Tim Lowe: York Chamber Music Festival artistic director and cellist
THERE was much to admire in the performance of the opening Haydn’s String Quartet in C major Op 33, No. 3 (The Bird) and why wouldn’t there be: excellent players and one of Haydn’s finest Quartets.
The nickname, The Bird, is derived from the early first violin chirping calls, acciaccaturas (very short, crisp notes), which convincingly transformed into haunting passages, sequences of very quiet, gently clashing suspensions.
The second movement Scherzo was, for the most part, hymn-like, the playing (on the lower strings) genuinely touching. The bird calling card did make an unexpected appearance in the central Trio section. Humorous and so Haydnesque.
The ‘authentic’ Adagio was effectively and poignantly delivered. The Rondo finale is ever-so-gently bonkers. Folk music, Hungarian gypsy energy, crazy batting of the theme between the violins and viola plus cello with the ending vanishing into a wisp of smoke.
But there were issues too. Intonation was not always dead centre – the high violin passage at the very opening and again in the Trio reappearance (second movement) with the two violins playing on their upper strings.
Sometimes the cello too wasn’t quite on pitch. But these were rare, and this is a technically demanding work with no places to hide. Another issue was balance.
Matters improved with the instrumental changing of the guard. The ever-excellent Tim Lowe’s (cello) insight and technical assurance was immediately self-evident in the following Tchaikovsky (String Quartet No.1 in D major, Op 11), but it was the introduction of Gary Pomeroy (viola) that seemed to be critical.
As the second half Dvořák clearly demonstrated, Simone van der Giessen is an excellent viola player, but in the Haydn the viola contributions were less prominent. Hence the balance issue, but why this was so I couldn’t honestly say.
Viola player Gary Pomeroy. Picture: York Chamber Music Festival
It is perhaps worth noting that Tchaikovsky’s D major Quartet is less technically demanding than the Haydn. It was still a terrific performance though.
The rising and falling chords of the opening Moderato have been likened to the playing of an accordion. For me, it created an image of a gorgeous sunrise. Well, each to their own.
The rich textures and contrapuntal dialogue were very well delivered, contributing to a highly enjoyable, generous (eight-nine minutes?) opening movement. The outstanding movement was the folk-inspired Andante cantabile. It is just so poignant, so beautiful. The balance, the shape and the playing were quite delightful. At times I thought the first violin sounded like a cor anglais or soprano saxophone.
The energetic peasant dance-like Scherzo was rhythmically tight, the accents crisply delivered and confident playing throughout.
Much the same could be said of the closing Allegro finale. The performance was tight, crisp, with a fine viola solo and a razor-sharp signing-off.
The second half belonged to Dvořák’s String Quintet in Eb Major, Op 97. The opening Allegro came across as a generous, giving performance. The reappearance of the main theme – fortissimo and in octaves was decidedly emphatic and the quiet sense of return, of coming full circle, was very effective.
As was the second movement Scherzo. The drumbeat rhythm is tapped out on the second viola whilst the real melodic focus belongs to the first viola (Dvořák was himself a viola player).
The musical soul of the work is in the third movement Larghetto, and that is precisely what came across. There were notably fine contributions from Gary Pomeroy (first viola), Tim Lowe (cello) and Ben Hancox (first violin) – intricate, ornamented pizzicato playing. The Rondo finale was full of zest whilst generating an infectious love for the music itself.
Tim Lowe: York Chamber Music Festival artistic director and cellist. Picture: York Chamber Music Festival
THE centenary of the death of French composer Gabriel Fauré will be marked by the York Chamber Music Festival from September 13 to 15.
“For the 2024 festival I have gathered together another crop of the best string players in the country, all playing at the top of their game,” says artistic director and cellist Tim Lowe. “The 2006 Leeds International Piano Competition second prize winner, American pianist Andrew Brownell, returns to us after a long absence too.
Lowe has assembled a festival line-up of pianist Brownell; violinists Ben Hancox and Magnus Johnston; viola players Gary Pomeroy and Simone van der Giessen; cellist Marie Bitlloch and flautist Sam Coles.
“Spotlighting the Fauré centenary, we will play his beautiful Piano Quartet No. 1 Op.15 – a piece that after the French defeat in 1871 at the end of the Franco-Prussian War led the renaissance of French musical culture and defined its distinctive sound-world,” says Tim.
“In his older age, his Second Cello Sonata is an amazingly youthful and life-affirming work for a composer in his late seventies and by then, sharing with Beethoven a composer’s worst nightmare, unable to hear, arguably, their greatest music.”
Lowe and Brownell will open the festival with a French-themed lunchtime cello recital at the Unitarian Chapel, St Saviourgate, on September 13 at 1pm, featuring Nadia Boulanger’s Trois Pièces for ‘Cello and Piano, Claude Debussy’s Sonata for Cello and Piano and Fauré’s Cello Sonata No. 2 in G minor, Op. 117.
