Tag: Daniel Lebhardt

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REVIEW: Martin Dreyer’s verdict on North York Moors Chamber Music Festival, Dialogue and The Dividing Line, St Hilda’s, Danby and St Hedda’s, Egton Bridge, August 11 and 13

Violinist Charlotte Scott

THE titles – the festival’s own – give a rough indication of where we are in this year’s theme of Creation.

Dialogue is self-explanatory; the Dividing Line is that between earth and sky. Each of these recitals in churches on the northern edge of the North York Moors featured a world premiere, in a context of related works, old and new.

The afternoon in Danby involved only three violinists: Alena Baeva, Benjamin Baker and Charlotte Scott. Two pieces each by Bach and Berio framed two dances by Saariaho and the world premiere of Creation by Isabella Gellis, the only work in the programme involving all three players.

She describes it as a reimagining of an aria about a butterfly, sung by the Child in her 2024 opera The Devil’s Den, which was staged by Opera North last November. The role requires some daunting vocal pyrotechnics.

In the earlier part of its eight minutes, a glissando and close harmony set up a sense of lament. These recurred later, but the highest voice emerged gently at first and then with full-throated lyricism before lower, slower voices suggested the butterfly temporarily at rest.

It was not long before a series of high-note signposts, against tremolo accompaniment, grew ever more intense, keenly reflecting the original aria. Finally this dissipated into hovering harmony, in a pianissimo that stopped abruptly. Even without the visual reference, the piece stands alone most effectively.

Charlotte Scott despatched an immaculate if slightly deliberate account of Bach’s Second Partita for solo violin at the start, which was more than matched by Alena Baeva’s concluding no-holds-barred version of his taxing Chaconne, in which the three voices within the score emerged clearly.

Benjamin Baker teamed up with each of them in turn in five of Berio’s Duetti, bringing out the more lyrical sides of the composer’s human portraits. All three players warmed up for the Gellis with a suitably balletic approach to Saariaho’s two Danses des Flocons.

There were no less than a baker’s dozen of players on hand two afternoons later in Egton Bridge. The first half of the programme culminated in the world premiere of Charlotte Bray’s That Which You Wove Of Lightest Thread, I Wear To Honour Stone, for horn and string quartet.

Its title is taken from Paul Celan’s poem Totenhemd (‘death shirt’). What made this unusual was its close affiliation with a woven installation by the artist Caroline Burraway, which was on display in the nave. It consisted of a number of largely dessicated leaves woven together with human hair. It was deliberately designed to fall apart over time.

Bray’s music had a similar feel. Most of the action was in the solo horn, now in brief fanfares or calls to action, now less affirmative, more faltering. Its lines were brief rather than lyrical. Underneath the

string quartet wavered uncertainly, as if quaking at the horn’s decisiveness and fearful of its dominance. It was as if the horn was a tyrant, the strings his cowering people. This was musical impressionism in modern guise.

It had been preceded without a break by Thea Musgrave’s evocative Dawn, for oboe solo (Nicholas Daniel), followed by Kurtag’s Ligatura (from The Answered Unanswered Question), in the version for two violins, two cellos and celeste, and Ives’s The Unanswered Question, with Ben Goldscheider’s horn standing in for the trumpet and the wind quartet ‘chorus’ playing from behind the audience, attempting to answer the question of the title. The three works made an effective sequence and a useful prologue to the Bray.

Schubert’s String Quintet after the interval got off to a less than persuasive start, where slightly stronger accents might been more effective. The second movement hovered as it should and there was a welcome injection of light-heartedness in the Scherzo.

The finale came together with some force, the instruments now seeming more settled with each other. Much of the ensemble’s energy seemed to radiate not so much from the first violin, Alena Baeva, but from the centrally positioned viola, Sascha Bota, whose glances in all directions acted as a focus for his colleagues. It was a solidly competent rather a memorable account.

Oboe player Nicholas Daniel

Highlights from the Second Week, North York Moors Chamber Music Festival, August 17 to 22, at Welburn Manor Marquee unless otherwise stated

IN retrospect, the first half of ‘From the Silence’ (August 17) was relatively unexciting. The sudden rhythmic interjections in Thomas Adès’s piano work Traced Overhead, played by Joseph Havlat, and the largely slow-paced and thoroughly thought-laden And Other Things by Isabella Gellis, for clarinet, cello and piano, threatened to outstay their welcomes.

Dream, by Huw Watkins, for clarinet, violin and piano, was much more incident-packed, belying its title. From a quiet start, it exploded into fire. The piano calmed things down, but the other instruments lost patience with this and erupted again. Stimulating.  Adès’s Four Berceuses were surely ironically titled: definitely not recommended for lulling a child to sleep.

After the interval, reverting to Mozart and Beethoven, we might have expected classical normality. We were wrong. In Mozart’s Oboe Quartet in F, the typical approach is for oboe to dominate and the supporting strings to fill in where needed. This was quite different. All four players were totally engaged, the strings not to be outdone by the soloist and making their presence felt at every opportunity, weaving in and out of the texture with deft inflexions all round.

The slow movement was utterly soulful, rivetingly so up to and including its final cadence. In the finale, with all four going hell for leather, ensemble remained taut. This was the most exciting account of the work one could ever expect to hear, sensational in its daring and impact, certainly not what one might anticipate in a work that can easily sound bland. This was anything but. The deft oboist was Nicholas Daniel, with violinist Benjamin Baker, viola player Simone van der Giessen and cellist Tim Posner in close attendance.

By the time we reached Beethoven’s ‘Ghost’ Trio, Op 70 No 1, rain lashing the canvas made life difficult for players and audience alike. It had its compensations, however. The first movement was exceptionally fiery – a matter of self-defence – yet with some exceptionally subtle phrasing in its development section.

The Largo took on an extra layer of creepiness in this weather. The finale took time to outweigh the demons conjured in the Largo, but eventually – with the rain now letting up – moved into sunnier, pastoral climes. It was a brave and ultimately satisfying account.

* * * * *

THE next afternoon in a packed St Mary’s, Lastingham (August 18), ‘The Architect’s Hand’ offered Mozart’s Clarinet Quintet, partnered by the world premiere of an oboe quartet by Huw Watkins, whose String Trio made such a profound effect in this venue last year.

