Music at Paxton: Kolesnikov and Tsoy

Paxton House - 27/07/22

At the end of the first piece, Pavel Kolesnikov tells us that he and Samson Tsoy chose the music in tonight’s programme with this lovely room in mind.  A remark guaranteed to endear them to the Paxton audience!  He’s played here before (and has another solo concert this week), remembered the gallery with its 18th and 19th century portraits and landscapes and believes that these works by Schubert and Brahms fit the intimate setting well.  The Picture Gallery was added to Paxton House in 1811 so we may easily imagine the Schubert Sonata from around 1820 being played here. 

The work composed for two of Schubert’s pupils, the daughters of Count Esterhazy, is not often played, Kolesnikov says, but it’s a charming piece, almost entirely without drama. The music is straightforward but by no means simple – his young students must have been proficient.  The player of the upper notes has most of the melodic input in the right hand with the other three hands playing an accompaniment for much of the music, but there are more adventurous sections where the players exchange imitative phrases, and also opportunities for  tricky semiquaver flourishes in the higher register.  Perhaps Schubert sometimes took the lower part himself to give one of the young women the chance to show off her skills! 

The second Schubert piece is a complete contrast.  It’s his ‘Fantasie in F minor’ in four connected movements, whose 20-minute length reveals the full effect of four hands on a keyboard.  There is nothing one-sided about this work - we don’t ever feel that the player on the right is leading and the other accompanying.  The first and last movements are marked Allegro Molto Moderato, and after the first theme with its dotted rhythm is almost tentatively set out by the upper player using only one hand, it’s developed with gathering power by both pianists. The second theme begins in the lower register, and passed from one player to the other until, with dramatic fortissimo chords, the second movement begins.  The agitation of its opening gives way to a lyrical Largo, with Schubert seeking to emulate the effects of a Paganini slow movements for violin.  The crashing chords return, this time leading to an Allegro Vivace.  Requiring lighter finger-work by both players, this seems like a return to the dainty world of the Sonata, but soon both players compete with complicated semiquaver runs on both sides of the keyboard.  A pause, and more heavy chords announce the return of the tempo and theme of the first movement. This finale amplifies in power and intensity what we heard earlier, especially when the more sombre second theme returns as a fugue. The duo’s playing of this last dramatic section is breathtaking!  We can hear the fugal entries, from both players, but somehow – without, as it were, showing the joins, there are all sorts of accompanying melodic and harmonic effects – how can just four hands make this splendid noise?    

The Fantasie, described by German critic Joachim Kaiser as “one of the greatest works in music history,” is a work which Kolesnikov and Tsoy play often, (it featured in the Schubert programme at the East Neuk Festival which Donal Hurley reviewed recently) and know so well that even their page-turning is synchronised. Yet there is a freshness in their approach to the music, and an awareness of the challenging nature of the work, both technically and in the emotions it reveals.  I found it an absorbing performance. 

It's fair to say that the rest of the concert isn’t nearly so intense! After the interval, Samson Tsoy introduces the two works by Brahms. The ‘Liebeslieder Waltzer’ (Lovesong waltzes) Opus 52, originally composed for voice quartet and piano, were rewritten for piano duet. The pianists have also made their own arrangements of Opus 65, a later set of vocal waltzes. “We preferred them without the singers.” Ten pieces chosen from the two groups are delightful miniatures, the earlier ones more like Ländler than waltzes (think Julie Andrews dancing with Christopher Plummer).  Some are slower, more melancholic and less dance-like. They sit more upright during these pieces but during the almost Viennese-style waltzes, they sway together at the piano, clearly enjoying themselves.  

The last work has a tragic genesis.  Brahms much admired Schumann and became close to Robert and his family.  After her husband’s death in 1856, Clara Schumann gave Brahms a theme he had written. Brahms wrote this ‘Variations on a Theme of Schumann’ and dedicated it to Robert and Clara’s daughter. I find that Themes and Variations are problematic to play and listen to if you expect that you’ll be able to hear the notes of the original tune as the variations get more complicated.  Whether playing or listening, it is easier to give up trying after the first two or three, and deal with each section as a piece to be enjoyed in its own right.  These ten are based on a rather solemn tune, but are by no means all serious, with a quickening of the pace in the middle variations and more dramatic and stormier music in the eighth and ninth.  The final section in march-time reminds us of the original theme in the closing bars.  It’s a lighter work than its origins may lead us to expect. 

Kolesnikov and Tsoy acknowledge the enthusiastic applause with formal bows to the audience on each side of the hall as well as in the central section, before returning to play Liszt’s ‘Liebestraum’ as an encore. 

Were there too many short pieces in the second half?  Perhaps. Still, it’s always wonderful to come away from a concert not just full of admiration for the players but with a new, or rediscovered, work to add to the list of Greatest Hits.  Schubert’s ‘Fantasie’ may even make it to my Desert Island eight! 

Kolesnikov and Tsoy feature in the third of the Radio 3 lunch-time concerts recorded at the East Neuk festival, available for the next four weeks.