Gabriel Fauré, by John Singer Sargent
ENDNOTES, July 2020
In this edition: late-romantic piano quintets by Franck and Fauré; & a classical music establishment in meltdown, by Stuart Millson
The Prague-based Wihan Quartet – winners of the London International String Quartet Competition in 1991 – has achieved enormous success in the world of chamber music. The quartet’s players are the violinists Leos Cepicky and Jan Schulmeister; the viola player, Jakub Cepicky; and cellist, Michal Kanka – artists who gave the first-ever complete Beethoven quartet cycle in the Czech capital and who have covered most of the classical, romantic and native Bohemian repertoire in the concert halls of the world. For their latest recording on the Nimbus Alliance label, they collaborate with the Japanese pianist Mami Shikimori, a graduate of the Royal College of Music and a performer at such venues as New York’s Carnegie Hall.
Choosing the late-romantic repertoire of Cesar Franck and Gabriel Fauré, the musicians show us just how, in the music of Franck, chamber compositions can achieve an almost muscular “symphonic” character – the first movement of the Franck Quintet, alone, a chapter of extraordinary, sinewy, bold musical structure. The music, composed in 1879, seems to contain all the power that orchestras and listeners have devoured in the composer’s bravura Symphony in D minor – the Wihan Quartet and Miss Shikimori generating on the Nimbus recording a great surge of sound for which the listener may have to reduce the volume – so intense is the interpretation. Gentler waters are navigated in the Lento con molto sentimento second movement, although seven minutes into this section, Franck builds to another febrile climax, the composition once again thick with intensity and suffused with a sense of melancholia, even tragedy. Restless themes announce the last movement, but there is a more subdued discussion of ideas, before the clear, onward trajectory to a triumphant conclusion is embarked upon: Franck saving all his dramatic emphasis for one last great statement. Continue reading
Love in a Covid Climate
Constantin Brancusi, 1907, The Kiss, Credit Wikipedia
Love in a Covid Climate
by Ilana Mercer, spellbound
There was a reason why this expatriate missed Canada of late. In particular, the every-day normalcy of its local CTV News. Often so apolitical, Canadians are always less eager to feature the caterwauling of politicians than to cover the joys of a cat rescue. Or, a kiss.
How natural, then, that a CTV Toronto News anchor intuitively ran one of the most enchanting, culturally significant little video clips I’ve seen for a long time. A young, adorable girl, clutching a tiny dog, is being interviewed about face masks in Toronto’s Trinity Bellwoods Park. Her meandering replies are meaningless. She’s just a regular, uninformed, inarticulate millennial, until… wait for it. A dashing and daring young man with a mop of dark hair appears out of nowhere. He is dressed like the rebel characters in the film “Hair,” Milos Forman’s formidable musical. He grabs the girl and kisses her long and deep and oh-so romantically. The cute girl goes as limp as a ragdoll in his arms. Or, like Scarlett O’Hara in the arms of Rhett Butler. Every bit of her is saying “yes.” Continue reading →
Share this:
Like this: