My recording collection is as eclectic as the live music I listen to and enjoy. As a failed pianist and a practising singer I especially enjoy listening to works that I know from the inside, and the composer that I am drawn to most and frequently listen to in that regard is Johann Sebastian Bach. Recordings of the piano music by Glenn Gould and Angela Hewitt and of the great choral works by John Eliot Gardiner and Philippe Herreweghe are on pretty constant ‘play again’ on my iPod and iPhone (I listen to a lot of music while travelling as part of my Musica Viva Australia role).

The two Bach recordings that I most listen to, though, are of works for stringed instruments and while I have never performed the works featured I feel I know them inside out as a listener, from hearing them live in the beautiful acoustic at the Huntington Estate Music Festival. Both are by performers who exude intensity and intelligence, yet are also able to bring great musical freedom and spontaneity. They ensure the listener understands the rich architectural structures of Bach’s music while instinctively bringing out the earthy dancing qualities that are so inherent in the musical lines. Above all, for me, both performers never impose themselves on the music; rather the listener has the impression of hearing the composer’s vision as though freshly minted and newly composed.

The first features the wonderful twenty-something Russian violinist Alina Ibragimova. Her performance of the Sonatas and Partitas for solo violin (Hyperion Records, CDA67691/2) is delivered faultless intonation, achingly beautiful tone, superlative technique and a musical wisdom far beyond her years. Each of the works is interpreted with a vast range of colours and textures, and the recording as a whole creates a powerful impression of the vastness of Bach’s musical imagination.

Here is Alina playing one of the solo pieces in a purpose built space for her interpretations: 

The second features the great Chinese-born cellist Jian Wang, discovered by Isaac Stern and featured in the documentary film From Mao to Mozart: Isaac Stern in China. Like Alina, Jian is not a hugely demonstrative musician yet there is something about his music-making that immediately draws you into his world. His technical command of the cello is paramount, and the lyrical and characterful beauty of his playing brings out the natural lightness and gracefulness of the six Suites for solo cello (Deutsche Grammophon, CD DDD 0289 477 5228 8 GH 2). Wang draws the listener deep into these works of supreme profundity and depth. It’s too difficult to name a favourite suite or movement, and I often listen to all six suites in a single day as the journey from the opening Prelude of the First Suite to the final Gigue of the Sixth Suite is one of the great musical explorations and an experience in listening to a world that is both highly abstract and deeply rooted in life.

Here is Jian performing movements from the Fourth Suite: 

These recordings bring me great joy and I hope you can find the time to explore them also.

You are also able to hear Jian Wang live across Australia in July, when he tours with Bernadette Harvey for Musica Viva. Together they will perform the two great Brahms sonatas for cello and piano and audiences will also get the opportunity to hear Jian perform the JS Bach Cello Suites nos 1 and 6. Details are here:

http://www.musicaviva.com.au/Wang

Timothy Matthies is Director of Business Development, Concerts of Musica Viva Australia, the largest chamber music entrepreneur in the world. Timothy’s role oversees all aspects of Musica Viva’s public concerts activity, manages the company’s six interstate offices and staff, and leads the development and strategy around all partnerships and associations relating to the company’s concerts. Tim also has a successful and stimulating musical life as a member of the Sydney Philharmonia Chamber Singers, has also performed with Cantillation and ACO Voices and is a member of the Australian Youth Orchestra’s Artistic Advisory Committee.

Tokyo String Quartet pass on Paganini Quartet

by Matthew Westwood

The Australian, May 27, 2013

WHEN the members of the Tokyo String Quartet go their separate ways in July, they will be parting company with another fab four: a group of superb string instruments known as the Paganini Quartet.

The renowned ensemble is due to give its last concert at the Norfolk Chamber Music Festival in the US on July 6, ending a performance tradition that has lasted 44 years.

