The 2023 Jerusalem International YMCA's Christmas concert features the Israel Camerata Jerusalem (conductor: Avner Biron). Soloists Rachel Frenkel (mezzo-soprano), Muki Zohar (oboe)

 

Greeting guests to the Jerusalem International YMCA on December 24th 2023 were the many lights illuminating the impressive historic building and the large, brightly lit Christmas tree, always a focal feature of Jerusalem's King David St. during the festive season. Ringing out into the crisp evening air were the festive sounds of Christmas carols played on the YMCA's bell carillon, the only instrument of its kind in the entire Middle East. Jerusalem residents, guests and tourists filled the auditorium to celebrate Christmas eve with a concert performed by the Israel Camerata Jerusalem conducted by its musical director Prof. Avner Biron. Soloists were Rachel Frenkel (mezzo-soprano) and Muki Zohar (oboe.)

 

Welcoming the audience, Mr. Fadi Suidan, CEO of the Jerusalem International YMCA, spoke of the YMCA as a beacon of unity and peace, of its purpose and mission, its message of hope and as a place bringing together people of different backgrounds.

 

The evening's program opened with Concerto Grosso in G minor, Op. 6, No. 8 by Arcangelo Corelli. Published posthumously in 1714, one of Corelli's 12 Concerti Grossi Op. 6, it bears the inscription "Fatto per la notte di Natale" (made for the night of Christmas.)  The Camerata performance unveiled the work's subtlety and cantabile expressiveness, as the players leaned into the dissonances of the noble, reflective slower movements, setting them against the buoyancy and joy of the faster sections, the final Allegro segueing into the graceful Pastorale so gently evocative of the flocks near Bethlehem in the Christmas scene. From J.S.Bach’s Orchestral Suite No.3 BWV 1068, composed for his patron Prince Leopold of Anhalt, comes the much-loved Air on the G string. It was thus titled after violinist August Wilhelm's late 19th century arrangement of the Air for violin and piano. (Transposing the key from its original D major to C major and taking the melody down an octave, Wilhelm was able to play the piece on only one string of his violin, the G string.) Maestro Biron and the Camerata players gave a beautifully poised reading of the piece reflecting how elegantly Bach's density of material is lodged in the finespun interweave of inner lines over a walking bass line. One could not object to listeners at the YMCA event gently humming along with the melody of possibly one of the most famous single movements in Bach’s output!

 

An enigmatic item on the program, however, was "Three Pieces in the Old Style'' by eminent Polish composer Krysztof Penderecki (1933-2020), a composer whose works from the 1960s placed him firmly in the avant-garde scene, with music of sheer emotive power using new notation methods, aggressive glissandi, massive tonal clusters and innovative vocal and instrumental techniques. On the podium, Penderecki was an imposing figure who conducted with sweeping gestures befitting his herculean music. His "Three Pieces in the Old Style'' for string orchestra were commissioned for the soundtrack for "The Saragossa Manuscript" (director: Wojciech Jerzy), where they accompany scenes of a Baroque- or even Rococo-like atmosphere. At the Christmas concert, the beautiful, yet sad Aria (Lento) and two charming Minuets (all pieces unexpectedly pleasing to the most conservative of audiences) were given a performance that was refined, understated and unmannered. I imagine Penderecki's "Three Pieces in the Old Style '' must have shocked listeners when they first appeared in 1963. They certainly took the YMCA audience by surprise! It is a fact that the composer only released them for publication in 1989.

 

One of the principal Italian composers of comic operas Domenico Cimarosa (1749-1801) did not write an oboe concerto: It was Australian-born composer Arthur Benjamin who adapted four of the thirty-two keyboard sonatas Cimarosa wrote after the style of Domenico Scarlatti, scoring them for oboe and string orchestra, retaining most of the melody in the solo voice. First oboe of the Israel Camerata Jerusalem Muki Zohar (b. 1973 Tel Aviv) soloed in a pleasing, effortless performance of this much-loved work, giving expression to its warm melodiousness, grace and plangent moments, also bringing attention to its playful and good-naturedly cheeky elements, the latter making reference to the exuberance and wit present in many of Cimarosa’s operas. Orchestra and soloist discoursed splendidly, making for a sparkling performance.

 

Israeli-born mezzo-soprano Rachel Frenkel enjoys an international career on both opera- and concert stages. The Christmas program included Frenkel's performance of three of the most prominent Baroque arias. Her stable, resonant and substantial voice endorsed the soaring curve of the “Et exultavit spiritus meus” (And my spirit rejoices) from J.S.Bach's "Magnificat", as she carried the jubilation through the entire movement. Singing "Erbarme dich, mein Gott" (Have mercy Lord, My God, for the sake of my tears) from Bach's St. Matthew Passion, she gave expression to the aria's aching beauty and profound sadness, the lamenting solo violin obligato expressively interwoven by Camerata concertmaster Matan Dagan. And finally, Frenkel's communicative performance of the virtuosic aria, “But who may abide/For He is like a refiner’s fire” from Handel's Messiah, its two contrasting sections addressed skilfully and meaningfully, as in her treatment of the bravura runs and also in the dramatic expression given to the ominous passages that precede them. 

