Lammermuir Festival: Coffee Concert VIII: Music for Viola and Piano

Holy Trinity Church, Haddington - 16/09/23

Jaren Ziegler, viola | Lynne Arnold, piano

The 8th and final morning Coffee Concert of this year’s Lammermuir Festival, in Haddington’s Holy Trinity Church, was given by last year’s winner of the String Final of the BBC Young Musician Competition, Jaren Ziegler, the first time a violist has won.  He was accompanied by versatile pianist Lynne Arnold.  In his prefatory remarks to the recital, Festival Director James Waters apologised for the change of programme, the advertised Hindemith Sonata having been replaced by a Bruch Romanze.  The programme also included works by Bridge, Vierne and Brahms.

Frank Bridge, who composed his ‘Two Pieces for Viola and Piano’ in 1906, was himself an accomplished violist.  The first piece is ‘Pensiero’, a wistful, melancholy, elegiac piece with an impassioned central section.  I was immediately struck by Jaren’s flawless intonation, rich warm tone and expressive phrasing.  The second piece marked Allegro appassionato after a declaratory evocative opening, features a gypsy-style melody, soulful and expressive.  I became aware that it was fabulous bow control, harnessed to subtly versatile vibrato, that was delivering the expressive phrasing and the huge dynamic range.  A first hearing for me of an interesting piece.

Bruch’s 1911 Romanze Op.85 was also a first hearing and, whatever I may have thought about missing out on the Hindemith, it is an absolute gem.  With the feel of a wordless song declaring devotion to a loved one, it was played with a sense of emulation of vocal tone, with phrases of different lengths and a sense of natural breathing.  Lynne’s piano phrasing was sympathetic and, when the music became a dialogue, tiny hesitations made the effect quite magical.  Breathtakingly beautiful. James, no apology necessary.

Organ virtuoso Vierne’s Le Soir is another romance. Jaren spoke of Vierne’s death, dying as he gave his 1975th recital, reckoned his best ever, doing what he loved most.  Le Soir began with lovely sul tasto playing in the lower register, delivering a gloriously husky tone in a melody in the character of a reverie.  The delicately rippling piano accompaniment was equally dreamy and I reiterate: that Bösendorfer is a beautiful instrument.  I can only speak for myself, but I can’t imagine there was a dry eye in the house.

The advertised programme concluded with Brahms’ 4-movement F-minor Viola Sonata, Op.120, No.1, originally composed as a clarinet sonata, but it works equally well on viola in Brahms’s own transcription.  The first movement begins dramatically and passionately.  The second theme is more meditative and autumnal, with an inner glow.  I realised that Jaren was emulating the chalumeau register of the clarinet with fabulously rich sul tasto playing coupled with skilled control of bow pressure, indeed often so low down the fingerboard that I want to know his brand of rosin.  Stunning playing.  The slow movement, a songlike romance in the major key, featured lovely conversation between the instruments, vying for who could be more chromatic and adventurous with harmonic exploration.   The third movement, a lovely, dreamy waltz at first, turns a bit earthier later.  The finale, still in the major key, is a gleeful optimistic rondo which I know quite well, having heard a clarinettist friend play it in a competition.  A thorough delight.

As an encore, we got some Hindemith after all, the finale of the Solo Viola Sonata Op.25 No.1 (1922), the fast and furious 4th movement.  Impossibly virtuosic and quite superb.

Cover photo: Dan Prince