Some time after that, the musicians will hand back their instruments – two violins, a viola and cello made by Antonio Stradivari and once owned by 19th-century virtuoso Niccolo Paganini – to their custodian, the Nippon Music Foundation.

“I will miss playing this great music, and also being in touch with the audience; that element I will miss most,” said second violinist Kikuei Ikeda.

The TSQ today embarks on a nine-date national farewell tour for chamber-music presenter Musica Viva. In two concert programs it will perform music by Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert and Bartok as well as a recent piece by Peter Sculthorpe.

The Tokyo String Quartet was formed in New York in 1969 by four Japanese musicians. Its current line-up comprises Canadian violinist Martin Beaver and British cellist Clive Greensmith, as well as violist Kazuhide Isomura, an original member, and violinist Ikeda, who joined the quartet in 1974. Ikeda, 65, said there was no mandatory retirement age for string quartets, but he and Isomura had decided it was time to step down. Beaver and Greensmith auditioned replacement musicians but had not found the ideal match.

“Kaz (Isomura) and I felt that, before people say ‘These guys are getting old’, we wanted to stop at the top of the game,” he said.

The quartet last week gave its final performance in its namesake city. Ikeda said he was worried about becoming overly emotional during that performance, but the concert was being televised, which kept him focused.

“That added extra pressure,” he said. “It actually helped me to concentrate on just the pure music.”

Playing the Stradivarius instruments helped give the quartet a unity of sound but also allowed each player to express himself individually, Ikeda said.

It is likely that the Paganini Quartet will be lent to another string quartet to play.

Tokyo String Quartet perform for their final Melbourne concert tonight at the Melbourne Recital Centre from 8pm.

For tickets and more information, visit http://www.musicaviva.com.au/whatson/international-concert-season-2013/artists-touring/tokyo_string_quartet

SWANSONG FOR A JAPANESE GREAT

Melbourne Review, May 2013

By GRAHAM STRAHLE

After 44 years on the concert stage, the Tokyo String Quartet has decided to call it a day.

The much admired ensemble, which became one of Deutsche Grammophon’s staple recording artists through the 70s and won particular acclaim for their performances of Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven, will give its final international concerts in Australia and New Zealand in coming weeks before disbanding on its return to the US in early July.

The decision came after the last founding member, violist Kazuhide Isomura, announced his intention to retire last November. In turn, the Quartet’s only other Japanese member, Kikuei Ikeda, also chose to bow out, following 39 years’ service as the group’s second violinist. That left the remaining members, Canadian violinist Martin Beaver and English cellist Clive Greensmith, with the difficult choice of whether to recruit two new players –Japanese if the group was to retain its national heritage – or disband.

They chose the latter, and thus closes another chapter in the history of great string quartets of the modern era. With the exit of the Alban Berg and Guarneri quartets in 2008 and 2009, that just leaves the Borodins as the last senior post-war quartet still operating.

Beaver says it was “definitely a shock” when his Japanese colleagues announced their intention to leave during one of the group’s rehearsals. He and Greensmith immediately went about auditioning new players of Asian background, even performing with some in informal concerts. He relates what happened: “Clive and myself received the blessing of our retiring colleagues to try out a number of replacements, and a number turned out to be great players. Certainly it could have worked.

“But through the process, Clive and I thought that with the group’s name being what it is, there were some nationalistic if not ethnic prerequisites for the group, and we felt it increasingly hard to continue on its tradition. Should we invite two Japanese players? Or is one enough? Should we change the name? All the questions we were thinking of seemed insurmountable, and ultimately all four of us felt that the best way to honour what the group has done is to bring it to a graceful close, when we are all playing well together.”

Surprisingly, the Tokyo String Quartet has never based itself in Tokyo, but has instead called New York its home ever since it formed at the Juilliard School in 1969, while its four original members were students there. Nevertheless, the quartet continues to visit Japan twice a year, and Beaver believes it has made a profound contribution to Japanese culture over the years. “The group has notched up many milestones,” he says, “but first and foremost, here was a musically strong ensemble founded by four Japanese players that became internationally respected for their performances of chamber music. This was a huge achievement for Japanese culture.”