 

Concluding the evening of high-quality musical performance and true enjoyment, the Jerusalem YMCA's 2023 Christmas concert presented Leonard Cohen's "Hallelujah" in a suave, stylish rendition of Nemanja Marković's arrangement for string orchestra. 

The opening concert of the 2023 Jerusalem International Chamber Music Festival features works of Brahms, Mahler and Mieczyslaw Weinberg

Elena Bashkirova (Courtesy JICMF)

 

Established in 1998 by pianist Elena Bashkirova and Adv. Yehezkel Beinisch, the annual Jerusalem International Chamber Music Festival features renowned musicians together with outstanding upcoming younger artists performing in diverse combinations of instruments. This writer attended the 2023 festival’s opening event on September 5^th at the Jerusalem International YMCA. With each festival choosing a theme, that of the 2023 event (September 5th to 10th) focused on migrant composers. The displacement of composers in the 20th century, prompted by such constraints as antisemitism or political persecution, with other composers seeking work or financial security, has given rise to new styles in the language of musical repertoire. 

 

Following words of welcome from Yehezkel Beinisch (chairman, JICMF board), the festival took off on a stellar start with Gustav Mahler's Piano Quartet in A minor, the work comprising only the first movement of an abandoned piano quartet written by Mahler when a student at the Vienna Conservatory, this piece ending up as the composer's sole surviving instrumental chamber work. The artists (violinist Clara-Jumi Kang, violist Adrien La Marca, 'cellist Tim Park, pianist Yulianna Avdeeva) gave insight into the creative processes of the 16-year-old Mahler, as they wholeheartedly addressed his early encounter with matters of musical form and texture. They probed the work's lush, singing beauty, its uneven phrases, complex dissonances and mood changes, inviting its ominous and foreboding moments and passionately rhapsodic character to dictate tempo flexibility. Kang led masterfully and expressively, with Avdeeva subtly endorsing the piece’s dramatic intensity and disquiet via the piano's lower harmonies. In 1907, Mahler migrated to America, hopeful of a new phase in his career, attracted by a lighter conducting schedule, more time to compose and lavish monetary earnings. 

 

In 1850, Johannes Brahms met the Hungarian violinist Ede Reményi, then to accompany him in a number of recitals over the next few years. This was the composer’s introduction to gypsy-style music, which was later to inspire his most lucrative and popular compositions - the two sets of "Hungarian Dances" (pub.1869, 1880). Playing a selection of Book 1 WoO1, a true festival treat was provided by French-born Nathalia Milstein and Russian-born Yulianna Avdeeva. Performing the pieces in their original setting (4 hands, 1 piano) the young artists captured the spontaneity and passion of Hungarian gypsy music in playing that was clean, fresh, nuanced, at times majestic, at others, poignant, with much dancelike joy and a touch of whimsy. Their playing took on board the timbral variety and rich "orchestration" of the 4-hand piano genre, as they contrasted intimate, pared-down moments with exhilarating tutti, to the enjoyment of the audience.

 

And to the very different “mise en scene” of Violin Sonata No.4, Op.39, by Polish-born Jewish composer/pianist Mieczysław Weinberg (1919–96). Weinberg’s flight from Nazi-occupied Europe was rather different from the customary exile to the West. His move to the Soviet Union in 1939 meant a second period of threat and discrimination under Stalin. He was to live out the rest of his days in Russia, first unjustly neglected but eventually enjoying considerable success as one of his adopted country’s most celebrated and frequently performed composers, especially during the 1960s and 1970s. At the Jerusalem concert, Weinberg's Violin Sonata No.4 (1947) was played by German-born Clara-Jumi Kang and Nathalia Milstein. Alternately sombre and hectic, Weinberg's musical idiom stylistically mixes traditional- and contemporary forms, combining a freely tonal, individual language (inspired by Shostakovich) with ethnic (Jewish, Polish, Moldovan) influences and a unique sense of form, harmony and colour. Performing with unstinting discipline and dedication, Kang's playing produced pure, unforced sounds at all levels of dynamics, with breathtaking virtuosity in the fast perpetuum mobile section of the central movement. Milstein proved to be the ideal partner, both in approach and ability. Their performance of Weinberg’s slow-fast-slow structure gave a transparent reading of the composer’s ideas, highlighting the substantial solo sections for each instrument.

