with Zvi Meniker and Robert Markham


 

Magic Carpet

Myrna Herzog, Mahan Esfahani (Yoel Levy)

 

The Felicja Blumental International Music Festival was founded in 1999 by Annette Céline to honour the memory of her mother, acclaimed 20th Century pianist, Felicja Blumental. In Tel Aviv’s longest-running classical music Festival, Céline served as artistic director until her death in 2017. Today, under the directorship of Avigail Arnheim and Idit Magal (Felicja Blumental Music Center), the festival, taking place annually at the Tel Aviv Museum of Art, continues to honour the memory of both Felicja Blumental and Annette Céline. At a cocktail party prior to two concerts featuring harpsichordist Mahan Esfahani on March 24th 2022, we had the pleasure of meeting guests of honour - Brazilian Ambassador to Israel, his wife and members of his office - as well as Arnheim and Magal. 

 

"Magic Carpet'' took place in the gallery of the Mizne-Blumental Collection, a room that has housed a permanent comprehensive exhibition of early 20th-century European art since 1993, and in which a portrait of Felicja Blumental hangs. Performing together for the first time, harpsichordist Mahan Esfahani (Iran/UK/Czech Republic) and Myrna Herzog (Brazil/Israel) - viola da gamba. - played a program of works from the 17th- to 21st centuries. Opening the event was guest-of-honour, Gerson Menandro Garcia de Freitas, Brazilian Ambassador to Israel. The Ambassador spoke of Herzog and Esfahani as upholding the high artistic standards set by Felicja Blumental, a pianist and composer who had made Brazil her new home.

 

The program began with François Couperin's 9th Concert - 'Ritratto dell'Amore" (Portrait of Love) - from the composer's Concerts Royaux.  Herzog and Esfahani gave expression to the work's elegance and good humour - the energetic (even rakish) playfulness of the livelier dances, graced with the gamba's rippling inégal passages, with the refined discourse of the more tranquil movements rich in harpsichord spreads. Delivering the work suggesting the charms of an imaginary beloved, the artists' suave performance of this chamber music, written for the enjoyment of Louis XIV, was most pleasing, as it intimated French taste on a more private, human scale. 

 

The evening's Brazilian content was represented by "Five Brazilian Miniatures" by Edmundo Villani-Côrtes, the performance of which was dedicated to the memory of Annette Céline. Considered one of the most important Brazilian composers of the 20th century, Villani-Côrtes (b.1930) imbued his works with the blend of popular- and classical music that has become his trademark. Esfahani and Herzog gave a sensitive, finespun reading of the piece, rich in infectious, toe-tapping rhythms and humorous touches. Presenting the audience with the "Brazilianness" of late 20th century compositional aesthetic, Herzog's convincing playing of the work's strongly melancholy and tender modal melodies was complemented by Esfahani's enriching and evocative rendering of Villani-Côrtes' keyboard score. 

 

Mahan Esfahani's connection to the Czech Republic stems from the fact that he studied in Prague with the celebrated Czech harpsichordist Zuzana Růžičková. Today, he makes his home in Prague. At the Tel Aviv concert, his performance of Bohuslav Martinů's "Two Pieces for Harpsichord" (1935), a pair of miniatures of contrasted mood straddling tonality and its boundaries, was fresh and intriguing, a small work indicative of how Martinů combined different elements to form his own eclectic, indeed, uniquely cohesive musical language. 

 

Haim Alexander's "Improvisations on a Persian Wedding Song" (1974) reflects the aim of several European-born Israeli composers to engage in writing of an Eastern or oriental style (Alexander immigrated to Palestine {Israel} in 1936 from Germany) to create a locally-influenced style of composition here in Israel. Esfahani's playing of Alexander's harpsichord piece was zesty, intense and flexed, its insistent melodic, dance-like motifs carefully evading western harmonic associations, as the melody found its way in and out of a constantly spiralling, repetitive, uninterrupted accompaniment, then winding down to a single unison. 

 

After studying and performing in Russia, Germany and Holland, Moscow-born pianist/composer Uri Brener (b.1974) made his home in Israel. Brener dedicated "Magic Carpet" for viola da gamba and harpsichord to Myrna Herzog and Mahan Esfahani. This performance was the world premiere of  the work (the concert taking its title from this piece). Herzog and Esfahani gave refined, dedicated, in-depth expression to the rich, exotic hues of Brener's oriental musical canvas, to both its mystery and intensity, a journey taking the listener through the piece's wide range of textures and timbres, evoking from eerie, otherworldly sensations to busy, "crowd scenes" and wild, unrelenting dances. Brener's writing for the two instruments is sophisticated, informed and impactful. A truly multifaceted musician, the composer has previously transcended boundaries to probe various different musical worlds, here delving into the world of orientalism via his own sensibility, his refined and subtle musical language.

 

J.S.Bach's Sonata No. 2 in D major BWV 1028 for harpsichord and viola da gamba was intended for the 7-string viol, an instrument of which Bach was especially fond, and may very well have been composed with virtuoso gambist Carl Friedrich Abel in mind. Infusing the imitative dialogue of the opening Adagio with tranquillity and inquiry, the artists then chose not to take the brisk, tightly-constructed Allegro at breakneck speed, as they invited us to follow the abundance of interest they were displaying. Then, the solemn (indeed, meditational), lilting Andante, played by them with personal feeling and fragility before launching into the final Allegro (here, Bach entrusts the harpsichord and the viol witha short cadential episodes) its weave of delightful rhythmic figures rich in energy and articulacy.

 

The gallery of the Mizne-Blumental Collection made for an atmospheric setting for this memorable concert, indeed, a major event of the 2021-2022 concert season.

 

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Bach - Preludes and Fugues, 300-year Celebration

 

The same evening, the Felicja Blumental Music Festival hosted a unique Bach concert in the Tel Aviv Museum's Recanati Auditorium. Information put together by Aviad Stier on J.S.Bach's "Well-Tempered Clavier" was presented to the audience by Avigail Arnheim.

 

Three artists each performed four (different) pairs of preludes and fugues from the WTC (Books I, II) on different keyboard instruments. In correct historical order, the program began with Mahan Esfahani playing them on a two-manual harpsichord. This was followed by Zvi Meniker (Israel-Germany) on fortepiano and Robert Markham (UK) on the modern piano. With no aim to pronounce which of the three keyboard instruments was superior (or the most authentic) for the repertoire, this was a fascinating event, with each of the three outstanding artists offering profound readings of the pieces in playing that was personal, intelligent, sensitive, articulate and aesthetically pleasing. How was such an extraordinary event going to end? Literally, by taking the listener's breath away: in the same historical order, each artist then performed Prelude No. 1 from the WTC I, signing out with his own powerful, unspoken gesture of respect and humility.  

Zvi Meniker (Yoel Levy)

 

Mahan Esfahani (Yoel Levy)


Robert Markham (Yoel Levy)

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