The group’s musical highpoints, says Beaver, were its two recordings of the complete quartets of Beethoven, one in the mid-90s for RCA and a new one for Harmonia Mundi, the last volume of which came out in 2010. He is personally proudest of the second cycle, having been first violinist when it was recorded, but he says both sets were a pinnacle for the group for which he would like it to be remembered.

He says its “technical precision and strong musical unanimity” are what the Tokyo String Quartet has contributed to quartet playing. “The group has always been striving to project as one instrument while trying to preserve each player’s individual character to an extent,” he explains. “We are either a leaderless group or a quartet of four leaders. All of us have very strong opinions, which at moments makes it an exercise in international diplomacy, but when one of us comes up with the right idea at the right time, it can change in a heartbeat.”

Beaver adds: “We’ve had our ups and downs just like any ensemble. Generally however, we’ve been a smooth running group. There have been no knockdown punches. We have always shown a Japanese politeness and respect toward each other.”

All four have Japanese wives, which may help explain it. Other than that, Beaver says the Tokyo String Quartet is tied to no particular culture. “We definitely consider ourselves a cosmopolitan group. With our mix of nationality and exposure to many countries, we are truly an ensemble of the world.”

Tokyo String Quartet plays at the Melbourne Recital Centre on May 28 at 7:00pm and May 30 at 8:00pm.

For tickets and more information, visit http://www.musicaviva.com.au/whatson/international-concert-season-2013/artists-touring/tokyo_string_quartet

The Tokyo String Quartet arrive in Sydney this weekend for their final Australian tour. Since their formation in 1969 at the prestigious Julliard School of Music, the ensemble have earned an enviable reputation as the grand masters of the string quartet form.

In this video, the Tokyo String Quartet perform Haydn’s String Quartet in G major – their final performance at WGBH’s Fraser Performance Studio, Boston, presented by Celebrity Series of Boston.

The Tokyo String Quartet perform in Australia from 27th May to 12 June. For information on their final Australian tour, please visit http://www.musicaviva.com.au/tokyosq

Tokyo String Quartet | Final Australian Tour

27 May – 12 June 2013

After more than 40 years the undisputed grand masters of the string quartet now bid a graceful farewell. Playing a famous collection of Stradivarius instruments, their last programs ever for Australia include some of the pieces which cemented their stellar reputation. Do not miss this opportunity to celebrate the final performances by a landmark ensemble of our time.

For performances, tickets and more information, click here: http://bit.ly/Zhpxko

Mahler’s Piano Quartet movement in A minor is a short but intense student work, written at age 16, showing precocious gravitation towards tristesse and tragedy. Not yet present is the starkness of contrast to set this mood off against irony or terror, nor the genius for formal drama of his symphonies. The string players of the Morgenstern Trio established expressive earnestness right from the start, playing with smooth balance and good pitch until the violin cadenza.

In Beethoven’s Trio in E flat, Opus 70, No.2, their playing had commitment and moments of unfettered spirit, and the tempo of the first movement was persuasive, allowing for passages of grace. The second was more emphatic and less consistent, and from here until the interval the instrumental and tonal control was varied.

Ross Edwards’ Piano Trio is related to his Guitar Concerto, Arafura Dances, for the Darwin International Guitar Festival, and in the program for the Trio, Edwards wrote that he had in mind “sunlight sparkling on the Arafura Sea”. The Trio was written for the Melbourne Chamber Music Competition but sunlight sparkling on the Yarra sounds less probable. In pre-concert talk, Edwards was more candid, admitting that when writing the Trio he probably didn’t give the sparkling Arafura Sea a moment’s thought. The work features an expansive slow movement and closes with a dance-like finale in Edwards’ Maninya, ending abruptly, even prematurely.

