At the 2025 Jerusalem International Chamber Music Festival, works of Barber, Schumann, Franck and Armenian folk songs

Astrig Siranossian (Neda Navaee)

 

Thomas Hampson (Kristin Hoebermann)

At a Friday noon concert of the 2025 Jerusalem International Chamber Music Festival (artistic director: Elena Bashkirova), taking place on September 12th at the Jerusalem International YMCA, an interesting range of works of composers from the USA, Germany, Armenia and France came together to form a splendid program.

 

The event opened with Samuel Barber's "Dover Beach" for string quartet and baritone Op.3 (text: Matthew Arnold), performed by baritone Thomas Hampson (USA), Nitzan Bartana and Sharon Cohen (violins), Katrin Spiegel (viola) and Haran Meltzer ('cello). An early work, written on the eve of World War II at the Curtis Institute where Barber was a student, it was the young composer himself, already a fine baritone, who made the first recording of his own "Dover Beach". An ambitious undertaking for the 21-year-old Barber, it intertwines Matthew Arnold's darkness and pessimism, as set against the ever-changing sea on the English coast, together with Barber's caressing, congenial music. In this contemplative, brooding piece, with its references to the Greeks and to the loss of religious faith of the time, Hampson and the string players balance the finespun details of Barber and Arnold's writing with masterful timing, meticulous phrasing and eloquence. Hampson's profound reading into the text, his impeccable diction and steady vocal timbre, invite the listener to follow the beauty of the words and the work's emotional course, no less, to observe its message of the indifference of nature in the face of human doubt in a world of "neither joy, nor love, nor light". 

 

Another work seldom heard on these shores is Robert Schumann's Andante & Variations for two pianos, two 'cellos & horn, WoO 10 (1843). Performing the piece at the festival were Bar Zemach (horn), Ivan Karizna and Haran Meltzer ('cellos) and pianists Piamena Mangova and Yulianna Avdeeva. I found this extraordinary instrumental combination (unique even in Schumann's oeuvre), drawing my attention to its unusually dark and warm colour, with only the pianists' right hands venturing into the upper register, these elements, indeed, creating a canvas of beguiling timbres. The artists played out the work's charmingly different variations - from wistful, to galloping, from tranquil to lightly tripping, to feisty, to those bathed in songfulness, to the processional, the final restatement of the theme then inviting a delicate, meandering farewell coda. In several sections, piano statements were answered by the other instruments. The horn (kudos to Bar Zemach!) features largely in the Romantic-era hunting call variation. Displaying sensitive teamwork, the artists brought to light the work's distinctive beauty and Schumann's spontaneous lyricism.

 

First Prize- and Special Prize winner of the Krzysztof Penderecki 'Cello Competition, French-born 'cellist Astrig Siranossian today enjoys a many-faceted professional career of performing, recording, teaching and more. In a unique performance attesting to her Armenian background, Ms. Siranossian presented five Armenian songs of her own arrangement, singing them and accompanying herself on the 'cello. Mostly love songs (not without betrayal!) Siranossian's arrangements are subtle and refined, her rendition of each vignette finely chiselled, personal and engaging, her voice pure, true and free of vibrato. "Shogher jan" (Beloved Shogher), its theme that of longing and love, evokes a scene of gathering clouds, with the snow visible beneath the clouds, and the desire for a loved one to come home from the mountain. Her singing of the strophic song brims with delicacy, its fragile pianissimo moments depicting fondness. Over a drone bass and infused with sadness, "Garouna" (Spring), on the other hand, refers to those who lost their lives in the 1915 Armenian Genocide and also to the Armenian Massacre of 1894. " It is springtime and yet it has snowed Oh le le, Oh le le, Oh le le le le. My sweetheart has turned cold. Oh, how I wish for the evil man’s tongue to dry…"

 

With the theme of this year's JICMF being the quintet repertoire, this concert concluded with César Franck's Piano Quintet in F minor, Op. 14 (1878-1879), performed by Tatiana Samouil and Latica Honda Rosenberg (violins), Noga Shaham (viola), Ivan Karizna ('cello) and Yulianna Avdeeva (piano). A work fitting chronologically between the quintets of Brahms and Dvořák, and stylistically the most Romantic of them, the F minor Quintet has been referred to as "Franck’s chamber symphony”, indeed having shocked its first audiences with its intensity, sweeping melodies and bold harmonic language.  From the haunting, yearning opening to the tender expressiveness of the slow movement, through to the stormy, fervent finale, the instrumentalists met the quintet's demands with technical mastery and dedication, articulately addressing its emotional range and breathtaking range of colours, dynamics, textures, harmonies, its modulations and its never-ending flow of different imagery, keeping in mind that this remains one of Franck’s most personal works.

 

A concert of excellent programming, it was a joy to hear fine artists from all corners of the earth, several of them of the younger up-and-coming generation.