 

Mahler's 1901-2 settings of five poems of Romantic German poet Friedrich Rückert, composed in one of the happiest periods of the composer's life, do not constitute a song cycle. In fact, deciding the order they are to be performed is left to the artists. At the Jerusalem concert, we heard the songs sung by German soprano Dorothea Röschmann, with Elena Bashkirova at the piano. The artists' mutual engagement, their focus on the texts and on the distinctively otherworldly atmosphere permeating the "Rückert-Lieder" emerged via the transparency, fragility, understatement and the sensitive pacing of each song. As they conjured up sensations of love, scents, night ponderings, indeed, "the feeling that fills us right up to our lips but does not pass them” (in Mahler's own words) Röschmann used the sounds and shapes of words to endorse their meaning.

 

In the 1880s, when in his mid-fifties, Brahms retired from composing, believing he had exhausted his creative powers. However, it was hearing performances of clarinettist Richard Mühlfeld (1856-1907) in the Meiningen Court Orchestra that inspired him to resume composing. The Clarinet Quintet in B minor, Op.115, written in the twilight of his career, concluded the 2023 Jerusalem International Chamber Music Festival's opening concert, the performance bringing together five artists from different corners of Europe: clarinettist Pablo Barragán, violinists Rainer Honeck and Maria Ioudenitch, violist Adrien La Marca and 'cellist Ivan Karizna. Drawing attention to its dark tonal hues, lush textures and sweeping, cantabile vocal lines, the virtuosic "gypsy" section (2nd movement) and to the brilliant variations of the fourth movement, the artists gave expression to the quintet's poetic beauty, deep introspection, yearning, and melancholy as well as to Brahms' consummate writing for the clarinet and chamber ensemble medium. Young Pablo Barragán's playing underscored the piece's underlying depth of sadness, also celebrating its moments of rhapsodic, wild gestures and flickering textures.

 

This was an evening of excellent programming, matched by outstanding performance!

 

The Sounding Jerusalem Festival concludes with a concert of oriental instrumental and vocal music directed by Mahran Morab. Vocal soloist - Lamar Mireb

 

Mahran Moreb (Courtesy Sounding Jerusalem 2023)

Lamar Mireb (Courtesy Sounding Jerusalem 2023)

The evening of August 10th was balmy, ideal for a zesty concert in the medieval courtyard of the Lutheran Redeemer Church in Jerusalem's Old City, a magical venue offering fine acoustics and enhanced by lush foliage descending from the upper balconies. The event was the final concert of the 2023 Sounding Jerusalem Festival. The Right Rev. Joachim Lenz (Redeemer Church) opened the event, mentioning the Redeemer Church as being in the heart of the Jerusalem soundscape, the sounds heard there evident of the three religions represented in close proximity. He referred to the concert of local oriental music as "music of the land". Sounding Jerusalem founder and director Austrian 'cellist Erich Oskar Hutter spoke of the intensive week of festival concerts as having been a "beautiful journey", creating a "musical family" and always attracting a good mix of people. He stressed the importance of the discussions following each concert. Huetter thanked all the festival's partners, both local and from overseas. He alluded to the various concert venues of this year's festival as "special, hidden, spiritual places", settings that give rise to magical moments.

 

The closing concert mostly comprised works by composer/arranger and educationalist Mahran Moreb - instrumental pieces, classical Arabic songs, with some influence of Iraqi and Syrian folklore and the occasional reference to western-style music - performed by 13 musicians, including a small chorus and the ensemble of instrumentalists playing bowed-, plucked-, percussion instruments and keyboard, with vocalist Lamar Mireb presenting the songs. All on stage were led by Mahran Moreb himself on qanun (a type of large zither with a thin trapezoidal soundboard, having a distinctive, melodramatic timbre). Explaining the program, Moreb (with double bass player Eleni Mustaklem translating his words into English) spoke of the concert as being a "musical journey", many of the songs speaking of love (and its complications) and the fleeting nature of life.    

 

With no further ado, the ensemble launched into the music, sweeping the audience into its candid, highly-coloured, robustly-textured and forthright presentation, its accessible and sensitively-shaped melodic content and its compelling, foot-tapping rhythms. Her voice stable, powerful and well anchored, Lamar Mireb's singing of the songs was convincing and passionate. Although we non-Arabic speakers were at a slight disadvantage as to the content of the vocal material, Mireb, supported by the small chorus of singers, conveyed the emotions to the audience. Under the watchful eye of Moreb, the artists presented us with an evening of highly polished performance. Most delectable were the several instrumental solos performed by ensemble members and by Moreb himself, these wonderful moments highlighting the individual players' fine musicianship, virtuosity and invention.

 

Sounding Jerusalem 2023 signed out on a high note!

Photo: Peter Tilley

The 2023 Sounding Jerusalem Festival opens at the Redeemer Church (Jerusalem) with a concert of works of Richard Strauss, Gideon Klein and Tchaikovsky

Erich Oskar Huetter (trashPHOTOGRAPHY)

 

Taking place on August 3rd at the Lutheran Church of the Redeemer in Jerusalem's Old City, "Capriccio" launched the 2023 Sounding Jerusalem Festival with exhilaration, creating interest in events in the week to follow. Sounding Jerusalem was established in 2006 by Austrian 'cellist Erich Oskar, who continues to direct the annual festival. The artists include established musicians as well as gifted younger players, together exploring a diverse range of European classical repertoire, but also jazz and local ethnic music. The Right Rev. Joachim Lenz (Redeemer Church) opened the event by reminding the audience in these turbulent times that beautiful music in beautiful places brings people together. Maestro Huetter added that it was an honour and a privilege to be back making music in Jerusalem.

 

Performing this concert were Austrian violinists Eszter Haffner and Johannes Meissl, violists Anna Brugger (Switzerland/Germany) and Patrick Jüdt (Switzerland) and 'cellists Matthias Johansen (Germany) and Erich Oskar Huetter. The program opened with the Sextet that forms the Overture to "Capriccio" (1942), Richard Strauss' last stage work, an opera on the subject of opera, dealing with the age-old question about the opera genre: which is more important, the words or the music? The Sextet is frequently heard as a stand-alone work; in fact, it was first performed before the premiere of the opera itself! Richard Strauss is writing in the post-Wagnerian late Romantic style of extended tonality. Binding the piece together is the recurring melodic motive announced by the 1st violin in the opening bars. Led manifestly by Meissl, the artists' playing of the Sextet was imaginative, fresh, lush and empathic, at times reflecting the score’s unsettled moods, as they probed the music's gestures and emotions with both involvement and subtlety. Their performance invited the audience to delight in the radiant brightness of tone, the silken luminosity inherent in Strauss’ six-string writing. 

 

We then heard Haffner, Brugger and Huetter in a performance of Gideon Klein's Trio for violin, viola and 'cello. Moravian-born Jewish pianist/composer/arranger/accompanist and repairer of instruments Gideon Klein was a pivotal figure in the cultural life of the Terezin prison camp and ghetto. The String Trio, his final composition (and probably the last major work to be composed by anyone in Terezín) was completed in October 1944, ten days before Klein's deportation to Auschwitz. He was murdered at age 25 in the Fürstengrube camp. Many of his compositions were entrusted to a fellow prisoner who survived, later to pass them onto Klein’s sister, pianist Eliška (Lisa) Kleinová. Vigorous and articulate, the Sounding Jerusalem artists' playing of the work highlighted Klein's harmonic sophistication and rhythmic dynamism, the brief outer movements emerging intense, vivid, fsounding in almost neoclassical transparency and brimming with lively rhythms and melodies evoking Czech folk dances. The players' committed and eloquent performance of the middle movement, a set of variations on "The Kneždub Tower", a folksong from Klein’s native Moravia (its text symbolically telling of a wild goose flying up into a high tower), presented a wide range of emotions - from deep sorrow to occasional moments of whimsy. Here was a fine opportunity to hear one of Klein's most ambitious, comprehensive and extraordinary pieces, a work that has remained central to the string trio repertoire.

 

Following his disastrous three-month marriage with a former student of the Moscow Conservatory, Tchaikovsky travelled to Italy, spending a winter in Florence to enjoy some peace of mind and to put thoughts on his own life into perspective. There, he worked on a draft of his opera "The Queen of Spades"; his ballet "The Sleeping Beauty" was being premiered there. With Eszter Haffner taking the 1st violin role, the opening Sounding Jerusalem concert concluded with Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky's spirited sextet "Souvenir de Florence" in D minor. Conceived in part during the composer's Florence sojourn, some of this last chamber music composition of his sings the praises of Italian lyricism, the  second movement, in partictular, on whose score the composer stipulated that the melody that has become referred to as the "Souvenir de Florence" theme should sound “sweet and singing”. Italianate but inescapably Russian, indeed, evoking much of the flavour of Slavic traditional music, this is a splendid and vivid concert piece. The artists gave it an ebullient and wholehearted rendition, addressing its sweeping phrases, finespun bel canto melodies and sensitively-shaped poignant tunes, its variety of string textures, its dialogues, driving rhythms, its sophisticated contrapuntal writing and (as Tchaikovsky mentioned in a letter to his brother) the proposition of juxtaposing “six independent and at the same time homogeneous voices".

 

It was an evening of fine festival fare and excellent musicianship.  

Leonard Sanderman (UK) performs English organ repertoire and an original work at the Lutheran Church of the Redeemer in Jerusalem's Old City

 

© 2022 Leonard Sanderman 

It is rare to hear English organ music of the late 19th century-early 20th century on these shores. In his recital on July 23rd 2023 in the Jerusalem Lutheran Church of the Redeemer's annual July International Organ Festival, Leonard Sanderman (UK) presented works of this very repertoire together with a work of his own. The Right Rev. Joachim Lenz of the Redeemer Church welcomed the audience, commenting on the fact that the evening's program would be well suited to the church's Karl Schuke organ.

