Under Maestro Ariel Zuckermann, the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra performs works of Haydn, Chausson, Ravel and Beethoven. Solo violin: Itamar Zorman

 

Ariel Zuckermann © Nikolaj Lund

Itamar Zorman© Jamie Jung

Attending the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra's concert at the Sherover Theatre of the Jerusalem Theatre on July 22nd 2025 seemed the ideal plan for a breather from the intense summer heat and the stress of these uncertain times. The concert was conducted by Ariel Zuckermann, with violinist Itamar Zorman as soloist.

 

And what better strategy than to open with Joseph Haydn's Symphony No.88 in G major, a work bubbling with masterful orchestration, richness of musical ideas and with the composer’s idiosyncratic, multicoloured use of the wind section (still minus clarinets). From the 1st movement's slow introduction, breaking into a perky Allegro, the IPO's clean, unmannered, fresh playing, pleasing in Classical transparency and replete with dynamic contrasts, gave expression to Haydn's cheerful (almost cheeky) score, one in which every detail seems to emerge spontaneously. Haydn's reference to rustic music infuses both the robust theme of the Menuetto and the bass drone in the trio; the theme of the Finale, in particular, possesses the strong qualities of the catchiest of melodies.

 

Then, to works of two French composers, featuring soloist Itamar Zorman. Ernest Chausson's Poème Op.25 for violin and orchestra, originally conceived as a symphonic poem, however, evolving into a character piece with violin solo, or, to quote the composer, "a piece in very free form with many passages where the violin plays alone."  Taking time to spell out the work's fragrant, calm opening, Zorman, Zuckermann and orchestra connect in expressing the intricate gestures of Poème's lengthy, rhapsodic phrases and its fluid evolving process. To the listener, the work's gentle melancholy, restrained passion, reserve, delicacy, and exquisite craftsmanship seem to prevail over the fact that Chausson had taken inspiration from the story of "The Song of Triumphant Love", a novella by the Russian writer Ivan Turgenev, in which two young men fall in love with the same woman.  

 

While Maurice Ravel was working on "Tzigane" he had sought technical advice from a violinist friend, Hélène Jourdan-Morhange. “Come quickly,” he telegrammed her, “and bring the Paganini Caprices with you.” This says much about the technical demands on the violinist in this single-movement piece. Indeed, "Tzigane" is a virtuoso showpiece, opening with an extended quasi cadenza for the soloist and, as it proceeds, including just about every technical violin trick in the book! Opening with a free and recitative-like motive in the violin's sultry lowest range, progressing through slides, trills, octave passages, and harmonics and the tempo changes characteristic of Gypsy music, Zorman's spirited (never forced) reading of the piece offered an element of spontaneity, warmth, sympathetic phrasing and a large range of dynamic colour. The IPO players endorsed his playing with Ravel's vibrant but spare orchestral accompaniment, this featuring the harp ingeniously combined with the solo violin, a role offering a real challenge to the harpist!  The dust settled with Zorman's encore - the Largo from J.S.Bach's  Violin Sonata No. 3 in C Major, BWV 1005. Itamar Zorman's playing of its long, chained melodious phrases was thoughtful, tender and personal.

 

The concert concluded with Ludwig van Beethoven's Symphony No.2 in D major Op.36, a work completed in 1802, its first performance taking place at the Theater an der Wien on April 5, 1803. The rapid deterioration of the composer's hearing, his increasing feeling of isolation from society and the threats posed by the politics surrounding the figure of Napoleon Bonaparte might have resulted in a very different symphony. Here, however, Beethoven generally maintains cheerful enthusiasm, despite the many negative obstacles facing him. The Jerusalem audience enjoyed yet another opportunity to appreciate the IPO's finesse, cohesiveness and fine wind-playing under Maestro Zuckermann's watchful eye (and no baton) as he highlighted the work's general sense of well-being, moments of intensity, its delicacy and humour, its vividly-contrasted dynamics, its many tutti and "asides", not ignoring Beethoven's typical juxtaposition of extremes and surprises, the latter traits woven through the work in good taste. I enjoyed the opportunity to hear this fine symphony, one somewhat neglected in concert hall repertoire. Ariel Zuckermann's conducting always calls attention to the fact that music-making presents the listener with an experience that is both audial and visual. 

 

Barak Schossberger, Shir Semmel ©Yoel Levy

 

"Fantasy", a recital of works for violin and piano, took place at the Jerusalem Center for Near Eastern Studies, Jerusalem, on June 8th, 2025. Performing were Shir Semmel (piano) and Barak Schossberger (violin).

 

The first composer to use the title "Fantasiestücke" (a term adopted from one of his favourite authors, E T A Hoffmann) Robert Schumann wrote four pieces in the genre — two for solo piano, one for piano trio and the Fantasiestücke Op.73. The circumstances in which the latter rhapsodic “Soirée Pieces” (their original title) came into being are quite surprising. In 1849, Dresden was seized by violent political turmoil that led to Robert and Clara Schumann fleeing to the countryside. There, in one of the happier periods of Robert Schumann’s career, he composed the Op.73 pieces in just over two days. Originally with the clarinet in mind, he indicated (as early as the original print) that the three typically A-B-A Romantic miniatures might also be played on violin or 'cello, these options clearly pointing to the burgeoning domestic market for home entertainment. Semmel and Schossberger address each of the pieces' abrupt changes in mood, the moments of deep introspection, the bursts of euphoria, of tenderness, even playful whimsy, inviting the audience to revel in the lush textures and in each delightful and unexpected harmonic shift. With a strong sense of musical communication, the artists gave eloquent expression to Schumann's "stream of consciousness." 

 

Deeply affected by the political situation of the day, Leoš Janáček started writing his Sonata for Violin and Piano during the formidable times of 1914–15, returning to it intermittently from 1916 to 1922. On the personal level, it was originally intended as a tribute to talented violinist Olga Ševčíková (the daughter of Janáček's friend, renowned violinist Otakar Ševčík.) Tragically, Olga died of typhoid fever at the age of 21 before the sonata's completion. Her death had a profound impact on Janáček and he dedicated the finished work to her memory. Moving through some interesting and unanticipated tonal landscapes, the Sonata is typical of Janáček's mature style, yet still reflecting the influences to which he was exposed during his growth as a composer - ideas he had conceived while researching the folk music of his native Moravia, as well as speech inflections of the Czech language. Semmel and Schossberger waste no time introducing the audience to the intense, specific feel of the work, from the first movement (Con moto), with its dramatic opening on solo violin, skittish motivic development and agitated piano accompaniment, followed by the Ballada setting out a long, Romantic lyrical main theme and its songful, almost lullaby-like secondary melody. The performance highlighted the movement's delicate rippling piano accompaniment, embracing the violin’s tender, lyrical writing. The Allegretto's folk/gypsy associations (violin slides and the Russian-sounding opening theme) were contrasted by an introspective, melancholic section, the movement's agenda all wedged into just over two minutes! Semmel and Schossberger concluded their close-knit, profound reading of the work with the elegiac bitter-sweet Adagio - its melody interspersed with urgent figures on hushed violin, the final fragments signing out with an overriding sense of desolation. 

 

Then to Franz Schubert’s Fantasie in C major for Violin and Piano D. 934, the composer's last work for this scoring, written shortly before his death in December 1827. A work of multi-coloured expansiveness, it manifests a simple musical concept, but, emotionally and technically speaking, it demands a decidedly complex realization. The artists set the scene, opening the first movement (Andante Molto) with one of Schubert's eeriest effects - hazy, quivering piano tremolos inviting the violin to creep in gradually and imperceptibly with a yearning, rising line. From this hushed, almost ghostly opening, Schossberger and Semmel lead the listener into the work's lyrical and virtuosic territory by turns, through Schubert's free reinvention of the four-section Fantasy (one even more expansive than the "Wanderer" for solo piano) through long-breathed melodies and adventurous harmonic explorations. They bring out the variety and charm of the third section (Andantino), the germ and crux of the piece - a splendid set of variations based on "Sei mir gegrüsst" (I greet you) a Lied Schubert wrote in 1821. With masterful teamwork, Semmel and Schossberger give poignant expression to the specific effects of the work’s fantastic elements, in both violin and piano, and to Schubert's fervently poetic language.

Nitai Zori, Hillel Zori and Dror Semmel perform Schubert Trios Op.99 and Op.100 on period instruments at the Eden-Tamir Music Center, Jerusalem

Nitai Zori, Dror Semmel, Hillel Zori (Shirley Burdick)

On May 24th 2025, the auditorium of the Eden-Tamir Music Center, Ein Kerem, Jerusalem, was packed to capacity for a festive event - a concert of chamber music featuring the center's newest acquisition - a Graf fortepiano.  Performing the all-Schubert program were artistic director of the Eden-Tamir Music Center Dror Semmel (fortepiano), Nitai Zori (violin) and Hillel Zori ('cello).

 

In January 2025, Paul McNulty (USA-Czech Republic), celebrated for his meticulous craftsmanship and expertise in the building of historical fortepianos, arrived in Jerusalem to add the final adjustments to the newly-crafted instrument now making its home at the Eden-Tamir Music Center. The Graf fortepiano, handcrafted from walnut and modelled after instruments used by Beethoven, Schubert, and Chopin, bridges the past to the present, offering musicians and audiences an authentic glimpse into the soundscapes of classical music’s golden era. The addition of the McNulty Graf fortepiano not only enriches the Eden-Tamir Center's concert repertoire; it also underscores the center's commitment to preserving and promoting historical performance practice and to attracting musicians, scholars and audiences eager to experience the rich sounds of the fortepiano's heyday. This is the only Graf fortepiano in Israel.

 

Opening the event, Dr. Dror Semmel expressed his appreciation to the Jack, Joseph and Morton Mandel Foundation for its support in the purchase of the instrument. All three of the performing artists spoke about the instruments they would be playing. Semmel spoke of the acoustic properties of the fortepiano. The string players referred to historic bows.  Hillel Zori played on a Baroque 'cello (Amit Tiefenbrunn), whereas Nitai Zori was playing a period Classical violin. Both were playing on gut strings. 

 

The program comprised Franz Schubert's Piano Trio in B flat major Op.99 and Piano Trio No.2 in E flat major Op.100. It is possible that Schubert composed these two monumental piano trios close together in late 1827, the year before his death, although it remains unclear in what order they were written. Work on them seems to have taken place simultaneously with that on "Die Winterreise", the trios providing a lighter project to divert Schubert’s attention from the illness and melancholy that was preoccupying him in the last months of his life. 

 

Opening with Op.99, the artists had the audience at the edge of its seats, with playing that gave clean, articulate expression to the work's sparkling, buoyant writing, to its lyrical sweep and melodic inventiveness and to Schubert’s use of modulation and the changing of keys to vary the presentation, treatment and tone colour of his themes. Following the bold, intense gestures of the opening Allegro moderato, we were lured into the personal discourse and gorgeous songful theme expressed so tenderly in the second movement (Andante un poco mosso), perhaps a graceful façade for the doubts and the anguish of a Schubert no more than a few months off death. Then, following the playful, good-natured Scherzo with its coy Trio, the Viennese melodiousness of the Rondo reasserted the blitheness of the first movement, with Schubert's distinctive tremolos in the piano, these adding an air of mystery and a wistful flutter of heart. 

 

Robert Schumann considered Schubert's two great trios a complementary pair - the B-flat, more lyrical; the E-flat, more robust. Indeed, it was Schumann who hailed the E-flat trio as "an angry meteor blazing forth and outshining everything in the musical atmosphere of the time."  The artists' inspired playing of the Allegro, its opening unison motif bold, the second theme peaceful, emerged in a myriad of meticulously shaped phrases, the Schubert-style keyboard arpeggios fetchingly delicate, then to build up dramatically. Following the Andante con moto, one of Schubert's most haunting melodies, cast over a quasi funeral-march rhythm, its stormy outbursts punctuated by general calm and mysterious gestures, the contrapuntally elegant, lightly-tripping Allegro takes flight. The Allegro moderato (final) movement bears eloquent (indeed nostalgic) witness to the cohesion and cyclic element of this panoramic work. And there it was - that striking, heart-stopping moment in the finale where Schubert brings back the funeral music, the movement's conclusion then to twist into the major key. The artists played the full, original version of the 4th movement.

 

From their playing and close communication, one is aware of the fact that Semmel and the Zori brothers have collaborated much in the performance of chamber music. With commitment and compelling emotional involvement, they addressed- and presented every nuance of these two tremendous piano trios on period instruments - the sound world familiar to Schubert. Not to be ignored was the dynamic range of the instruments, the splendid copy of the 1819 fortepiano sounding crystal-clear and true (with Semmel skilfully bringing into play the unique tonal qualities implemented by the instrument's tricky pedal system.) 

Graf fortepiano (Courtesy Dr. Dror Semmel)

Telemann in Paris - Jochewed Schwarz, Gilat Rotkop and Ashley Solomon perform works of Telemann and French Baroque composers at Brigham Young University, Jerusalem

Jochewed Schwarz,Ashley Solomon,Gilat Rotkop (Yitzhak Hochmann)

 

 

"Telemann in Paris", a concert of Baroque music on period instruments, took place at the Jerusalem Center for Near Eastern Studies on May 18th, 2025. The program comprised a selection of Telemann's works alongside those of his French contemporaries. Performing them were Jochewed Schwarz - spinet, Gilat Rotkop - bassoon and Ashley Solomon (UK) - Baroque flute.

France was always present in the music of Georg Philipp Telemann and in his mind, with allusions and references to French music in many of his works. In 1737, Telemann travelled to Paris.  Living in the heart of the Marais quarter with the greatest harpsichord player of the time, Antoine Vater, he had the opportunity to meet the most prominent instrumentalists and composers of Paris, his new French friends including Guignon, Blavet, Forqueray, Mondonville, Naudot, Bodin de Boismortier, Campra and Clérambault. While in Paris, Telemann composed and received the royal privilege to publish at Ballard (publisher of Lully and Rameau's music), thus perpetuating his strong bond with the city.