For Schumann’s tautly scored, expansively structured Piano Quartet in E flat major, Opus 74, the trio was joined by violist Christopher Moore. The fleetness of the scherzo (the second movement) was not without hazards of ensemble, but Schumann’s melody had warmth and broad appeal.

It was in music of brooding intensity that the Morgenstern Trio was most impressive in this opening concert of a national tour for Musica Viva.

This young, prize-winning, German piano trio came to prominence in the 2007 Melbourne Chamber Music Competition and has gone on to win accolades around the world. Joined by Australian violist Christopher Moore, the concert featured two works for piano trio and two for piano quartet.

The program began with Mahler’s only surviving chamber music piece; a piano quartet movement that seems to have sprung from the influence of Brahms and Schumann and is quite unlike the mature works for which he is known. A restrained but highly charged performance created a powerful impact, imbuing the music with an undercurrent of simmering restlessness.

Beethoven’s piano trio op 70 no 2 is an unusual and striking work and proved to be a perfect companion piece to the Mahler. The trio excelled in characterising its shifting personalities, playing with finely-honed ensemble and a keen sense of musical drama. The intimate moments were delivered with delicate finesse while the climaxes rang with symphonic grandeur.

After interval, the Piano Trio by Australian composer Ross Edwards seemed a little out of place in a program of 19th-century German romanticism. Perhaps sensing this anomaly, the trio performed the work in an overtly romantic style, creating a luscious sound world but, especially in the first movement, lacking some rhythmic precision. After a deeply expressive, beautifully played slow movement, the finale came across as somewhat unsatisfying, structurally and musically.

With Schumann’s grand piano quartet, the ensemble returned joyfully to their heartland repertoire. Smiling at each other in between movements, the players were clearly relishing this opulent, surging music. Tempos were on the brisk side but clarity and detail were never lost, especially in the quicksilver second movement where pianist Catherine Klipfel impressed with her agility and crisp touch.

There were times, however, when more tonal weight from the piano would have provided greater breadth to the overall sound and occasionally violinist Stefan Hempel under-projected his part, leaving some gaps in the texture. Both Moore and cellist Emanuel Wehse played with a fluid, warm tone, their sensitive lyricism used to great advantage in an understated but lyrically intense slow movement. A slightly unsettled yet highly spirited encore by Brahms was a fitting conclusion to this exciting performance.

From first note to last, an account by the visiting Germany-based Morgenstern Trio and Australian violist Christopher Moore of Mahler’s one-movement Piano Quartet was presented with such understanding of mood and tonal colouring that it sounded more like a form of communion between musicians and composer than mere communication between players and audience.

This happens only very rarely and is all the more significant for that. As ever, on hearing this engaging music, one marvelled at the creative maturity of Mahler who wrote it while still a student in his mid-teens.

Such was the unanimity of thought and action in evidence throughout the evening, that one sensed that these extraordinarily gifted players were drawing on a shared musical consciousness. This was abundantly apparent, too, in Beethoven’s Trio in E flat, opus 70 no 2. Unlike the often athletic writing of opus 70 no 1 (the so-called “Ghost Trio”), opus 70 no 2 is couched in gently reflective, almost introverted, terms. Its subtle essence was captured by the players like a moth in the gentlest of hands. I savoured every moment.

More, perhaps, than any other Australian composer, Ross Edwards’ music bears so unmistakable a musical fingerprint, that its style is instantly recognisable. The Morgenstern players did his Piano Trio proud. In the opening allegretto, Emanuel Wehse’s cello line was like a stream of golden tone. The central meditative movement was a little miracle of expressive warmth that was a perfect lead-in to a finale informed by an insouciance that sounded right.

In 1842, Robert Schumann felt overshadowed by the increasing celebrity of his famous pianist wife, Clara. He sank into a deep depression, exacerbated by sessions of heavy drinking. Despite this, Schumann succeeded in producing a stream of inspired chamber music that year, including the Piano Quartet in E flat.