The Mozart was marked by clarinettist Matthew Hunt’s clear attempt to blend as smoothly as possible with the strings, made possible only by his extraordinary breath control. His duetting with first violinist Charlotte Scott in the slow movement, for example, was ideally balanced, all strings being muted here.

The strings made a shapely impact in the first of the Scherzo’s trios (where clarinet is silent). But it was in the six variations of the finale that Hunt really came into his own. Skipping between octaves in the first variation, bubbling in chalumeau register in the second, he was particularly effervescent in the fourth. In the more chromatic final two variations, the ensemble delivered some teasing pauses and tempo-changes.

Oboist-in-residence Nicholas Daniel returned to the front line in Watkins’s exciting new work. He was partnered by violinist Benjamin Baker, viola player Simone van der Giessen and cellist Jamie Walton, very much an ‘A’ Team. Into some fierce opening string chords, the oboe crept gingerly before building furiously as its tessitura rose, against highly syncopated strings. This movement faded dreamily at its close.

In a largely slow movement, Baker’s violin was much the most agitated participant, its decorative roulades contrasting with the largely calm, pastoral mood of the oboe and lower strings. The oboe’s legato line was a delight. Virtuoso runs in the oboe dominated the finale, where all four players were kept busy.

It was if the oboe were challenging the others to follow him. This they did after the opening triplet motif made a reappearance, whereupon all four took flight, the oboe rising ever higher towards an extremelyeffective, hushed ending.

* * * * *

‘NIGHTFALL’ (August 20) opened with the pianist Katya Apekisheva playing another three of Schumann’s Fantasiestucke Op 12, which have been featured throughout the festival. Aptly, her phrasing was particularly lovely in Des Abends (‘In the evening’).

It was the prelude to the UK premiere of Tom Coult’s Two Nocturnes And A Maze, for horn, violin and piano, which was written for performance in a hillside church in the Swiss Alps.

As one might expect, there were echoes of Alpine horn in Nocturne I, to which piano responded chordally and violin in jerky fashion. Nocturne II was much closer to Bartok’s night-music, with a repeated-note motif batted between horn and violin, as the horn became gradually higher and more sustained. It finished sparsely, with single notes from each player.

In between, Maze, with horn now muted at first, the texture was lighter and airier, with pizzicato violin and staccato piano. The relationship between the three parts was vague but the combinations were engaging.

Daniel Lebhardt followed the opening movement of Beethoven’s ‘Moonlight’ Sonata, with the slow movement of Schubert’s Piano Sonata in B flat, D.960. He was splendidly grand in its bold central section.

Apekisheva returned, with violinist Benjamin Baker and cellist Jamie Walton, the festival director, for an affecting account of Schubert’s single-movement Trio D.897 (nicknamed – not by Schubert – ‘Notturno’). Its opening is curiously marked pianissimo and appassionato. We certainly sensed the passion here.

* * * * *

THE closing afternoon concert (August 22), ‘…In The End’, juxtaposed Mozart’s First Piano Quartet, K.478 with Schumann’s Piano Quintet, a lusciously attractive combination. In the Mozart, Lebhardt was the pianist, supporting Alessandro Ruisi (violin), Emma Wernig (viola) and Bartholomew LaFollette (cello). It took the repeat of the exposition for it to be clearly defined, after which the ensemble mined the rich seam of drama in the development section.

The slow movement was as tender as could be imagined. In the rondo finale, Lebhardt turned the various returns to the theme into fascinating mini-cadenzas,  but the four players were a little tentative in their interactions.

A more familiar combination of players turned out for the Schumann. Baker’s fellow-violinist was Oliver Heath, alongside Simone van der Giessen (viola) and Jamie Walton (cello), underpinned by Apekisheva’s piano. Oddly enough, this is the first work in the repertoire for this particular combination of instruments.

The second theme in the first movement, shared between cello and viola, was delightfully lyrical, straight from the heart of the Romantic era. The slow movement, more or less a funeral march, ebbed and flowed tellingly, before an ending delivered without vibrato.

 In the whirlwind Scherzo, the passage-work from the strings was especially crisp, leading into a finale that reminded us just how expert Apekisheva can be in a supporting role: she sustained an immaculate balance with the strings rather than turning it into a mini-piano concerto, particularly in the concluding fugato. The thunderous applause was appropriate, as much for the work itself as for the ending of another highly successful festival.

Reviews by Martin Dreyer

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REVIEW: Martin Dreyer’s verdict on North York Moors Chamber Music Festival, In The Beginning…, Welburn Manor Marquee, August 8

Pianist Katya Apekisheva: “Delivered an account of Berg’s single-movement Piano Sonata, Op 1 that you are unlikely to hear bettered”

THE best-kept secret in the world of chamber music is up and running once again. This 18th year’s theme celebrates the wonders of Creation and is titled accordingly. Fittingly, this includes six premieres over the festival fortnight, at all of which the composers concerned will be present.

The sheer statistics are worth a glance. Over the course of 13 concerts, there will be 58 pieces from 32 different composers covering 300 years to the present. Most featured are Thomas Adès and Schumann with six pieces each, followed by Beethoven and Mozart with four apiece.

There are 28 performers involved, all of them outstanding in their field, including many who return year after year and have become audience favourites.

For those new to the festival, it should be mentioned that although the programmes are published in advance, the names of the actual performers are only revealed just before each event – which adds an anticipatory frisson.

This year’s Young Artists Ensemble is the Davidoff Trio, who had the honour of opening proceedings, which encompassed Opus 1 pieces by Beethoven, Schumann, Berg and Mendelssohn. The outstanding feature of the trio’s treatment of Beethoven’s Op 1, No 1 in E flat was the intelligent pianism of Yona Sophia Jutzi. She maintained an ideal balance with her partners along with smooth momentum.

The ‘Mannheim skyrocket’ of the opening theme had a crisp staccato in all three voices. By contrast, the unusual Rondo slow movement was notable for the pianist’s rubato and the cellist’s interjections.

Much was made of the contrast between the pianissimo opening of the Scherzo and the more robust moments later. There was sparkling wit in the finale, taken at particularly brisk pace, with the strings handling its Mozart-style chromaticism with panache.