 

The Jerusalem program opened with Michel Blavet's Sonata No.3, Op.2, “La Vibray”, for flute and basso continuo. A musician who had influenced Telemann, Blavet was one of the most outstanding flautists of his time. His compositional oeuvre consisted almost exclusively of music for his own instrument. Appearing in print in 1731, Blavet's Op.2 Sonatas attest to the Italian model. However, in order to remain in step with the French mindset, Blavet inserted "portraits" of sorts - pieces either bearing the name of an actual or fictitious person or a title evoking a quality. So, who is La Vibray? Probably a French aristocratic lady, I would imagine. Ashley Solomon's playing of the solo line highlighted the grace and agility of "La Vibray", its (her) elegance inviting suave ornamentation. Playing a Palanca flute made by Martin Wenner, Solomon continued with one of  Telemann's Fantasias for Solo Flute, a cycle published in 1727 that has had a great influence on the flautist and recorder player’s world. Telemann himself was a fine flautist, which explains his understanding of the capabilities of the instrument and his ability to write idiomatically for it. Solomon's playing of the A minor Fantasia, with its movements of differing tempi, moods and styles, unfolded as a bold, personal musical adventure, albeit in miniature. Another Telemann work on the program was the Methodical Sonata in E minor, TWV 41:e2. Having left behind the limitations of responsibility towards a single sovereign, Telemann was now catering to a more open musical public. The idea behind the Methodical Sonatas (1728) was to provide amateur musicians, of which Hamburg had a thriving community, with guidance on High Baroque ornamentation of differing stylistic conventions, mainly those of Italy and France. (Telemann provides these guidelines for each of the slow first movements.) Indeed, the sonatas themselves are considerably more attractive than their collective title might suggest. In the artists' finely-chiselled and delicately detailed performance of the E minor Sonata, Solomon's intuitive feeling for Telemann’s idiom is present throughout, as he and his fellow players express the work's playful ideas as well as its touching sense of melancholy, as in the third movement marked "Cunando" (cradling).

 

And to three works of François Couperin. "Les goûts- réunis" (The Tastes Reunited), incorporating elements of the Italian style, were composed for the entertainment of the aging Louis XIV. The artists' playing of Concert No.13 of the collection was effectively contrasted, exuberant and full of dignity and beauty, also characterised by a hint of the nostalgia heard in other Couperin works. Concert No.13 was bookended by Schwarz's refined playing of two  pieces for harpsichord. Couperin le Grand's 240 keyboard pieces provide a fascinating portrait of the composer's time, presenting musical vignettes of his friends and enemies, of important court personalities as well as of people outside of Couperin’s immediate circle. Schwarz's elegant Italian trapezoidal William Horn spinet (inspired by a spinet of the Italian building school of the 16th century) made a robust statement in the fine acoustic space of the auditorium. Written in the arpeggiated style brisé, her playing of the (enigmatic) piece titled "Les Barricades Mystérieuses" (The Mysterious Barricades) was haunting and compelling in its seamless scheme and shifting colour palette. Richly ornamented, "La Ménétou" describes French harpsichordist/composer Françoise-Charlotte de Senneterre Ménétou (1679-1745), who had been a student of François Couperin. Another keyboard solo on the program was the lavishly ornamented Chaconne in F by Gaspard Le Roux, the latter composer being one of the most enigmatic of the late 17th century. The piece is replete with courtly mannerisms but not overlaid with formality. How pleasurable it was to call in on Jochewed Schwarz "in her private music room".

 

After the death of King Louis XIV at the end of the Baroque era, the rising of the bourgeoisie opened up new opportunities for composers in Paris. Joseph Bodin de Boismortier met the demand for works with a vast amount of gallant, easily-playable chamber music, which he also published himself (a practice rare till then.) Playing on a copy of an Eichentopf bassoon (1750) by Olivier Cottet (Paris), Gilat Rotkop gave much lively support to the basso continuo roles throughout the evening. Now, in Boismortier's Trio Sonata in E minor Op.17 No.2, she and Solomon engaged in lively, precise and articulate dialogue, the three artists giving elegant expression to the intricate subtleties of the work's three pint-sized movements and to the composer's keen interest in the technical and tonal characteristics of all three instruments. For an encore, we heard the Largo cantabile from Antonio Vivaldi's Trio Sonata in A minor RV 86 for flute (treble recorder) bassoon and continuo in A minor RV86, indeed, a virtuoso movement for the bassoon!

"Pimpinone" - works by Telemann performed by the Jerusalem Baroque Orchestra. Conductor: David Shemer. Vocal soloists: Daniela Skorka, Lidor Ram Mesika

Lidor Ram Mesika Ⓒ Yoel Levy

Daniela Skorka Ⓒ Yoel Levy

 

"Pimpinone", Concert No.5 of the Jerusalem Baroque Orchestra's 36th season, was conducted by JBO founder and music director Prof. David Shemer. The program comprised two works of Georg Philipp Telemann. Soloists were Daniela Skorka (soprano) and Lidor Ram Mesika (baritone/countertenor). This writer attended the performance on May 11th, 2025, at the Jerusalem International YMCA. 

