Kristian Bezuidenhout
The Queen’s Hall
There is a good audience for today’s afternoon concert in the SCO’s Chamber Sunday series to hear the South African early keyboard specialist, Kristian Bezuidenhout in three works which show off the qualities of the fortepiano. He’s joined, not by an established string quartet, but by four players from the SCO and a British violist based in Norway. Three of the SCO players are Section principals, and Catherine Bullock is the principal viola for the Oslo Philharmonic. So not bad for a scratch team!
The fortepiano sound is probably familiar to regular attendees at chamber concerts. It also features in the current film version of Emma in which the actor Amber Anderson (Jane Fairfax) plays the square pianoforte, the domestic version of the concert instrument used by Mozart and Beethoven, the two composers in today’s programme.
The Mozart piano sonata which begins the concert lets us hear the fortepiano on its own. There’s a change of programme – the advertised K 330 in C is replaced by an earlier sonata in C, K 309. The delicate keyboard sound and the exposed feel of the quieter sections take a little getting used to. But the versatility of the instrument is soon apparent. The lower notes have a metallic, more harpsicord -like feel, and are used to great effect in the Allegro first movement and the Allegretto third movement. The middle slow movement highlights Bezuidenhout’s lovely playing in the upper registers.
I didn’t know the piece, and suspect most of the audience didn’t either. It was a treat to hear a new piece of Mozart played as he intended.
Benjamin Marquise Gilmore, violin, the SCO’s Leader, and Su-A-Lee, Principal Cellist, joined Bezuidenhout in the next piece, Beethoven’s Trio in C minor, Op 1 No3. This is the work in the concert which is most obviously written for the concert platform rather than for a domestic setting. It begins dramatically, the cello and violin, playing an equal part with the piano in the rhythmic first movement. The second movement Andante Cantabile has five variations in which all three instruments take turns to elaborate on the theme to beautiful effect – one of my favourite parts of the concert. The Trio ended with an astonishing prestissimo finale. In his very good programme note, David Kettle comments “it’s hard not to see the many characteristics of the composer’s later, heroic middle period in this work of a pioneering ambitious 23 year old.”
After the interval there are six musicians on stage for the String Quintet version of Mozart’s Piano Concerto in A, K 414. Mozart wrote three piano concertos in 1782 for which he provided alternative versions for orchestra and for string quartet. Today’s version adds a double bass, the SCO’s Nikita Naumov to the quartet: Gilmore, violin, and Su-A -lee, cello, as in the Beethoven and Marcus Barcham Stevens, violin and Catherine Bullock, viola. Watching SCO players at work is, as usual, a delight. They’re never afraid to show their enthusiasm for the music, and their enjoyment in working together. Incidentally, as far as I can tell, the strings are all modern instruments, but the combination of these and the “authentic” fortepiano work well.
I can’t remember hearing a piano concerto in a setting for string quartet. The effect is lighter and swifter, and with each of the strings taking a different line in the score, both the melodic lines and the harmonies have great clarity. It’s an intimate piece, perfectly suited to the type of private function that Mozart wrote it for, but here delivered perfectly by this group of virtuosic musicians. The highlight is perhaps the solemn second movement based on a theme by J C Bach, Mozart’s mentor, who had recently died. The sparkling allegretto brings the concert to a close, with much well-deserved applause.
The concert was recorded by Radio 3 for broadcast on 16th March. Highly recommended!