Roman Kosyakov highlighted the vitality in Schumann’s Op 1, his Abegg Variations for piano, his first foray into musical acrostics, since the letters of the name (with B representing the note B flat) are the theme that he develops. Kosyakov was clearly aware that their style was largely derived from Chopin and he milked it cleverly, particularly in the highly decorated fourth variation.

Katya Apekisheva, a long-time favourite here, delivered an account of Berg’s single-movement Piano Sonata, Op 1 that you are unlikely to hear bettered. She was totally attuned to the idiom of extremely late Romantic harmony composed when Berg was still a pupil of Schoenberg. Her touch and attention to detail were impeccable, notably as she built towards its big climax.

Mendelssohn’s First Piano Quartet, Op 1 in C minor, brought a third pianist to the podium, Daniel Lebhardt, in company with violinist Charlotte Scott, viola player Elliott Perks and cellist and festival director Jamie Walton. It proved a superb combination. Its opus number belies the work’s extraordinary maturity, which was apparent in the relentlessly detailed piano role in the first movement. Lebhardt handled it impeccably.

There was a truly Romantic soulfulness in the Adagio, largely coloured by the lower two strings. The excitement in the scherzo gave it a sense of acceleration and a power cut during the trio was weathered faultlessly. Battery lights were brought on before the finale which, despite its moderato marking, was taken at a fair clip, growing in intensity into a thrilling coda.

Review by Martin Dreyer

North York Moors Chamber Music Festival continues until August 22. For the full programme, visit:  northyorkmoorsfestival.com.

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REVIEW: Martin Dreyer’s verdict on North York Moors Chamber Music Festival, Of Music In The Silver Air (Algernon Charles Swinburne, August), Marquee, Welburn Manor, August 12

The Waldstein Trio

TWO French piano quintets dominated this programme, with solo piano bonbons introducing each.

César Franck wrote four piano trios as a teenager and then took nearly 40 years to produce his grand Piano Quintet in F minor, premiered in 1880. Another 40 years later, Gabriel Fauré wrote his Second Piano Quintet in C minor, unveiling it in 1921. They carry certain similarities but if anything the Franck sounds the more modern.

For the Franck we had the Waldstein Trio joined by Benjamin Baker as first violin and Megan Cassidy as viola. The Waldsteins were much more focused than at their earlier outing here, not striving to make an effect, and blended well with their colleagues.

It may help to remember that although Franck was born in Belgium and became French, his parents were both of German origin. This helps to explain why the principle of leitmotif, popularised by Wagner, became so important to him: one major theme recurs in various guises in all three movements of this work. It takes a while to emerge – which accounts for the urgency this ensemble brought to the opening, while searching for its raison d’être.

The start of the slow movement similarly gropes in the darkness, but it reached a nice apex here before subsiding with a sigh of relief. The tremolos in the finale lent a sense of menace, this edginess here peaking in the two heavy pizzicato passages and eventually rushing towards a highly emotional climax, where major and minor keys jostled for superiority.

The Fauré is altogether less pretentious and the now changed ensemble reflected this. The key to its success was the delicate restraint but brilliant underpinning provided by the pianist Joseph Havlat; he was never percussive. The violins of Charlotte Scott and Emma Parker were joined by the viola of Gary Pomeroy and the cello of Jamie Walton.

There was a comfortable ebb and flow right from the start before an energetic conversation between piano and strings. In the light and airy scherzo, taken at a terrific pace, the strings were like flitting fireflies.

In contrast, the richer harmonies of the slow movement spoke of a new intimacy, over the piano’s rippling flow: its main theme, heard on low strings, delivered deep emotion before vanishing into space. The viola’s opening theme was tossed around in various guises throughout a luscious finale.

Daniel Lebhardt had opened the evening with two more tasteful episodes from Janacek’s On An Overgrown Path, always sustaining their simplicity. Similarly, he applied deft brush strokes to a Debussy prelude, a thoughtful painter at his easel.

Charlotte Scott

North York Moors Chamber Music Festival, Time Present and Time Past (T S Eliot, Four Quartets), St Mary’s Church, Lastingham, August 14

THE opening line of Burnt Norton, the first of T S Eliot’s Four Quartets, was amply reflected in this stirring two-pronged matinee. A very recent string trio by Huw Watkins was followed by the last of Mozart’s six string quartets dedicated to Haydn.

There is a special aura about Lastingham church. This certainly owes much to its Saxon foundation, but equally its radiant stonework lends lightness and intimacy to an arena where none of the audience is far from the players.

In Huw Watkins’s Second String Trio, these were the violinist Oliver Heath, the violist Gary Pomeroy and the cellist Jamie Walton. The intensity of their cohesion in what is by any standards a very demanding work was a privilege to experience.

The work is divided into seven short sections. It bounced straight into an electric rampage, with a marginally calmer centre. This dissolved into the total contrast of a luscious, lyrical slow movement. Like a video dissolving into new frames, it led into something darker, with upper-voice pizzicato that encouraged the cello to break free.

But one senses that Watkins does not like to stay serious for long. A flippant, frolicsome frenzy followed, suggesting Bacchic dance or even a rite of spring. A residue of anger seeped into the subsequent Adagio, although it gradually sweetened, providing a springboard into an angular free-for-all, with all threesquabbling over a four-note motif.

However,  the extraordinary finale, with supercharged cross-accents and catchy syncopation, saw the players finally coalesce in sensational style. Both the piece and its delivery were a tour de force. I would gladly hear it again any time.

After that, it hardly seemed possible that Mozart’s K.465 in C, nicknamed the ‘Dissonance’, could match the excitement of the Watkins. The violins now were Charlotte Scott and Emma Parker, with Pomeroy’s viola remaining on stage and Tim Posner taking the cello chair.

One of the special features of this festival is watching professionals go all out on a favourite piece: the thrills risk spills. But there were no spills here. After an opening as teasingly perplexing as Mozart clearly intended, there was terrific energy in the release of pent-up tension that followed and with it great transparency, so taut was the ensemble. The lovely Andante began a little forcefully but the pregnant silences in its second half were cleverly stretched.

There was even more of a surprise in the trio, which turned into a mini-drama in Sturm und Drang style, a hangover from the 1770s. The finale was brilliantly pointed. The devil was in the detail: the two-note staccato upbeat to the main theme, for example, taken in a subtle variety of ways, or the chromatic harmony, thrown out nonchalantly.

Mozart said that these six quartets were “the fruit of long and laborious effort”. This one was made to sound effortless, not least because Posner’s cello sustained the lightest of touches and allowed the spotlight to fall elsewhere: the quartet often seemed to be floating on air, a magical effect. Perhaps the secret was in the surrounding stonework.

Daniel Lebhardt

North York Moors Chamber Music Festival, Of A Dark Path Growing Longer (Angela Leighton, Cyclamen at the winter solstice), Marquee, Welburn Manor, August 16

THIS was an eclectic mix of solo piano numbers interspersed with music for horn, with a Leighton piano quartet at its centre. Many of the pieces referred to night and darkness, appropriately geared to the winter solstice of the title poem.

Such is the wealth of talent on hand at this festival that there were no less than four pianists on parade here.

There were 11 pieces throughout the evening. Joseph Havlat opened the innings with the last two of Schumann’s Night Pieces for piano Op 23, the first with intriguing inner voices, the second a moving chorale. In two more of Janáček’s cycle On An Overgrown Path (dotted through the festival), he was attentive to incidental detail, especially in the sploshy “Unutterable anguish”.

Daniel Lebhardt contributed Janáček’s lullaby Good Night! towards the end, having earlier accompanied Ben Goldscheider’s horn in Mark Simpson’s Nachtstück, which delivered a pretty forceful reaction to the time of day that inspired it.

Over the rambling bass line in a very active piano role at the start, the horn flew ever higher, before something gentler followed. The horn’s response to increasingly martial piano was a muted passage almost by way of protest. A processional passage in straight time blew into a climax, before an apologetic pianissimo that seemed to include quarter-tones. It was an odd but involving mixture.

The pianist Katya Apekisheva made two welcome appearances: first, on her own in Brahms’s B flat minor Intermezzo, Op 117 No 2, where her delicate arpeggios enhanced the work’s autumnal aura, and then partnering Goldscheider in Schumann’s Adagio & Allegro in A flat, Op 70. They blended superbly. After faultless scene-setting, Schumann’s flights of fancy were mouth-watering, the duo building on one another’s phrases rather than competing.

Goldscheider was back at once in Huw Watkins’s Lament, which he had commissioned in 2021 to celebrate the centenary of Dennis Brain’s birth. The composer himself was his partner at the piano. In mainly tonal, if mildly modal, harmony a slow cantilena built to an anguished climax, at which point both players grew more temperamental. It finally subsided into a resigned pianissimo, in true elegiac fashion, as if wondering what might have been had Brain lived longer.

The central work in this programme was Leighton’s Contrasts and Variants, Op 63 (1972), a piano quartet in one movement, which was given in the presence of his daughter (the poet quoted above).

Alongside Watkins as pianist we had violinist Benjamin Baker, violist Gary Pomeroy and cellist Tim Posner. Essentially an extended theme and variations, it rambles through a variety of moods, although always with an underlying romanticism.

There was some elegant syncopated pizzicato at its heart, and the players were able chameleons through its rapidly-changing colours. But even at the end, after the strings had been muted, we were left with a sense of yearning.

Goldscheider ended the evening in dazzling style with Messiaen’s solo horn evocation of the cosmos, Appel Interstellaire. It calls for a veritable thesaurus of brass techniques. Goldscheider not only despatched them all with panache, he also gave them compelling logic, a bravura performance.

Tenor James Gilchrist

North York Moors Chamber Music Festival, ‘Tread Softly’, W B Yeats, He Wishes For The Cloths O Heaven), Marquee, Welburn Manor, August 19

THIS was an all-English evening and the first this year to include a singer. James Gilchrist lent his eloquent tenor to songs by the first great song-writer John Dowland and by Rubbra and Leighton, alongside instrumental works by Bliss and Britten.

It was a smart idea to include the two Dowland songs upon which Britten based his Lachrymae variations. Both were given in ‘consort’ versions, with a string quartet mimicking the sound of viols. It was certainly satisfactory, although we hardly felt the dance rhythms on which they were built.

What madethem a success, however, was Gilchrist’s intensity, allied to excellent diction. A sole example was his spine-tingling sforzando twice on ‘hell’ in the final verse of ‘Flow my tears’. ‘If my complaints’ was the very essence of melancholy, Dowland’s forte.

Britten wrote his Lachrymae, subtitled ‘Reflections on a song of John Dowland’, in 1950 for viola and piano. But this was his Op 48a, that tiny ‘a’ indicating the version he wrote 26 years later for viola and small string orchestra. It was a treat to hear it in this format, which turns the work into a virtual concerto. Simone Gramaglia was the thoughtful soloist, partnered by a star-studded octet.

Essentially this is a theme and variations in reverse, with Dowland’s ‘Flow my tears’ emerging radiantly at its close after a tortuous journey. Gramaglia led from the front, invigorating his posse with his rhythmic verve and insights.

When bold low strings (built on Will Duerden’s double bass) grew urgent, he soared high above, then asserting his authority in the cadenza. His tremolo led into a rushing passage before the calm dénouement.

In a sense we had also been in the Elizabethan era with Rubbra’s Two Sonnets by William Alabaster (1567-1640). These involved the viola of Simone van der Giessen, along with Gilchrist and the piano of Anna Tilbrook.

They were intense and prayerful, with tenor and viola blending especially well. In ‘Upon the Crucifix’ the pleading was mellowed by more positive thoughts, whereas the quite deliberate tempo of ‘On the Reed of Our Lord’s Passion’, with insistently dissonant viola and piano, underlined the agitation involved in Christian belief. Gilchrist’s delivery was a model of dramatic perplexity.

Gilchrist and Tilbrook also presented two movements from Kenneth Leighton’s cantata Earth, Sweet Earth. ‘Prelude’ sets a passage from Ruskin’s autobiography as a dreamscape, finishing high on a pianissimo falsetto. Gilchrist took it in his stride.

The icy terrain of ‘Contemplation’ by Hopkins grew ever more intense, and demanded particular accuracy from Tilbrook. She delivered in spades.

This left Bliss’s Clarinet Quintet, with Matthew Hunt in the leading role. Benjamin Baker led the strings, with the support of Emma Parker, Simone van der Giessen and Rebecca Gilliver. There was a lovely flow to the dialogue at the start, contrasting strongly with the taut, staccato excitement of the Allegro molto which melted into a contemplative mood.

The Adagietto had an elegiac aroma, progressing into a sighing romanticism. The finale was a real caper, leavened by syncopation right from the start. But there was still room for Hunt’s trademark cantabile before an exciting coda. The strings had kept close order with the clarinet, making their presence felt whenever possible. Teamwork was the order the evening.

Reviews by Martin Dreyer

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Martin Dreyer’s verdict on North York Moors Chamber Music Festival, ‘A Most Rare Vision’ (William Shakespeare, A Midsummer Night’s Dream), Marquee, Welburn Manor, August 10

Waldstein Trio’s Christos Fountos, Greta Papa and Miguel Ángel Villeda Cerón

UNDER its 2025 theme of Sonnet, North York Moors Chamber Music Festival takes quotations from poetry for each of its 14 events, with four of them – those that take place in churches – extracted from T S Eliot’s Four Quartets.

They also act as identifiers of each event, since the ensembles, all assembled from the pool of highly talented musicians holidaying on the moors, are otherwise anonymous.

One group, however, can be identified at once, since the honour of opening the festivities fell to the Waldstein Trio, winners of the Young Artists Focus award this year. Although the trio has already won a number of awards in its three years’ existence, its choice of Beethoven’s last piano trio, Op 97 in G (‘Archduke’) – a work that offers no hiding places – revealed some shortcomings.

All three are talented performers, but they are at different stages in the evolution of their musical personalities. The Mexican cellist Miguel Ángel Villeda Cerón is a fully rounded player, delivering nicely rounded tone that inspires confidence in his judgement. His colleagues are not yet quite at that level.

Pianist Daniel Lebhardt. Picture: Matthew Johnson

The Greek-Albanian violinist Greta Papa is another good player, but here she swapped her musicality for an almost permanent smile. Nothing wrong with a smile but here it seemed to mask nerves: at any rate, she lacked the conviction to balance her string colleague.

The Cypriot pianist Christos Fountos never really settled. Too many of his accents were hammered: accents need to steal up on the listener, not thump them between the eyeballs. His passage-work was also suspect, too many rapid runs not clearly articulated. He may well be a better soloist than collaborator.

There was little grandeur in Beethoven’s opening theme, but the scherzo was crisp with some neat touches of rubato. The andante promised to cast a spell several times, but it was interrupted by over-eager piano. The finale was much more even-tempered, with a pleasing accelerando into its coda.

Musicianship of a different order was on display after the interval. Benjamin Baker’s fluent violin allowed Schumann to speak to us directly through his Three Romances Op 94, never forcing the tone. The first emerged as a sinuous lament, the second evoked a beautifully songful line, and the third was sprightly. Daniel Lebhardt’s piano provided sympathetic support.

Violinist Charlotte Scott: “Luscious tone and rapt attention to detail”

Lebhardt also offered the first two extracts from Book 1 of Janacek’s On An Overgrown Path, ten evocations of childhood memories, which are being interwoven into festival programmes. They were gently intimate, with the odd surprise.

Brahms’s First Violin Sonata, Op 78 in G, brought the return of another festival favourite, Charlotte Scott, with Joseph Havlat as her pianist. They were exceptionally well-matched.

Havlat came to the fore whenever needed but never intruded on Scott’s luscious tone and rapt attention to detail. They clearly experienced the first movement’s surges of emotion together. Scott’s double-stopping accompaniment in the Adagio was as remarkable as her luscious melodic line. The duo’s exchanges in the closing rondo flowed smoothly and purposefully. This was playing of the highest calibre.

Review by Martin Dreyer

The festival continues with daily concerts until August 23. For full festival details and tickets, head to: www.northyorkmoorsfestival.com

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REVIEW: Martin Dreyer’s verdict on North York Moors Chamber Music Festival, La Belle Époque, Welburn Manor Marquee, August 20

Pianist Katya Apekisheva

IN evocation of La Belle Époque – roughly 1871 to 1914 – the festival focus turned to French composers. A Fauré song cycle followed Debussy’s late violin sonata, with a second half devoted to Chausson: an extended song and what amounts to a double concerto.

Debussy’s Violin Sonata in G minor dates from 1917, the year before he died, so falls technically outside the belle époque. Nevertheless, its nostalgia harks back to an earlier age, more in regret for the ravages of war than self-pity at his terminal illness.

In a piece where you never quite know where the composer is going next, Charlotte Scott’s violin and Katya Apekisheva’s piano were alive to the many moods of the opening Allegro vivo.

There was dizzying staccato and pizzicato in the dry intermezzo, carrying more than a hint of its origins in fantasy. Apekisheva contrived to be both intimate and expansive at the start of the finale, with Scott scouring the lower regions of her instrument before soaring majestically into the concluding Presto. They remained in close harness, however, and revelled in the fireworks at the finish.

Violinist Charlotte Scott. Picture: Matthew Johnson

It is good that this festival remembers that the voice, too, is an instrument and includes vocal music especially when accompanied by more than ‘just’ a piano. Fauré was not the only composer to sense that extra instruments often suited the voice, and he expanded his 1892 song-cycle La Bonne Chanson by adding a string quintet (including double bass) six years later.

Conditions were particularly gusty for this recital. Even though mezzo-soprano Anna Huntley battled bravely, her words were not always easy to discern against the flapping of the tent. It became necessary to treat her voice as just another instrument in a septet – at which point the music became thoroughly satisfying.

Behind Verlaine’s nine poems lie strong undercurrents of romantic love, which suited Fauré’s affaire with Emma Bardac (who was to become Debussy’s wife). Huntley did her very best to explore the many facets of emotional entanglement, from early stirrings to full-blown ecstasy, reserving glorious full tone, for example, for ‘Ô Bien Aimée’ (O My Beloved) but toning it down for a confident C’est l’heure Exquise’ (Exquisite Hour).

The strings masterfully reflected the ebb and flow of excitement, not least in tremolo associated with a whirring flock of quails. Daniel Lebhardt’s piano carried the burden of the argument with subtlety and the instrumental postlude spoke of ultimate contentment, whatever the season.

Mezzo-soprano Anna Huntley: “Battled bravely with the gusty conditions”. Picture: Kaupo Kikkas

The wind had abated during the interval, when Huntley returned with Chausson’s Chanson Perpétuelle, this time with piano quintet in support. She brought fuller tone to Charles Cros’s picture of a woman abandoned in love and with it greater intensity, helped by individual instruments acting as her alter ego. Apekisheva’s agitated piano completed a well-rounded portrait.

Chausson’s Concert, Op 21 is a concertante piece for violin and piano (to all intents a concerto, here with Alena Baeva and Vadym Kholodenko respectively), with accompaniment from a string quartet rather than a full orchestra.

A bold duo-cadenza was the highlight of the portentous opening movement, followed by a pensive Sicilienne that threatened to wind up into a full-blown allegro but never quite managed it.

After a darkly elegiac Grave, which came to an anguished climax, all six players were asked to stretch themselves to the limit in the finale’s variation form. Marked ‘trés animé’, its thrills were much enhanced by the tautness of the ensemble. The soloists had previously predominated, but here they were subsumed into a glorious tutti.

Review by Martin Dreyer

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REVIEW: Martin Dreyer’s verdict on North York Moors Chamber Music Festival, Passing Themes, Welburn Manor Marquee, August 11

Violinist Alena Baeva. Picture: Matthew Johnson

THE 2024 North York Moors Chamber Music Festival began unusually with the Baroque before moving into more familiar Romantic territory.

These days you do not expect to hear a Corelli sonata played on a modern violin and partnered by a grand piano. But we have learnt to expect the unexpected in this festival. In any case, you should never write off the supposedly inauthentic.

Alena Baeva and her regular keyboard partner Vadym Kholodenko did their utmost to bring us ‘Baroque’ atmosphere; she used very little vibrato, he much preferred the soft (left-foot) to the sustaining (right-foot) pedal. We were never going to mistake the piano for a harpsichord, but the result was satisfying anyway.

In any case, Kholodenko’s taut ornamentation highlighted the importance of his role beyond merely filling in harmony; it provided just the right underlay for Baeva’s period-style phrasing. Rhythms were always lively, and contrasts between the 11 variations on ‘La Folia’ of Corelli’s single-movement Op 5 No 12 were superbly drawn.

Rachmaninov’s last piano work, Variations on a theme of Corelli, written in 1931, is misnamed. It is also based on ‘La Folia’, an Iberian tune that first emerged in the Renaissance – and is not by Corelli at all. Dozens of composers used it as a basis for variations.

Stephanie Tang was the determined soloist here, reflecting the overriding anger in Rachmaninov’s approach. Her accents were strong and her use of staccato particularly deft. She clearly enjoyed the composer’s jack-in-the-box tendencies but was alive to his attempts to evoke the Iberian origins of the tune. I would not vouch for her total accuracy but the tension in her technique certainly made the most of the work’s tangy harmonies.

Dvořák’s Dumky Op 90 – never named a piano trio but actually his fourth – delves as deeply as he ever did into his Bohemian roots. The title is the plural of dumka, a primarily reflective song that tends to alternate slow melancholy with rapid dance-like sections, in keeping with its folk origins. Its six movements can be treated as two groups of three apiece, but beyond that there is no deliberate formal shape.

Benjamin Baker was the violinist, Rebecca Gilliver the cellist and Daniel Lebhardt the pianist in what was an absolutely delightful penetration of the composer’s nationalistic emotions. They constantly held back the end of a slow section so that we were kept in suspense waiting for its rapid counterpart.

Indeed, their use of rubato, so keenly felt by all three players, was superbly stylish. Dvorak makes especially strong use of the cello, and Gilliver’s warm, expansive sound matched the composer’s intentions. Not that Baker was overshadowed; both revelled in their little cadenzas in the fifth movement. We had come closest to the heart of Bohemia in the leisurely cantabile of the third movement.

The work also encompasses the most taxing piano music Dvorak ever wrote. Lebhardt was alive to all its nuances even when stretched and was a major factor in what made this such an exciting performance.

Since the word ‘dumka’ is believed to originate in Ukraine, it was impossible to ignore thoughts of that benighted country when the music turned melancholic. A marvellous curtain-raiser for the festival, which continues daily until August 24.

REVIEW: Martin Dreyer’s verdict on North York Moors Chamber Music Festival, Enlightenment, St Michael’s Church, Coxwold, August 13

Festival curator and cellist Jamie Walton. Picture: Matthew Johnson

THE special magic of this festival was neatly crystallised in this afternoon recital, which featured a Beethoven string trio and Weber’s Clarinet Quintet.

A packed, rapt audience erupted joyously at the end of each, the first a rare visitor to our concert platforms, the second a much-loved repertoire piece.

You will see it claimed that Beethoven wrote his ‘early’ string trios (he was still in his twenties) as preparation for a full-scale incursion into the world of the string quartet, as if they were but student pieces.

Not a bit of it. With only three voices – violin, viola and cello – a composer has a restricted choice of harmony. In particular, all three parts need to be fully independent, the viola in particular.

In Beethoven’s String Trio Op 9 No 1 on G, we found Meghan Cassidy’s versatile viola paired with Benjamin Baker’s violin, almost as second violin, or with Jamie Walton’s cello, as the composer played off the two duos against one another. In other words, the viola role was vital and emerged here with great clarity.

All three players attacked the bold, arpeggios of the opening allegro with relish, before a delicately song-like slow movement in which the rests were delightfully prolonged. The brisk scherzo had a ruminative trio, a nice contrast.

In the finale, the moto perpetuo tailed off mid-stream into an apparent cul-de-sac. But the joke was on us and the rapid syncopation resumed, right into an accelerated coda. This was Beethoven the adventurer, while still learning from Haydn.

Weber’s Clarinet Quintet is a work of almost relentless jollity – and thoroughly good fun. Matthew Hunt is a clarinettist known for his sense of humour, so the score is tailor-made for him. With Charlotte Scott leading the string quartet, there was lively support for his sprightly cavorting. But the heart of the work lay elsewhere, in the deeply melancholic Adagio.