 

Telemann’s extensive oeuvre comprises no fewer than 135 overtures (ouvertures) or suites for orchestra. Although written for specific occasions and for different instrumental combinations (perhaps originally as ballet music) they have joined the canon of concert repertoire due the composer's inspired writing and craftsmanship. A popular genre, which had its roots in France, the ouverture also included other influences, such as that of the Italian style, some also coloured with elements of traditional music. The evening's program opened with Telemann's Ouverture Suite in B-flat, "Burlesque", TWV 55:B8 for strings and basso continuo, a work which, besides two minuets, depicts several characters from the world of the commedia dell'arte. Setting the scene with the Overture itself, the JBO players lined up the characters - the villainous, manoeuvring Scaramouche,  leaping Harlequinade buffoonery and japery, an appealing, cantabile description of the servant Columbine (Harlequin's mistress), the mischievous trickery and comments of the lovesick Pierrot, then to wind up with a wild, impetuous dance representing the schemer and trouble-maker Mezzetin, its closing moments laced with a touch of the oriental. In playing of tasteful, articulate expression, the JBO instrumentalists brought out the contrasts between the ouverture's various movements, together with its whimsical and theatrical aspects.

 

 

Also based on the commedia dell’arte tradition, Telemann's comic opera "Pimpinone" TWV 21:15 originated as an intermezzo form. Premiered at the Gänsemarkt Opera in Hamburg in September 1725 and performed as an insert in George Frederic Handel’s opera seria "Tamerlano", it soon took on a life of its own and was heard all over Europe. Telemann took the highlights from a sparkling Italian libretto of Pietro Pariati and combined them with new texts by German poet Johann Philipp Praetorious. What emerged was an opera whose texts alternate between the Italian- and German languages. Telemann set the recitatives in German, thereby ensuring that his audience at the Gänsemarkt Opera could easily follow the plot. The comic opera features just two characters – Pimpinone, an elderly, wealthy, gullible man, and Vespetta, a scheming chambermaid. In search of a husband and fortune. Vespetta (her name translates as "little wasp") first convinces Pimpinone to hire her as his maid, then persuading him to propose marriage. Now his wife, she becomes the real boss of the household, controlling every aspect of the titular character’s life. The roles seem tailor-made for home-grown artists Daniela Skorka and Lidor Ram Mesika. Skorka makes for a coquettish Vespetta, revelling in her underhand control of the foolish, love-struck Pimpinone, as she constantly shares her wily strategies with the audience. Mesika, less blusterous, showing fewer facial and physical gestures (indeed, a reflective, confused Pimpinone) draws the audience in with his exceptionally resonant singing, his marvellously rich baritone voice emerging natural, even in timbre and well-anchored.  His aria (or, rather, duet with himself) “So quel che si dice e quel che si fa”, on the subject of gossiping neighbours, was a special treat, as he imitated the gossip-mongers, juggling their patter in quick exchanges of baritone- and countertenor passages. Skorka harnesses the sheer beauty of her bright, clear voice and her delightful stage presence to present the message of each aria. Both singers shifted smoothly between the Italian and German texts. The succession of arias - saucy and headstrong pieces for Vespetta and the confused and increasingly outraged numbers for Pimpinone - were produced with articulacy and fine diction, as were the duets, some of which presented the characters' singing individual agendas simultaneously! These also were performed with transparency and zest. The singers were supported by nimble, high-quality instrumental playing.

 

 

Breathing new life into stock comic characters from the 17th century in this delightful little domestic sitcom, Telemann's score bubbles with rhythmic verve and melodic invention. Not to be ignored is the fact that the piece is a musical comment on then-contemporary professional and private spheres, referring to the hard life of single women, the significance of wealth and social standing for eligibility for marriage and the injustices of patriarchal marriage law. Add to those the element of ridicule directed at romantically-inclined senior citizens.  However, Telemann's own domestic life was turned upside-down after his second marriage to Maria Katharina Textor, the teenage daughter of a local town clerk.  Rumours of Maria’s extra-marital activities began to circulate throughout Hamburg society, as local newspapers published detailed accounts of her romantic conquests, leaving Telemann mercilessly mocked as the aging, senile and scorned husband. The composer, in turn, responded artistically to these insults by composing "Pimpinone", aptly named "Die ungleiche Heirat zwischen Vespetta und Pimpinone” or “Das herrschsüchtige Kammer Mädchen" ("The Unequal Marriage Between Vespetta and Pimpinone" or "The Domineering Chambermaid".). 

 

It was a sparkling, uplifting concert, excellently presented. Prof. David Shemer dedicated the event to the memory of musicologist Prof. Jehoash Hershberg, researcher of Baroque opera and one of the JBO's original instrumentalists.