Flautist Sam Coles. Picture: York Chamber Music Festival
“As the storm clouds of war gathered over Europe in 1914, Debussy was seriously ill with cancer but feeling it was his patriotic duty to compose,” says Tim. “The sonata is infused with progressive, 20th century harmonic language, which often ventures into exotic modes and the dreamy, time-altering magic of the pentatonic and whole tone scales. Yet under the surface lies a nostalgic classicism.
“Fauré, like Debussy, was physically frail. He was totally deaf when he wrote his last major works. He was 76 but what grips us immediately about this cello sonata is its youthfulness and exuberance. For anyone less spiritually centred than Fauré, these final years would have been a time of frustration but from his silent world he shares with us moments of transcendence.”
Hancox, Johnston, Pomeroy, van der Giessen, Bitlloch and Lowe will gather at the National Centre for Early Music, Walmgate, for the Friday evening concert: a 7.30pm programme of Haydn’s String Quartet in C Major Op. 33 No. 3 (The Bird), Tchaikovsky’s String Quartet No 1 in D Major Op. 11 and Dvořák’s String Quintet in E flat major, Op. 97.
“After a break of ten years, Haydn returned with renewed enthusiasm to writing string quartets,” says Tim. “The six new Op. 33 quartets toy with convention, surprise and delight us. He uses the title ‘Scherzo’ – Italian word meaning ‘joke’ – and there is indeed a lot of humour in these quartets. Op. 33 No. 3 Is known as ‘The Bird’ for good reasons!
“In 1871 Tchaikovsky decided to supplement his modest income from teaching and journalism by staging a concert of his own works in Moscow including this new String Quartet No.1 in D major; a youthful work and maybe his greatest chamber music. It was an unqualified success, showing the composer’s gift for melodic invention.
“While in America, Dvořák took his family on summer vacations into the countryside in Iowa. It was here, at Spillville, that he wrote masterpieces, among his finest works, embodying his intense love of chamber music, his mastery of the intricacies of the classical form and above all his revolutionary commitment to folk melody, which gives his music such a passionate emotional impact; joy unbounded.”
Pianist Andrew Brownell. Picture: York Chamber Music Festival
Lowe will team up with Coles and Brownell for From Classical To Romantic, the Saturday lunchtime concert of Carl Maria von Weber’s Overture to Euryanthe (arr. Hummel), Johann Nepomuk Hummel’s Adagio, Variations and Rondo on a Russian Theme, Op 78 and Weber’s Trio in G minor, Op 63, at the Unitarian Chapel at 1pm on September 14.
“The genius composer Hummel was a contemporary of Beethoven and Mozart,” says Tim. “Apart from his own brilliant music, he enjoyed arranging large works for small groups to meet the market for amateur players.
“For the Overture to Weber’s opera Euryanthe, Weber’s original brilliant orchestration is served surprisingly well by this arrangement; full of operatic character and tuneful.
“Writing variations based on a well-known tune has always been a familiar form of composition and Hummel’s facility for improvisation plays to this in the Adagio, Variations and Rondo. Here he uses a folk song and creates a series of wonderfully tuneful composition highlighting each instrument’s singing qualities.”
Tim continues: “The Weber trio sound to me more like an opera; full of arias and drama! The operatic master completed this masterly trio in 1819. In it we sense the Romantic era in the air. There is here a preference for composing display pieces for soloists, like operatic divas singing their hearts out in this wonderfully varied, joyful and above all tuneful piece!”
Hancox, Johnston, Pomeroy, van der Giessen, Bitlloch, Lowe and Brownell will focus on quartets on September 14 at 7.30pm at the Sir Jack Lyons Concert Hall, University of York, once the evening programme has opened with Debussy’s Prélude to the cantata La Damoiselle élue (The Blessed Damozel).
Viola player Gary Pomeroy. Picture: York Chamber Music Festival
“Debussy read Pre-Raphaelite poet and painter Dante Gabriel Rossetti’s poem The Blessed Damozel(1850) and had an idea to compose a short cantata,” says Tim. “The synopsis is simple: ‘From the heights of paradise, leaning on a golden barrier, a young girl laments the absence of her lover. On Earth, the latter believes he feels her presence’.
“Debussy shows us his wonderful gift for fleeting moments of sensuality. The Prélude to the cantata is brilliant realised in this arrangement for piano and strings by John Lenehan.”
Next comes Fauré’s beautiful early work, the optimistic Piano Quartet No. 1 in C minor Op. 15. “Joining the search for a renaissance of French musical culture, especially after the French defeat in the Franco-Prussian War (1871), Fauré defined some of the core elements of this new distinctively French ‘voice’ in his Piano Quartet,” says Tim.
“The use of piano arpeggios and other broken figures to establish a sort of fluid counterpoint on which the music seems to float; resourcefulness in unexpected harmonic changes and Fauré’s genius for melodic invention – subtle, filigree melodies that seem to grow sinuously out of his harmonic scheme.”
The concert will climax with Brahms’s Piano Quartet in G Minor, Op. 25, noted for its joyous gypsy finale. “The Piano Quartet in G Minor is one of the first works of Brahms’s unique flowering, freed from the shadow of Beethoven,” says Tim. “It is a work of huge proportions and despite its quite congenial surface has an inner story with everything constructed on thematic material that is without precedent in chamber music.