 

Prof. Sanderman spoke of English organ music as having gone through periods of popularity and times when it was less so. He spoke of the late 19th century as having produced a surge of organ music in Britain - not necessarily church music, but several ceremonial works and those written for entertainment. Opening the program with "Marche Héroïque" (1915) by Gloucester Cathedral organist Sir Alfred Herbert Brewer (1865-1928), Sanderman gave bold expression to the composer's most highly-favoured organ piece (possibly written as wartime propaganda!), its forthright opening section giving way to attractive cantabile moments, as the artist highlighted the work's antiphonal effects and Brewer's rich use of harmony. Although Sir Charles Hubert Hastings Parry (1848-1918) had a lifelong love of the organ, an instrument he had played from childhood, his most significant solo organ works for the instrument were written in the last few years of his life. Parry's most substantial organ work, the Toccata and Fugue "The Wanderer" (1912), of which we heard the Toccata at the Jerusalem concert, was named by Parry after his yacht. Sanderman's playing of the piece gave prominence to the work's  rich "orchestration" and sudden changes of mood and texture, indeed, to music suggesting the unsettled nature of wandering. It was also a reminder of the beauty, power and emotional content this forgotten English Romantic composer had incorporated into his fine compositional style. And to the opening Allegro Maestoso movement of Organ Sonata in G (1895) of Sir Edward William Elgar (1857-1934), a work that has been referred to as one of the most outstanding works of English Romantic organ repertoire. Sanderman met the high challenges of the piece, his performance not only portraying its vivid canvas and the scale and dexterity of the pipe organ, but also offering touching moments in his playing of its finely-shaped high-register personal melodic utterances. A felicitous opportunity to hear a movement of this far too-little-known masterpiece.

 

Moving into the 21st century for a short hiatus, the program included a composition of the artist himself - "An Harrogate Fanfare" for organ solo (2014) - commissioned and published by De Orgelvriend, a Dutch journal. Brimming with radiant organ timbres, this hearty, tonal piece spoke of joy and positive energy.

 

Of the program's works of a decidedly light-hearted nature, we heard A.H.Brewer's appealing and delicate (at times mysterious) arrangement of the Prelude to Act 3 of Sir Arthur Seymour Sullivan's incidental music to Shakespeare's "The Tempest". Composed when Sullivan was 20, his Op.1 a set of movements for the play, its success quickly brought him to the attention of the musical establishment in England. The name Berthold Tours (1838-1897) does not ring British. The Netherlands-born violinist/organist and music editor, however, moved to London in 1861. Sanderman bedecked the various sections of Tours' charming, up-beat "Allegretto Grazioso" with a variety of delectable timbral hues. Originally written for piano and violin, Elgar's "Chanson de Matin" was arranged for organ by Herbert Brewer. Sanderman's uncluttered reading of it was sensitive, beautifully contrasted and poetic. For an encore, the artist played a delightful improvisation in appreciation of the young woman who was his page-turner at the recital!

 

Initially taught the organ by his father, Leonard Sanderman (Holland, 1991) performs internationally. He is a prize-winning, commissioned composer and a published author on church music and the organ. His PhD focuses on issues in the historiography and canonisation of liturgical music in high church parishes between 1827 and 1914. A senior lecturer in Organ and Historical Musicology at Leeds Conservatoire, he also teaches Harmony and Counterpoint at the University of York. This was Prof. Sanderman's second visit to perform at the Jerusalem Redeemer Church.

 

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The Chaos String Quartet (Austria) performs works of Mozart, Beethoven, Henriëtte Bosmans and Diego Conti at the American Colony Hotel, Jerusalem

 

The Chaos String Quartet (©Andrej Crilc)

Under the auspices of the Austrian Cultural Forum, the Chaos String Quartet (Austria) - violinists Susanne Schäffer and Eszter Kruchió, violist Sara Marzadori and Bas Jongen (violoncello) - performed at the American Colony Hotel (Jerusalem) on July 9th 2023. Seemingly contradictory, the quartet's enigmatic name surely raises some questions (and perhaps a few eyebrows). However, it is based on Italian theologian and philosopher of religion Vito Mancuso's theory that "chaos plus pathos equals logos", from which the four artists understand chaos as the “original form of all creative”, by which art, science and philosophy can be joined in one artistic synthesis.  

 

Director of the Austrian Cultural Forum Tel Aviv, Arno Mitterdorfer welcomed the audience to the event. He spoke of the American Colony Hotel as a multicultural Jerusalem venue, as a suitable location for such concerts. Referring to the Chaos String Quartet as "an excellent shooting star", he promised those gathered in the ACH’s Pasha Room a journey taking the listener from works of Classical repertoire to music of a more contemporary European landscape.