 

"Love is in the Airs" - the Carmel Quartet and Cecila Ensemble perform works on the subject of love from madigals of William Byrd to Eric Whitacre's "Five Hebrew Love Songs"

 

Photo: Yoel Levy

The Carmel Quartet's recent concert was very different from past events of its "Strings and More" series. In "Love is in the Airs", a program on the subject of love, the Carmel Quartet (established 2000) hosted the Cecilia Ensemble (music director: Guy Pelc). Replacing Prof. Yoel Greenberg (Carmel Quartet director/violist) and 1st violinist Rachel Ringelstein, we heard Matan Dagan (1st violin) and Shuli Waterman (viola) alongside Carmel Quartet members Tali Goldberg (violin) and Tami Waterman ('cello). Established by Naomi Faran (Moran Choirs conductor/musical director) the Cecilia Ensemble, an octet of outstanding soloists, serves as the professional representative ensemble of the Moran Choirs. "Love is in the Airs" was the Cecilia Ensemble's first collaboration with the Carmel Quartet. This writer attended the concert at the Jerusalem Music Centre, Mishkenot Sha'ananim on March 4th, 2025.

 

Opening the program, the Cecilia Ensemble members performed four a-cappella songs, commencing with a dynamic, ebullient performance of one of William Byrd's few secular pieces - "This sweet and merry month of May" - the Italianate madrigal's text reflecting the accepted English practice of praising Elizabeth I. This was followed by Byrd's "Lullaby, my sweet little baby", the ensemble highlighting Byrd's smooth flow of lush harmonies. Indeed tender, but with the balance a little heavy on the part of the sopranos. Then to two madrigals of Claudio Monteverdi. The quintet performing "A un giro sol de begl'occhi" (At a single glance of those beautiful eyes) led the listener from the realm of idyllic love as mirrored in nature, to sadness and on to vehement expression of love's cruelty, the singers highlighting Monteverdi's wonderful word-painting (madrigalism) and dissonances. Following that, the rich, serene nature scene of "Ecco mormorar l'onde" (Now the waves murmur) offered consolation to "each burnt-out heart". 

 

In 1996, Eric Whitacre (b.1971, USA) composed his "Five Hebrew Love Songs" to poems by singer/actress Hila Plitmann (b.1974, Israel), who would later become his wife. Originally written for soprano solo, piano and violin, the small poems (referred to by Whitacre as "postcards") take shape as a musical suite, each song, each, at the same time, remaining a single performable unit. In 2001, Whitacre arranged the songs for SATB chorus and string quartet, which was the setting performed at the Jerusalem concert. Following "A Picture", performed by the women singers, delicately depicting the love inside a person's heart, we heard "Light Bride", alternating between sections sung by male voices and contrasting vivid, unrestrained and dancelike sections sung by the women, these sections embellished with a touch of percussion. The third song, "Mostly", is characterized by its soprano solo (Lotem Taub) and by ascending and descending scales suggesting the idea of roof and sky as the subtle distance between two lovers. In "What Snow!", players and singers give expression to Whitacre's marvellous winter canvas, the violins evoking the pristine snow scene with flageolets, the score's ravishing clusters describing snowflakes. The bells sounding at the beginning of the song represent the exact pitches of bells the couple heard each morning from a nearby cathedral in Germany. An exceptional tableau and beautifully performed! The fifth song "Tenderness", sensuous, clement and oriental in flavour, concludes the suite, a work highlighting Whitacre's fine, expressive writing for both voices and instruments. 

 

From the freehearted, plainspoken approach to fresh love in Whitacre's "Five Hebrew Love Songs" to the elusive, mystical quality of British composer Gustav Holst's "Seven Part Songs" Op.44, set to poems of  English poet laureate Robert Bridges and scored for three-part women's chorus, strings and solo soprano. With the solo sections shared among the singers, we were presented with a profound, detailed reading of the pieces, the artists contending well with Holst's later choral compositional style and his highly personal brand of complex modal harmony. Singers (and players!) engaged in the complexities and beauty of the verbal texts with a sense of personal involvement. From the first song, "Say who is this?", the viola drone endorsing its eerie, bleak content, the songs challenge the listener to ponder each text and contemplate the many aspects of love presented here. In "When first we met," its sophisticated canonic interplay of vocal and orchestral forces emerging both alluring and disturbing, we learn that love is "so hard a master". Inspirited by a zesty ostinato, "Sorrow and Joy", on the other hand, offers a few home truths and advice on managing love and presented with the wink of an eye; whereas the homophonic, delicate and warmly expressive miniature "Love on my heart from heaven fell" (solo: Tom Ben Ishai) presents love as an idyllic state. Setting the scene with a soprano solo (Lotem Taub), supported by a cold, ghostly pedal in the first violin, the final song, "Assemble all ye maidens," by far the longest of the set, takes a dramatic approach to the poem describing a lady who died for love. A masterpiece, it represents the culmination of Holst’s mature art as a choral composer. One of Holst’s most profound compositions, it reflects the composer’s interest in the supernatural. 