Notwithstanding some occasionally too-emphatic piano playing in the third movement, the musicians shaped to the music like finest claret to a goblet. I particularly admired the second movement and a scintillating, ultra-nimble finale that prompted a thoroughly deserved ovation.

This first-rate concert deserved a much bigger audience.

“I was reading about Mahler’s illness and death – they all had such sad lives! Beethoven must have been a very interesting character – the madness and sadness in his last letters. Perhaps Schumann was mad. Weren’t they all? They all had some spark of brilliance that made them a little bit different from everybody else. It’s just a shame that we never get to meet them.

“I’d love to have had the chance to play under Strauss, though anybody who conducted the way he did now would probably never get a gig. That kind of old-world, gentlemanly manner wouldn’t put bums on seats.

“The composer-conductor thing is pretty rare nowadays.”

Today’s audiences, says Moore, expect to be entertained. But that still leaves a lot of latitude for creative concert programming.

“There needs to be some sort of balance. Look at this programme here! There’s the Ross Edwards, there’s Mahler, Schumann and Beethoven. That’s quite a huge range.

“In the Australian Chamber Orchestra, we’ve included the music of Xenakis in concert programmes. And what I love about the audience reaction is that it’s incredibly polarising. Some people absolutely love it, and others vehemently hate it. But it doesn’t stop them from coming. And at least they’re talking about it. Whether you like it or not, it’s got something that burns an impression on your memory, even if you can’t remember the composer’s name.”

It’s not only hard-core modern repertoire that makes for a radical audience experience, Moore continues. Older repertoire also has its extremes; it is simply a matter of find a way to express that today.

“Even if you’re playing mainstream repertoire, you can find a way to say something through the music that really touches people,” he says.

“Toscanini said, ‘Tradition is the fading memory of the last bad performance.’

“I was recently given an old compilation of music for violin and piano. And if you look under the heading ‘Modern Composers’ you find Brahms and Massenet. It’s good to be reminded that back in their day they were modern composers. That’s the real challenge – to play all music as if it’s being heard for the first time.”

© Shirley Apthorp

The Australian Chamber Orchestra’s principal violist is happy to be the missing link between the German-based Morgenstern Trio and Schumann and Mahler’s piano quartets.

“I haven’t actually done that much piano quartet repertoire,” Moore reflects. “I’ve played a lot of string quartets, but the piano is a different beast. You have to play in such a different way that it keeps you on your toes.”

Though he has not yet met the trio, Moore lauds the opportunities afforded by modern technology. You Tube has taken him into the Morgenstern’s rehearsal spaces and daily lives, and enabled him to watch them talk and play.

“I feel as if I know them already. They seem like a little family – they clearly know each other very well, and get along brilliantly. It will be a new experience for me, even though I’ve played in a number of piano quartets over the years, and I’m really looking forward to it.”

It is some time since Moore has played Schumann’s opus 47 Piano Quartet, and Mahler’s one-movement rarity is new to him.

“It’s great to play some repertoire that’s fresh for me,” he says.

“The romantic repertoire is where I feel the most comfortable – it seems intuitive to me – so I seldom find myself not having fun, especially with Schumann and Mahler, Strauss and Ravel.

“Mahler is a symphonic composer, and the piano can sound like an entire orchestra in the right hands – I guess that’s what Mahler is drawn to. And the Schumann – of course I love the music. I guess I’m a romantic at heart. But I don’t behave like one!”

Both assertions seem faintly surprising. How DOES a romantic behave?

“I dunno,” sighs Moore. “Sort of swoons around and sniffs the flowers, that sort of thing. But we don’t have time to do that in our lives. The only opportunity you get is when your imagination is swept away while you listen to or play this music. It gives you an opportunity to escape the real world for a while.

“Classical repertoire is pure joy, but romantic music is so much more multi-faceted. They’re pushing the boundaries with harmony and rhythm.”

© Shirley Apthorp