 

Violinist Eszter Kruchió briefly explained the works to be performed. The concert opened with W.A.Mozart's String Quartet No.1 in G major, K.80, the composer's first string quartet effort, composed at age 14 in a tavern when he was on a vacation in Lodi, Italy. The work is written in the style of Italian chamber sonatas of the time, originally only comprising the first three movements. The French Rondo (final) movement was added two years later. From the very first sounds of the opening Adagio, one is drawn into the vibrant, rounded and full-bodied signature sound of this ensemble as the artists give expression to the work's charm, lyricism and interest, its majestic moments, its playfulness and whimsy, in playing that was effortless and beautiful. 

 

Then to a work of Henriëtte Bosmans (1895-1952), considered one of the most important Dutch composers of the first half of the 20th century. Her works are presently enjoying rediscovery. Bosmans was already enjoying a well-established reputation in Dutch musical life prior to World War II. As a pianist, she was affiliated with various chamber music ensembles in Amsterdam; her works were performed under such conductors as Willem Mengelberg, Ernest Ansermet and Pierre Monteux. However, being half Jewish, she fell into disfavour with the Nazi occupiers, who banned her from all public performances and she was forced to support herself with underground house concerts. Henriëtte Bosmans' parents had influenced her in the German Romantic style but her own musical bent took her in the direction of French Impressionists in an ongoing quest to find her own independent compositional language. Her String Quartet (1927), reflecting her sharply modernist bent, is an early product of this experimentation. Performed at the Jerusalem concert, it carries imprints of Debussy and Ravel, its polytonal, modal colouring, its dissonant elements and moments of exotica providing the nuts and bolts for the Chaos musicians' candid and intense reading of the work. As to the melancholic theme of the Lento movement (introduced by Schäffer) followed by the high-register 'cello utterance (Jongen), the artists provided reflective, albeit eerie relief from the mostly robust, uncompromising message of the work, as its final movement bowed out with a series of glissandi. 

 

The program at the American Colony Hotel also came with a premiere - "Une étoile dansante" (A Dancing Star) commissioned from Italian violinist/composer Diego Conti (b.1958). Typical of Conti's idiom of freely incorporated styles, the short work takes the players through a wide range of string-playing techniques - spiccato and con legno bowing, flageolets and more - to create a vivid and varied canvas of jagged gestures, of busy soundscapes, also intimate moments and heartfelt solos, inviting the players to indulge in Conti's mix of the harmony of dissonances, of Classical harmony, and to dip into in their large palette of dynamics. Not to be ignored is the fact that Conti came to his musical style via progressive rock, after which he immersed himself in 20th-century concert music, finally moving backwards through music history to study earlier styles. Taking the work's host of demands on board, the instrumentalists led the "dancing star" on a committed, impressive and vivid journey.

 

The quartet's final piece took audience and players back to Vienna, the Chaos String Quartet's nerve centre. Stemming from his first years in Vienna, Ludwig van Beethoven's Opus 18 needs little introduction as his initial step into the Classical string quartet genre, this opus being the only quartet contribution from his first period, the collection, however, providing the listener with proof that the composer was already a master of the form. The players' auspicious choice of the Op.18 No.3 Quartet in D major gave the stage to their fresh, sincere playing and to their comprehension of the work's delicate melodiousness and charm, as they highlighted each gesture of the first three movements with spontaneity, a sense of wellbeing and a touch of wistfulness. As to the Finale - galloping, virtuosic and richly contrapuntal - they juxtaposed its technical demands with its exuberance and (Haydnesque) wit as it exited with a teasing, quiet whisper. We tend to hear many late Beethoven works on today’s concert platforms. The artists’ performance of this quartet was a welcome reminder that the young Beethoven had produced music that was brimming with energy and variety, youthful optimism and passion, with invention and enthusiasm.

 

Remaining in Vienna, the quartet chose to perform Bas Jongen's arrangement of a Schubert Lied - "Nacht und Träume" (Night and Dreams), with Susanne Schäffer taking on the vocal line (text: Matthäus von Collin). The result was enchanting as the artists created the song’s otherworldly mood of night "floating down, Like your moonlight through the expanses of space"  

 

The evening's performance highlighted the exemplary and polished performance of each of the young instrumentalists, also their excellent teamwork. Add to these 1st violinist Susanne Schäffer's outstanding qualities of leadership and suave musicianship. Established in 2019, the Chaos String Quartet is rapidly establishing itself on the international concert scene. Winner of prestigious competitions, the quartet has been selected for the New Austrian Sound of Music sponsorship program. This was the quartet’s first concert tour of Israel.

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"Dolce e Coraggioso" - Gabriela Galván (traverso) and Isidoro Roitman (liuto attiorbato) record sonatas of Corelli, Barsanti, Platti, Vivaldi and Locatelli

 

Cover design Horacio D'Alessandro

Recently issued, "Dolce e Coraggioso" (Sweet and Brave), comprising works of Italian Baroque composers, is the third disc issued by Argentinian artists Gabriela Galván (traverso) and Isidoro Roitman (liuto attiorbato). Smaller than the archlute, the liuto attiorbato can be tuned to G and A, enabling the lutenist to play in sharpened keys, as are the works on this recording.