 

Despite achieving great professional success, it seems Johannes Brahms remained unlucky in love. Involved in a number of romantic relationships throughout his lifetime, he is believed to have also developed feelings for Robert and Clara Schumann’s daughter Julie. Indeed, Brahms completed his Liebeslieder Walzer, Op. 52 in 1869, the year her engagement was announced. Light and unpretentious, the dances in Ländler style were designed for the enjoyment of talented amateurs rather than for concert artists, the eighteen songs representing two musical trends of the 1800s - dances to be played by piano duet and vocal pieces on the subject of love. To this end, Brahms selected verses from Georg Friedrich Daumer’s "Polydora", an 1855 German anthology of folk song texts from many countries. The poems Brahms chose comment on various aspects of love: some are set to longer, more serious texts, while others read like terse proverbs. Enter two distinctive Israeli musical figures - pianist, music theorist, and award-winning theatre composer Yuval Shapira and pianist/ accompanist, vocal coach, lecturer and translator Dr. Ido Ariel. Shapira's desire to re-score Brahms' piano role (so arresting in piano style and beauty that the composer arranged it for piano 4 hands without voices in 1875) had me worrying I might be hankering for that Brahmsian pianistic sumptuousness and poesy throughout the performance. But no! Shapira's arrangement offered much interest and individual expression to the string parts, both team-wise and individually, not losing sight of the composer's expressive use of melody, imaginative harmonies and counterpoint, or of the unique (experimental!) way in which Brahms controls the rhythmic and metric flow to suit each of these miniatures.  Ariel's sharp-witted translation of the songs is faithful to Daumer's original German - no less piquant, no less whimsical, no less delightsome - as the Hebrew words weave themselves naturally and effortlessly through and around Brahms' melodic course! Instrumentalists and singers were clearly savouring every verbal- and musical gesture of Brahms' multifarious lexicon of love…as was the audience.

 

A recently issued CD - "Last Dance". Michael Tsalka and Diana Weston perform works from J.C.F.Bach to contemporary music on square piano and harpsichord

 

Keyboard artists Diana Weston and Michael Tsalka have recently recorded a second disc of classical and contemporary works for square piano and harpsichord on the Wirripang Media label. And, as in "Full Moon" (Wirripang Media, February, 2024), their previous joint recording, the artists offer the listener several works for 4 hands, solo pieces, earlier and contemporary repertoire and works by Australian composers. 

 

The disc's opening work is Sonata in A major for 4 hands by Johann Christoph Friedrich Bach (1732-1795), the lesser-known third of Johann Sebastian Bach’s four composing sons, the 16th of his twenty children. Like his brothers and father, J.C.F.Bach was known as a virtuoso keyboard player. Having spent time in London, where he was exposed to the music of Mozart and the burgeoning Classical style, he then brought back a fortepiano with him to Germany, meaning that one could assume that his chamber music from that time onwards might be intended for the fortepiano rather than the harpsichord. Performing Friedrich's Sonata in A major, Tsalka and Weston present hearty dialogue in the bold, sparkling Allegro movement and in the bonheur of the following Allegretto, the artists' playing testifying to Friedrich's reputed congenial nature, as heard throughout this charming sonata.

 

The music of Johann Baptist Vaňhal (1739-1813), whose prodigious gifts took him from rural Bohemia to the very top of the musical world in 18th-century Vienna, has fallen into relative obscurity. Indeed, Vanhal is a shadowy figure; only part of his vast output of music has been satisfactorily evaluated or even catalogued. (Michael Tsalka, however, brought renewed attention to the composer's fine keyboard writing in his recording of Vaňhal's Keyboard Capriccios (Grand Piano, 2015.) In the late 1770s, Vaňhal redirected his attention from composing symphonies and string quartets to writing much music for- and with keyboard, catering to the changing musical tastes of the Viennese public and enjoying the new opportunities offered by the fledgling Viennese music publishing industry. Of the two Op.32 Sonatas for piano 4 hands, we hear Tsalka and Weston's performance of Sonata No.1 in F major, a work highlighting the character of the square piano and the joy of house music. The sonata abounds in a sense of well-being and affection, also displaying the polish and élan of Vaňhal's music, its depth and whimsy, the latter apparent in the syncopated rhythmic play of the Allegro. 

 

Still within the domain of domestic music for 4 hands, the artists play L van Beethoven's Variations on a Theme by Count Grafen von Waldstein, a piece from the composer's last days in Bonn (a work  generally overlooked by Beethoven scholars!) Indeed, the theme-and- variations form plays an important role throughout Beethoven’s writing. Performing the piece on square piano, Weston and Tsalka give the stage to its major-minor duality, its colourful offering of pianistic writing and its variety of moods and gestures. Interestingly, we hear Beethoven trying out new and quite daring feats. Tsalka and Weston address the inventiveness and richness of this decidedly extravagant piece with panache, entertaining the listener with the spontaneity of quick-change artists.

