EIF: Chineke! Chamber Ensemble
The Chineke! Music Foundation was started in 2015 to provide opportunities for black and ethnically diverse classical musicians. Its founder, double-bassist, Chi-chi Nwanoku, is on stage today at the Old College with the eight other musicians of the Chineke! Chamber Ensemble. They’re playing two works by British musicians who attended The Royal College of Music in the 1890s. Ralph Vaughan Williams was from a well-to-do family, and Samuel Coleridge-Taylor was the illegitimate son of a Sierra Leonean father and an English mother, brought up in his farrier grandfather’s working-class home.
Of the two, Vaughan Williams proved the slower developer as a composer. The Piano Quintet in C Minor was written in 1903, but was later suppressed as unrepresentative of his work, and revived only in 1999. It is a tuneful piece, given an energetic performance by the five musicians on stage. Pianist, Zeynep Ozsuca, provides the dramatic three chord introduction, repeated and elaborated on the strings, while she plays a forceful accompaniment. The movement is marked con fuoco, and these fiery passages are overtaken by quieter more tentative melodies on the strings, and by solo piano passages. The Andante’s first theme is played on piano and elaborated by Zara Benyounes on violin and Lena Fankhauser on viola in interesting harmonies, then interrupted by a more impassioned section in which the lower strings, Nwanoku and cellist Ashok Klouda, predominate. The variations which form the last movement are based on a few notes almost like a piece of plain chant. The variations are inventive, exploring rhythms and harmonies sometimes playfully, sometimes with vigour.
Recently it would have seemed impossible to imagine a concert in which the Vaughan Williams’ work was scarcely known, and the Coleridge-Taylor piece one that is heard often on Radio 3, now to their credit promoting works by black musicians. The six-minute first movement of Nonet with its cheerful opening and tootling winds has become familiar. It’s great to hear it live and to appreciate the qualities of these nine instruments together. The strings and piano are on the left, while Nwanoku on double bass is centre stage and the four wind players are on the right. Coleridge-Taylor, a faster developer than Vaughan Williams wrote this when he was only 18. Already we can see his interest in melody and strong rhythm that within a few years would see his ‘Hiawatha’ become such a popular work. I imagine he would have liked this performance, boisterous and forceful, with the sounds of the French Horn (Francisco Gomez) and bassoon (Linton Stephens) ringing out clearly. The Scherzo is witty with scampering notes in the piano, strings, and higher winds (Titus Underwood, oboe and Sacha Rattle, clarinet). The final movement ends with a series of syncopated rhythms which may perhaps contain a hint of these Hiawatha opening drums…
Chamber music is not often as engrossing or as much fun as this! The Chineke! performers combine a fearless panache with high standards of instrumental precision. They enjoyed themselves and so did the audience. I urge you to listen to the concert on Radio 3 on 18th August.