"Dolce e Coraggioso" opens with Arcangelo Corelli's Sonata Op.5 No.4 in G major. Written originally for violin, the Twelve Violin Sonatas, Op. 5 (Sonate a violino e violone o cimbalo, 1700) were the best-known instrumental sonatas during much of the 18th century (indeed, Corelli was feted by the aristocracy, cardinals, and royalty) and have been arranged for many different instruments. Playing from a score appearing on "Editorial Paris: Le Clerc le cadet, Le Clerc l'ainé, Boivin" (1754), the artists gave poignant expression to the contrasts dictated by the sonata da chiesa form, with Galván's playing at times elegant, poised and fragile, at others, vivid and energetic, ornamenting suavely and adding just a touch of the inégal. Reading from figured bass notation, Roitman's resourceful treatment of it abounded in interest, creativity and imagination. Here, one is reminded of Geminiani, who referred to Corelli as possessing "a nice ear and most delicate taste… pleasing harmonies and melodies…to produce the most delightful effect upon the ear”.

 

Francesco Barsanti is well known to recorder players for his highly idiomatic 6 Solo Sonatas for alto recorder Opus 1. Galván and Roitman's inventive, exhilarating and eloquent playing of Sonata No.2 in B minor from the composer's 6 Sonatas for German [transverse] Flute and Continuo Op. 2 (1728) shed light on the excellence of this less frequently heard collection. Once again, the figured bass allows Roitman's fantasy to take flight, to explore the lute's potential. Not to be ignored is the fact that Barsanti (1690-1772) was one of several extraordinary Italian instrumentalists, virtuosi and composers travelling across Europe, contributing decisively to the definitive success of instrumental music and the formation of an international musical language. 

 

No household name today, Giovanni Benedetto Platti (1697-1763) was known in his day as an exceptionally fine singer, instrumentalist and composer. He left his native Italy in 1722 to take up a position in Germany at the court of Prince-Bishop Johann Philipp Franz von Schönborn.  Straddling the late Baroque and early Classical eras, his "Sonatas for Transverse Flute" paint a vivid and engaging portrait of the 18th-century musician/composer himself. Galván and Roitman's playing of Platti's Sonata No.3 Op.1 was candid, fresh and charming, as they presented the composer's refined melodiousness with the timbral and tonal qualities that are an extension of the Italian Baroque style.

 

It seems that Antonio Vivaldi wrote as few as four sonatas for the transverse flute (RV48-51). Interestingly, none of these is characteristically Vivaldian and none brings to mind sonatas for other instruments. Performing Vivaldi's Flute Sonata in E minor RV 50, Galván and Roitman chose to call attention to the poésie common to all four movements - Andante, Siciliano, Allegro, Arioso - rather than effecting strong contrasts between them. The intimate soundscape they produced took shape via the cantabile character of its melodies, interesting use of motifs and of inégal- and extemporary rhythmic shaping on the flute, as Roitman added interest with such devices as spreads and with some melodic soupçons elegantly linking one passage to another.

 

The artists choose to sign out with Sonata Op.2 No.2 in D major of Pietro Antonio Locatelli's "Dodici Sonate", 12 Sonatas for transverse flute and bass (first published Amsterdam 1723). In playing that was strategically paced, genial, entertaining in its surprising turns of phrase and variety of expression, punctuated by the occasional coy and mysterious  gesture and enhanced with tasteful, fanciful ornamenting, Galván and Roitman drew attention to the composer's colourful personality (Locatelli was known to have  performed at the Prussian court wearing a blue velvet coat with silver trim,  precious diamond rings and carrying a sword), to the emerging style galant of the time as well as to  the increasing importance of the solo sonata genre, as they subtly highlighted the versatility of Locatelli’s writing.

 

For the recording of "Dolce e Coraggioso" Gabriela Galván plays a Baroque flute made by Martin Wenner, Singen, Germany (2018) a copy of an original by Carlo Palanca (c.1750.) Made by Paolo Busato, Padua, Italy, 2021, Isidoro Roitman's liuto attiorbato is a copy of an original by Matteo Sellas, Venice (1638.) Recorded in Buenos Aires, Argentina, in February 2023 (recording engineer Ariel Gato), "Dolce e Coraggioso" sounds natural and true, creating the intimate ambience required for this genre of chamber music. Once again, Gabriela Galván's informed approach, her unique signature timbre and sensitive musical shaping, joined by Isidoro Roitman's deep scrutiny of the composers' manuscripts and styles and his response to detail and gestures of the flute role, make for a rewarding listening experience to the discriminating listener.