Here, Hunt’s quiet, superbly sustained legato brought tears to the eyes, these eyes anyway. Towards the end he produced two echo-scales so pianissimo that they were virtually a whisper, a prodigious feat of breath control – and very moving.

The succeeding Scherzo brimmed over with wit and good humour, a total contrast and genuinely funny. The finale was never going to reach these heights, but we could only marvel as Hunt’s unashamed virtuosity carried the day through Weber’s flirtations with vapidity.

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REVIEW: Martin Dreyer’s verdict on Daniel Lebhardt, Sir Jack Lyons Concert Hall, York

Daniel Lebhardt: “Particular empathy with Bartók”

British Music Society of York: Daniel Lebhardt, Sir Jack Lyons Concert Hall, University of York, December 1

FEW pianists are able successfully to combine both accompaniment and solo work. But less than a week after he had appeared in a supporting role in Helmsley, Daniel Lebhardt was back in Yorkshire for this solo recital as part of the British Music Society of York’s 102nd season.

He opened with four ballades by Brahms, but thereafter interleaved Scriabin and Bartók with three Ligeti preludes. The ballades are a product of the composer’s early twenties and grouped in two pairs, the minor and major keys of D and B; they are mainly in three-part song form.

Lebhardt played them lovingly, concentrating on their melodies and keeping accompanimental figures in the background. Nowhere was this more successful than in the last, which was beautifully sustained.

We were to hear little of this approach in the rest of the programme. Ligeti’s 18 preludes are nowadays becoming de rigueur in piano recitals (two days earlier Danny Driver had included some here).

They are frequently volatile, often fast-moving, and a supreme test of virtuosity. Lebhardt was unlucky with No 6, Autumn In Warsaw, where he had a memory lapse that a re-start could not surmount, although we had sensed the falling leaves well enough. The prestissimo ending of No 15, White On White, given later, was thrilling.

The audience stayed on his side and he came back even more determined. So much so that he took out his anger on the ‘Drammatico’ opening of Scriabin’s Third Sonata, with exceptionally strong accents.

But he still managed to convey its ebb and flow. He had regained composure by the third, slow movement, which was gentle, bordering on sentimental. Fire was to return with a vengeance in the finale; it was to become a chorale by the end. He also made strong contrasts between high and low registers in Scriabin’s Vers la Flamme.

Born in Hungary, but now based in this country, Lebhardt showed a particular empathy with Bartók. The three Studies were wonderfully crisp; they must have acted as stimulants for Ligeti. The first was a whirlwind of close harmony, while in the second he brought out the theme with great clarity in the left hand. There was not much evidence of the ‘Rubato’ the composer marked in the third, but it was neatly structured nonetheless.

Bartók’s ‘Out Of Doors’ suite (Szabadban) had a special ring of truth. Lebhardt found the humour in ‘Musettes’ (although it needed to be a touch lighter), and ‘The Night’s Music’ was appropriately eerie.

‘The chase’ was highly percussive and riddled with cross-accents, in true Allegro Barbaro vein. Indeed, if there were a quibble about the second half, it would be that too much of the music was percussive, allowing the pianist’s lyricism little rein. But his virtuosity – with the one exception – was never in doubt.

Review by Martin Dreyer

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REVIEW: Martin Dreyer’s verdict on North York Moors Chamber Music Series at All Saints’ Church, Helmsley, November 25

Violinist Charlotte Scott

MENTION the names Charlotte, Daniel, Jamie and Katya to any regular punter at the North York Moors Chamber Music Festival and they will instantly know who you mean.

For the uninitiated, this is a reference to violinist Charlotte Scott, pianist Daniel Lebhardt, cellist Jamie Walton and pianist Katya Apekisheva. All are core members of the resident team during the summer festival – so I shall use their first names here.

It was a special pleasure to welcome them back to our area as winter closes in, incidentally reminding us of treasures in store next summer (specifically, August11 to 24 2014). Here we enjoyed sonatas by Strauss and Rachmaninov, alongside bonbons by the latter and by Schubert.

Pianist Daniel Lebhardt

Schubert’s Adagio in E flat, D.897 (known by its publisher’s title, Notturno) is a touching piano trio. It begins pianissimo and is – rarely for Schubert – marked appassionato. With the benefit of hindsight, we can feel the nostalgia of a piece written during his 32nd and final year.

Here it was beautifully controlled, with Katya’s rippling piano a constant underlay and the dotted figure in its opening phrase still prominent in its brief chorale.

Rachmaninov stood at the heart of the evening. His Cello Sonata in G minor, a work of his late twenties and the last chamber music he was to write, brought a much-deserved spotlight on Jamie, with Katya still in support (although the actual spotlights flickered distractingly).

Cellist Jamie Walton. Picture: Matthew Johnson

Its first three movements showed varying degrees of agitation here. The opening grew in intensity, right up to its fiery conclusion. Scherzo and trio were neatly contrasted, the one nervy and staccato, the other smoothly melodious.

The slow movement teetered on the brink of sentimentality – but never crossed that line. The finale was quite different. Now in the major key, it reached unexpectedly sunny uplands, delivered with immense conviction right through to its furiously happy coda.

Rachmaninov’s Trio élégiaque in D minor (1893) dates from his late teens but took another two decades to reach its final form. It sounds much like Brahms. Its themes emerged clearly from Daniel’s piano, although Charlotte’s violin needed to resort to some muscularity to match his enthusiasm. Jamie’s cello remained firm and the ending was properly solemn.

Pianist Katya Apekisheva

Richard Strauss’s Violin Sonata is another early work, dating from his early twenties, with all the exuberance that implies. Daniel’s passionate piano moved a little too readily directly from piano to forte, with little between. Charlotte not merely withstood the challenge but soared sumptuously in both the outer movements.

The Andante between, marked ‘Improvisation’, was a different matter: an absolute gem. Its song-like melody elicited exceptionally sweet tone from Charlotte, with Daniel nobly self-effacing, and reached a rare ‘pin-drop’ moment at its close, the audience completely transfixed. It crystallised an evening of exceptional warmth – just what the doctor ordered, in fact.