 

Moving into the 21st century, we hear Prof. Tsalka's performance of "Brushstrokes" by Nicholas Smith (b.1934 UK, now residing in China), premiered by Tsalka in Ningbo, China in April 2024. Played on piano forte, it invites the listener to luxuriate in just over two minutes of richly mellifluous Romantic-style piano music. Dedicated by Spanish pianist/composer Joan Josep Gutiérrez Yzquierdo to Michael Tsalka, "Prelude and Fugue" was premiered by Tsalka at the Geelvinck Fortepiano Festival (Holland) in 2019. Inspired by Mendelssohn's writing, the Prelude (played on square piano) revisits the sweeping melodic outpouring and rich harmonic textures of the Romantic piano. Tsalka moves to the harpsichord for the ensuing Fugue - a single-subject, three-voiced, Blues-tinted fugue, its ambience suggesting "the swing of jazz", in the composer's words. Tsalka's intelligent performance calls attention to Gutiérrez Yzquierdo's resourceful and masterful writing in these two atypically paired movements.

 

The disc features two works of Aspasia Nasopoulou (b.1972 Greece, now residing in Holland), many of her works being inspired by literature, mythology and philosophy from different cultures. "Io" refers to the Greek tale of Io, who was transformed by Zeus into a calf. The harpsichord piece, commissioned in 2018 for Diana Weston, is a programme work, vigorous in its uncompromising style. Weston engages rigorously in its profusion of harpsichord textures to create a convincing musical observation of the story's sequence of events (described in the liner notes), the myth's dramatic storyline only finding peace when Io is eventually restored to her original human state. The work falls into eight sections, these correlating with the eight phases of the moon. The 3*1 Suite, consisting of three pieces (Tsalka, piano forte) takes inspiration from three Rubaiyat poems of Persian mathematician/philosopher Omar Khayyám (1048-1131). The model upon which Nasopoulou bases the three miniatures here is that of the 4-line Rabaiyats, a form also alluding to the content course of the poem. Tsalka's articulate and riveting playing of the mostly atonal pieces, each somewhat descriptive via developing motifs, each highly contemplative, takes the listener into both the mystery and universality of these ancient poems.

 

Violeta Dinescu (b. 1953, Romania, now residing in Germany) composed "Variazioni alla Vanhal" for Diana Weston and Michael Tsalka. Performed on harpsichord (Weston) and square piano (Tsalka), the work takes its inspiration from Vaňhal's Sonata No.1 in F major Op.32! and is largely improvisational. In its many sections, some mere fragments, Dinescu invites the artists to take the lead from motifs from Sonata No.1. This they do with verve, bold freedom and fantasy, displaying fine teamwork, taking on board the process described by Dinescu as "like a dream…continuously transformed…a hierarchy of surprises…every time along a new narrative of musical thread". 

 

And to the three works by Australian composers. Two works of Ann Carr-Boyd (b.Australia, 1938) featured in "Full Moon" were inspired by Australian nature scenes, as are her two works in "Last Dance". "Moonacres Farm", offering an alluring timbral meeting of piano forte (Tsalka) and harpsichord (Weston), draws the listener into its marvellously serene mood, the artists' performance in collusion with the composer's concept of it as "suggestive of the moon hovering over paddocks and trees". The two movements of "Outback River", a reworking of the piece commissioned by Diana Weston in 2022 (originally for harpsichord and two 'cellos) were inspired by the  surging Darling River in New South Wales when pervaded by floodwaters. Again, played on square and harpsichord, the artists give a bracing, involved and evocative performance of Carr-Boyd's rich canvas, its multilayering descriptive of the power, the vibrancy (and dangers) of sweeping floodwaters, the composer's meandering melodies and richly-fashioned textures never far removed from the tonal/modal setup.

 

"First Dance" (2015) by prolific Australian composer Elena Kats-Chernin (b.Tashkent, 1957), is played by Diana Weston on piano forte. Written in honour of the wedding of Kats-Chernin's son, Weston's touching rendition of the piece strikes a personal note, its flowing, sentimental melodiousness woven throughout the piece with a trace of melancholy.

 

Dr. Weston (Sydney, Australia) and Prof. Tsalka (Israel-China) have performed and recorded together for some years. Recorded in July 2024 in Naremburn, Sydney, Australia, "Last Dance" commands sound quality that is real and articulate. The instruments played are an original square piano (piano forte) labelled Robertson, made by James Smith (Liverpool, c.1835) and restored by Jennifer Roberts and Marcelo Costi (Bathurst, New South Wales, Australia); and a Flemish reproduction harpsichord by Marc du Cornet. In this fitting follow-up to "Full Moon", Tsalka and Weston once again call attention to the varied (and extending) repertoire written for historic keyboards, the artists' outstanding renditions reflecting scrutinous probing into each work and style. 

 Diana Weston (Thorough Bass)

Michael Tsalka (Geelvinck Muziek Musea)