The Embouchure Duo (Ariel Gato)

Mozart String Quintets K.515 and K.516 performed by Ensemble PHOENIX on period instruments at the Eden-Tamir Music Center, Ein Kerem, Jerusalem

 

 Myrna Herzog,Lilia Slavny,Noam Schuss,Miriam Fingert,Amos Boasson (Eliahu Feldman)

I don't remember the last time I heard Mozart string quintets played on the concert platform. Yet it is no secret that W.A. Mozart soared to new heights in his late works for five instruments - the four quintets for strings, all scored for string quartet with a second viola and the quintet for clarinet and string quartet, K. 581.  Ensemble PHOENIX's performance of String Quintets K.515 and 516 at the Eden-Tamir Music Center, Ein Kerem, Jerusalem on June 17th 2023 was an opportunity not to be missed. Also drawing listeners to the event was the fact that Ensemble PHOENIX performs on period instruments (Baroque instruments, Classical bows, gut strings, here tuned to A430 and in 1/6 comma temperament, as were organs of Mozart’s time) offering insight into how the quintets may have sounded when Mozart and his friends played them for their own diversion. Performing the works were Noam Schuss and Lilia Slavny (violins), Amos Boasson and Miryam Fingert (violas) and PHOENIX founder and musical director Myrna Herzog - 'cello.

 

1787 was a pivotal year for Mozart. With Vienna ringing out with melodies from the "Marriage of Figaro" that had debuted the year before, Mozart turned to work on what would become his operatic masterpiece, "Don Giovanni". Indeed, 1787 saw the completion and the debut of the latter. Taking a break, Mozart composed the pair of string quintets that would eventually be regarded as his greatest chamber music masterworks - the K. 515 in C major and K. 516 in g minor, writing them within a month of each other, shortly after learning of the death of his beloved father, Leopold. No concrete evidence exists as to the occasion(s) or musicians for which Mozart composed these string quintets. One theory is that Mozart wrote the quintets to win the favour of Frederick William II, the new King of Prussia, who happened to be a gifted cellist. H.C. Robbins Landon, on the other hand, suspects that the composer was “hoping to sell manuscript copies to amateurs by subscription.” (Amateur players would have found them technically daunting.)  As to why Mozart chose to write for the viola quintet, we do know that the viola was the stringed instrument Mozart preferred to play himself. These works show his love for the viola, placing emphasis on rich inner voices as well as on prominent lead roles for the first chair. Indeed, the close completion dates of these two quintets suggests that Mozart might have intended them as a contrasting pair - K. 515, in C major, characterized by optimism and confidence; with K. 516, in G minor, speaking of pessimism and despair. 

 

From the mammoth opening movement of the String Quintet No.3 in C major (Noam Schuss-1st violin, Amos Boasson-1st viola) to the closing Allegro, all tempi were moderate, giving the stage to the work's largely intense setting, its expressive use of tonality and chromaticism, the unique partitioning and grouping of parts among the five instruments fortifying inner voices creating new textures, and to the resourceful interplay of duets, antiphonal quartets and everything in between. Shaping gestures into deep musical meaning, Noam Schuss led and soloed judiciously, meeting at eye level with Boasson, also with Herzog, to convey the work's humanistic substructure.  As to the final movement (Allegro), we were presented with the richly sonorous resources of the quintet as well as with mirthful grandeur, so unmistakably Mozartian.

  

For the K.516 Quintet, Mozart's choice of g minor, a tonality associated with agitation and despair, is clearly no coincidence, indeed strengthened by the fact that the first movement's second theme also appears in the tonic minor. As the artists (Lilia Slavny-1st violin, Miryam Fingert-1st viola) present the opening Allegro (the upper three instruments untethered by the bass) in playing expressing restless, yet quiet agitation with a touch of reticence, Lilia Slavny (1st violin) brings out the work's sense of anguish as she leans into key notes, expressively engaging with Fingert (1st viola), also with Herzog. The despondent mood (and tonality) continues into the Minuetto (hardly minuet-like in spirit) characterized by a dark-and-light polarity, with tension added by the repeated appearance of the motif of two bitter, off-beat, ejaculatory chords. Throughout, Slavny's playing incorporated some tasteful ornamentation. Played with strings muted, with each motif strategically placed, the artists' heartfelt, inward-looking performance of the Adagio, its tragedy at times temporarily whisked away but never completely out of earshot, was profound and soul-searching. (On hearing the Adagio, Tchaikovsky chronicled experiencing a "feeling of resignation and inconsolable sorrow....I had to hide in the farthest corner of the concert-room so that others would not see how much this music affected me.”)  As to the final movement, the artists convincingly recreated its enigmatic course as it weighed in with a lengthy adagio introduction wrought of dissonance and unresolved tension, this to be swept away with the gallant elegance of carefree rondo dances in G major.

 

Hearing these two monumental works on authentic instruments and at the hands of five outstanding artists in playing that was poised and emotionally balanced was a rare experience. Keeping a safe distance from music-making that is precious or overwrought, the PHOENIX artists' performance was balanced, buoyant, intelligent and powerful, a performance reflecting their own enquiry into- and deep experience encountered in playing the quintets, both of which they conveyed to the audience.