Wigmore Hall
Schubert – Rondo in B minor,
D 895
Debussy – Première rapsodie
Stravinsky – L’Histoire du soldat: suite for violin,
clarinet, and piano
Poulenc – Clarinet Sonata
Debussy – Violin Sonata in G
minor
Bartók – Contrasts
Anthony Marwood (violin)
Martin Fröst (clarinet)
Marc-André Hamelin (piano)
In many ways, this proved an
enjoyable recital – once past the opening Schubert Rondo in B minor. I cannot
imagine what possessed the musicians to include it. Quite apart from the lack
of connection with an otherwise twentieth-century programme, it is a weak
piece, whose revival does the composer no favours whatsoever. It might have
been made to work with a compelling performance; here both Marc-André Hamelin
and Anthony Marwood sounded decidedly out of sorts, displaying little chemistry.
Hamelin struggled to conjure a plausibly Schubertian piano tone, often sounding
harsh, his opening chords – and their repetition – almost ludicrously so. And goodness,
this piece overstays its welcome: its lengths are anything but 'heavenly'.
With Debussy’s Première rapsodie, we entered a
different world in every respect. Hamelin set up the piece well in terms of
opening sonority, suspense, and seductiveness. Martin Fröst – here as
elsewhere, undoubtedly the star of the evening – offered beguiling clarinet
tone and subtly telling phrasing. Rubato was well judged; indeed, the
performance as a whole sounded wonderfully effortless. Hamelin sounded by turns
languorous and nimble, whilst Fröst showed the truth of the adage that
technique is the liberation of the imagination, his account of the clarinet
part as sexy as that of the slinkiest saxophonist.
Stravinsky’s suite for the
three instruments of movements from The
Soldier’s Tale has sometimes come in for adverse criticism. I cannot
imagine why; it works very well, and certainly did so in this performance.
Throughout the players, especially Hamelin, offered an excellent onward,
motoric tread. Marwood seemed far better attuned to this music than to Schubert,
properly capturing the weird expressiveness of Stravinsky’s decidedly eccentric
writing for the violin. Fröst’s high notes in the ‘Marche du soldat’ proved
nicely menacing, his coolness in ‘Le Violon du soldat’ a proper foil to that
violin. Not for the first time, I thought of jazz, both the similarity and also
the very real differences. The ‘Petit concert’ was brilliantly evocative; one
could almost see the original ‘show’. Well-characterised dances followed,
leading us into the closing ‘Danse du diable’, a frenetic heir to the Rite as well as neo-classical precursor.
It teemed, as it were, with alienated and damaged life.
Following the interval, Fröst
and Hamelin offered a fine account of Poulenc’s Clarinet Sonata, full of dark,
at first understated energy. The first movement’s typical sudden shifts of mood
were handled well, likewise the general ebb and flow. Both players offered
quite breathtaking hushed playing. Ultimately, quite rightly, the composer’s
serious side emerged as victor. Even when predictable, as sometimes it is, the
slow movement remained lovable. Again, it was perhaps the quiet intensity that
was most impressive. The finale was razor-sharp, yet playful.
The Debussy G minor Violin
Sonata followed. Again, the opening piano chords announced a very different voice:
cooler, yes, but in an Isadora Duncan-like, faux Grecian manner. That, however,
would be to overlook the vigour and passion of what would come. Especially in the
first two movements, we were in no doubt as to the broad range of expression
Debussy summons up through, rather than despite, his late classicism. The ‘Intermède’
was sprightly, yet the players knew also when to relax. However, there was
perhaps a little too much of the plain-spoken to the finale, which lacked in
fantasy.
Finally, Bartók’s Contrasts, which once again brought all
three players together. The opening twists and turns, of which there are many,
were convincingly communicated. In this ‘Verbunkos’, Fröst again emerged as primus inter pares, a proper heir to
Benny Goodman. Structure and expressive means continued to be conveyed as one
in ‘Pihenő’. I mean no disrespect to Hamelin to say that some of the most
revealing moments were those in which the piano fell silent; it is rather a
tribute to Bartók’s extraordinary imagination. The final ‘Sebes’ was viscerally
exciting, wanting nothing in agility. It shared the virtues of its predecessors
with a wildness that was entirely its own.