“Schoenberg describes this method of composition as preparing the way for atonality. Brahms’s epic Piano Quintet covers a musical canvas with a clarity and newness that had not been heard before.”
Hancox, Johnston, Pomeroy, van der Giessen, Bitlloch and Lowe will be the players for the festival closing Sunday afternoon concert of Mozart’s String Quintet in C minor, K 406, and Brahms’s String Sextet No. 1 in B-flat major, Op. 18 on September 15 at 3pm at St Olave’s Church, Marygate Lane.
Viola player Simone van der Giessen. Picture: York Chamber Music Festival
“Mozart in the final years of his short life struggled with money,” says Tim. “The String Quintet in C minor, K 406 is the composer’s own arrangement of a Wind Serenade, K. 388, for two oboes, clarinets, horns and bassoon designed to be advertised alongside two original quintets with the aim of repaying some of his debts.
“Such is Mozart’s finesse with the transcription that, without knowing the back story, it would not be apparent that the quintet was not in its original form. It is a somewhat moody piece, but its inner complexity comes to a joyful open-air ending.”
Tim continues: “The dominance of Beethoven in virtually every genre was so complete that no composer could escape comparison to the departed master. The young Johannes Brahms felt this very acutely; he destroyed three quarters of his chamber music until he found this own voice, which he knew lay within.
“One solution was to use instrumental groups Beethoven didn’t touch. When Clara Schumann heard it she remarked, it was even more beautiful than I had anticipated, and my expectations were already high’.
“Spared the burden of Beethoven’s ghost, the new sextet – and its young creator – scored a success. It is one of his most glorious works; tuneful, colourful and inventive. Above all using the six voices with creativeness and melding them into a wonderful ochre acoustic – a wash of sunset sound.”
Summing up the festival, Tim says: “Come and hear duos, trios, quartets and quintets, finishing up on the Sunday afternoon with the wonderfully life-affirming Brahms String Sextet, Op.18, one of his greatest works and a turning point in his career.”
Visit ycmf.co.uk for the full festival details and to book tickets.
The Heath Quartet, now led by violinist Marije Johnston, second from right
The Heath Quartet, British Music Society of York (BMS), Sir Jack Lyons Concert Hall, University of York, December 3
THE Heath Quartet last appeared in York exactly ten years ago. At that time, they were led by their founder, Oliver Heath. Then he decided to seek pastures new and Marije Johnston took his place.
What you would never guess from this performance is that that exchange took place a mere four months ago. Johnston’s pedigree as a chamber musician allowed her to slot seamlessly into place. Bear that in mind as you read on.
At first sight, the pairing of late Janáček and late Beethoven string quartets – played in that order – looks quirky, even fanciful. The works were written almost exactly 100 years apart, each within a year of the composer’s death. They formed the Heath Quartet’s sparkling, I dare even say memorable, programme for the BMS of York.
Janacek’s Second Quartet – known as ‘Intimate Letters’ and encapsulating the turbulent emotions of his more than 700 letters to Kamila Stösslová, his much younger muse in his final decade – has four movements but with constantly changing tempos in each.
The seven movements of Beethoven’s Op 131 in C sharp minor run into one another, making the work equally restless, if not more so. Near death they may have been, but each man was writing in the white heat of unbridled inspiration. The parallels are uncanny.
So the Janáček turned out to be a perfect intro into the Beethoven: they were men on the same kind of mission. The Heaths tuned into that immediately.
Apart from the cellist, who sat on a small plinth, the others stood to play, which allowed them freedom of movement. Johnston, playing second fiddle here, and viola player Gary Pomeroy took full advantage, swaying and bending ceaselessly. Sara Wolstenholme, leading, remained much calmer. But none of this affected their ensemble; they breathed, and played, as one.
The key player in the Janáček is the viola, who represents Kamila. Pomeroy did not disappoint. The work veers, sometimes wildly, between tension and lyricism and he skilfully spearheaded the latter.
Janáček’s yearnings welled up regularly, almost physically so in the slow second movement with palpitations and a devilish Ländler-style dance. The ebbs and flows of the third movement seemed to disintegrate into disillusionment in its adagio section, while the Dumka finale with its spine-tingling tremolos juxtaposed slow-moving melancholy with much livelier excitement. This was vivid musical autobiography, tellingly told.
In the Beethoven, the violinists changed places, so that Johnston now led. This symbolised just how closely all four players are integrated with one another. The piece marks a virtual renaissance of the 18th century divertimento, so diffuse is its layout.
The duos of the opening fugue were quietly menacing, but the succeeding Allegro was both playful and intimate; once again the Heaths were alive to sudden mood-changes. The central variations were delicately drawn.
The Presto, taken at a good clip, was treated like a scherzo, full of good humour and a lightness of touch we might expect in Mendelssohn. The finale’s two themes were beautifully contrasted, culminating in a ferociously determined final burst. Here, more than ever, we had the sense of theatre that infused the whole evening. This always was – and still is – a quartet worth travelling a long way to hear.