Review by Martin Dreyer

* Next summer’s programme details are available at www.northyorkmoorsfestival.com.

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REVIEW: Martin Dreyer’s verdict on ‘Waking’, North York Moors Chamber Music Festival, Welburn Manor Marquee, 26/9/23

Cellist Alice Neary: Festival trio with violinist Benjamin Baker and pianist Daniel Lebhardt

WHEN standards are already so high, it is hard to imagine that the best wine has been kept till last. Yet this final afternoon devoted to Schubert surpassed everything else I had experienced at this year’s North York Moors Chamber Music Festival. It was nothing short of sensational.

The ‘Trout’ Piano Quintet, D.667, was preceded by the B flat Piano Trio, D.898. The performers in the latter were violinist Benjamin Baker, cellist Alice Neary and pianist Daniel Lebhardt. Their ensemble was so taut, so larded with deep understanding and leavened with the utmost sensitivity to each other, that it seemed certain that they had collaborated before.

Within this delightfully Viennese pastry the ensemble gently drew attention to any number of Schubertian subtleties, teasing our tastebuds with the smallest of details, so that the total confection was constantly riveting.

When the breezy first movement’s second theme arrived, beautifully enunciated by Neary, it was impeccably emulated by Baker; they were in perfect agreement. The pause in the recapitulation was tantalisingly elongated, thanks to Lebhardt.

The slow movement was a lovely contrast, ruminative, thoughtful, even subdued. Its very intimacy drew us in, so that when the piano thinned down to a single line near the end, it was riveting in its simplicity.

Violinist Benjamin Baker: Hosting At The World’s Edge festival next month

The crisp Scherzo was balanced by an extremely smooth, legato Trio, while the frisky final Rondo was light on its feet, positively balletic. I do not expect to hear this account bettered. Equalled, perhaps, but never bettered. I would not be surprised if this threesome were to perform regularly outside this festival. It was no surprise to learn that Neary is to join Baker as a special guest at his New Zealand festival, At The World’s Edge, in October.

A completely new team took over for the ‘Trout’. It did not quite live up to its predecessor in the programme but was nevertheless extremely satisfying. Schubert wrote it while enjoying a holiday in the glorious countryside around Steyr, about 100 miles west of Vienna. So it was fitting that we should enjoy the piece in a rural setting.

The quintet, led by violinist Charlotte Scott, got off to an engaging start, with ensemble always taut. Her fellow string players were violist Simone van der Giessen, cellist Jamie Walton and bassist Siret Lust, with Christian Chamorel the eloquent pianist. But it was not until the second movement Andante that colours really began to emerge, highlighted by the close-knit duet between viola and cello, as also leavened by the rare streak of melancholy here.

After a brilliant scherzo, the variations that give the work its nick-name were slightly under-characterised, the song theme needing a touch more emphasis. Throughout I felt we required a little more from the double bass, which carries less well than the higher voices in this marquee. The finale was given its superb rhythmic impetus by Chamorel’s intelligent pianism.

This concert underlined the magic ingredient of the whole festival: spontaneity. Chamber music, at least outside London, is so often experienced at the hands of groups who repeat the same programme while touring. Many are extremely proficient. But they may lack the freshness that is always on display here, and the calibre of performers is unrivalled by any similar festival. Long may it thrive.

Review by Martin Dreyer

Violinist Charlotte Scott: Leading the quintet
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REVIEW: Martin Dreyer’s verdict on ‘Which Dreamed It?’, North York Moors Chamber Music Festival

Ben Goldscheider: “Immaculate”

North York Moors Chamber Music Festival: ‘Which Dreamed It?’, St Mary’s, Lastingham, August 25

THIS was one of the North York Moors Chamber Music Festival’s more adventurous programmes, but that did not deter the punters: it was a full house.

There were two pieces each from Schumann and Debussy, balanced by four much more contemporary works by two Brits and two Germans. It made for a stimulating mix, not least because the performers were so utterly committed.

Ben Goldscheider began out of sight in the Saxon crypt, the church otherwise darkened, with Bernhard Krol’s Laudatio for solo horn (1966). Inspired by the ancient Christian hymn Te Deum Laudamus, it could hardly have been more appropriate as a scene-setter, journeying from plainsong into more modern, questing territory. Goldscheider was immaculate.

He also closed the evening, with Jörg Widmann’s Air (2006). The music conveys something of the atmosphere of alphornists signalling to each other between mountain-tops, so that there are constant echoes and imitations, given a third dimension by the piano strings being wedged open and resonating eerily. It is a favourite competition piece. Goldscheider was more than equal to its taxing variations and drew sustained applause.

He had been soloist in Schumann’s Adagio and Allegro, with Daniel Lebhardt offering tenacious piano support. After nicely sustained legato in the Adagio, he cantered through the succeeding rondo with immense panache, testing his rapid tonguing even further by speeding up in the coda.

In Mark Simpson’s Nachtstück (2021), he did not hold back from the work’s more nightmarish contrasts, varying his tone in the darkness, but becoming more triumphal after Lebhardt’s keyboard climax. He is a riveting performer.

Debussy’s Rhapsody (named ‘First’ but in fact the only one) for clarinet and piano (1910) saw the first appearances of Robert Plane and Christian Chamorel respectively. Plane captured the composer’s will-o’-the-wisp aura, much helped by Chamorel’s early restraint. They brought terrific verve to the work’s later stages.

They were joined by viola player Simone van der Giessen for Schumann’s Märchenerzählungen (Fairy-tale narrations). Three of the four tales are marked ‘lively’ and they got off to an effervescent start.

There were pleasing contrasts, though, both in the lovely central section of the second tale and in the martial, dotted rhythms of the last, which were crisp and to the point. The exception was the third, where a peaceful, rocking movement in the piano featherbedded a soaring line in the viola, not quite matched here by the clarinet.

The four berceuses from Thomas Adès’s opera The Exterminating Angel are not the stuff of sweet dreams, indeed the title is ironic. With Lebhardt returning to the piano, viola and clarinet brought an elegiac feel to the opening lullaby, followed by something altogether bolder with a terrifying ending in the second. Only the finale seemed likely to produce a soporific effect – and it was touchingly shaped.

Review by Martin Dreyer

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