 |
Al-Ahram Weekly 24 Feb. - 1 March 2000 Issue No. 470 
|
||
Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
| ||
|
Al-Ahram Weekly 24 Feb. - 1 March 2000 Issue No. 470
|
||
| Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
| ||
Egypt Region International Economy Opinion Culture Features Focus Heritage Profile Travel Living Sports People Time Out Chronicles Cartoons Letters A double visitation
By David Blake
The visitor was the Czech Jiri Barta, here a few years ago in concert at the Main Hall, returned on 18 February to give a solo recital of three Bach suites for unaccompanied cello, this time held at St Andrew's United Church. This very young cellist has a peculiar quality of prophetic splendour hanging around him like incomplete music in progress, but from a master's hand.
Three Bach unaccompanied suites are daunting for any player in terms of sheer length, variety and staying power. Jiri Barta's previous visit was to perform a Romantic programme. What, one wondered, would he make of Bach's almost Trappist austerity?
After a thrusting full fortissimo opening he settled into a rather indecisive way of managing Bach's polyphonic contrapuntus. Since all players, great or small, are smitten in the same way, it is no reflection on Barta's interpretation that this indecision was felt.
The days are long gone when the attack against the ancien regime of the settled Bachist approach gave way to a fashion for playing Bach like wind-tossed Chopin. Barta obviously struck a middle course, but with gusts of high emotion supported by his shock-proof technique. There were high flashes of lightning unleashed to crack open the too formal and undisturbed surface. After all, the course is a long one and the player must convince the audience to attend to the intensive thrusting of an unaccompanied cello player.
In the first piece, Suite no.3 in C Major, Jiri Barta, after the storming opening, went for the tone beautiful. This is a change, providing listener relief from the bumps and grinds often adopted by cellists. The cello can sound raw but with Barta never.
From deep fathoms down to the high, ethereal, soprano-like sounds we were led through Bach's miraculous contrapuntal weavings. Bach music often sounds like the old viol players, it has a rich, comforting depth without murk or too much vibrato. Thrilling were the tawny sounds Barta drew from the double string parts.
As a player he has a disturbing quality of non-involvement, just like Piatigorsky. He stands away from his own performance like a judge. This, from one so young, is part of his passport to a bright future. Impassive, he still confronts listeners with that area the cello excels in, the area where it can be at once uneasy and questioning. You, the listener, are in the dock, and Barta's music excelled in its forensic thrust.
It was a relief and comfort during this small break of time to be far from the usual jungle noises of the present day concert scene. His cello plays silences as well as notes.
The second item, Suite no.2 in D minor, began with the cello at its darkest, amood for which Barta is well-equipped. But when the tempo and colours altered he flew lightly to the dance of the Courante. Bach and his interpreter were enthralling. The ending of this suite was a Gigue, lighter and peppier than the Bourée which usually ends these suites.
Last of the suites was Suite no.6 in D major. Once again we were reminded of the purity and force of the viol. The cello moved grandly into a slow rhythm like a sarabande, tragic and elemental but proud haughty and of a deep bronze tone. This was the grandest playing of the evening. The narration of the suites suddenly ended. They are huge things, like birds which come in and suddenly depart. Uneasy but moving.
It is a thing unique to be involved in this contrapuntal embroidery of Bach woven by a great player and especially demanding. All European music, to the dangerous dissonances of Szymanowski, stands in debt to Bach.
Piano trios by Mendelssohn and Rachmaninov, Khaled El-Shwekh (Violin), Ayman El-Hanbouli (Cello) and David Hales (Piano), American University of Cairo, Ewart Hall, 16 February
There are many who have heard of this piano trio and even more who have not. Rachmaninov is a composer who has fans and detractors but very few middle of the road listeners.
He was one of the great pianist of any age, Russian, haughty, tall and with the most famous hands in piano history -- hangman's hands, they were called. Their stretch and strength were legendary and so was his playing and so was his character. He never smiled, hardly ever bowed at a concert, appeared to totally disapprove of the audience, panting in their seats to hear him. He marched on, sat down, played, rose and marched off again. That was that. But what you heard in the middle... no words.
This enormously long piano trio is difficult to play, perhaps that is the reason for its mysterious position of neglect in the Rachmaniniov oeuvre. All the more admirable of the AUC, therefore, to have presented it and even more remarkable to find three players of the calibre of Shwekh, El-Hanbouli and Hales to perform it. Were you there on the night of 16 February? You should have been.
It begins quietly, slowly, almost tentatively -- no bang or bash as is so often the case with Rachmaninov. It is suddenly there before you like some legendary monster. The bang and bash side of it is perhaps the cause of its unpopularity. The three players never stooped, they sailed through its hair-raising troubles like attendant angels, deeply involved. They were like dream figures and a dream it was.
El-Shwekh is a deeply caring musician whose high standards amount to perfectionism, as is El-Hanbouli, the cellist. And then of course comes the piano's role in the trio. This, after all, is a piano trio created by the world's greatest pianist. Listeners in Cairo must count themselves lucky to have heard David Hales play it.
He is a rare creature on the concert platform. His work is, rather, confined to other areas of pianism. But when he does perform it is essential listening for, sadly, one never quite knows when the opportunity will again arise.
The piano at the level Rachmaninov requires in this trio is of stultifying stubborness. It needs a virtuoso who is also a saint of self-effacement. And this apparently is Hales, a performer with a positively Rachmaninovian disregard for all manner of physical involvement. He sits almost stiffly at the instrument, for ever the rather aloof pedagogue, not disapproving but always cool and apart.
He makes no fuss, no apparent effort. Hair-raising difficulties arise and his calm appearance never cracks.
In one part of this trio, the middle, he is absolutely forced by the tempo of the music and its drive to perform one of the spectacular, publicity-seeking feats. His hands bounce up and down on the keyboard so fast that they defy normal vision, the two hands becoming one. Ramzi Yassa has done it in Liszt, Hales did it with Rachmaninov, and his surface never twitched. Try it some time on a table and see what it means.
One must describe this trio from the point of view of the piano. Rachmaninov worshipped it above all other instruments so it is his fault if a reviewer is forced to take this viewpoint. I must beg forgiveness of the other two players for any show of injustice or bad manners.
El-Shwekh and El-Hanbouli were exemplary in coping with this trio, the only fault of which is that it and the whole mechanism make the piano the lynch-pin of the work. Perhaps this is another reason for its rarity on the concert platform. But all its decadent beauty shone serpent-like.
After it came Mendelssohn's bright nineteenth century Trio no.1 in D minor, op.49. Another gem-like thing from a dead past. Hales was back in position as a trio member, not a shooting Fabergé star.
Cairo Symphony Orchestra, Huseyin Sermet (Solo Piano), Ahmed El-Saedi (Conductor), Cairo Opera House, Main Hall, 19 February
This concert also had a visitation, a Turkish pianist from Istanbul. To start the musical fireworks we had the Symphony no.31 in D major K,297, named 'Paris' in three movements. Composer, you would never have guessed, Mozart.
Ahmed El-Saedi was in electric mood. The stately calm, majestic Paris was blown along by a hurricane, composer unknown. El-Saedi is like Wagner's magician Klingsor and has the power of complete, instant transformation. Tonight he was the maker of chaos. Was this 'Paris' by Amadeus? It was a millennium disaster bug on the loose. Alternatively it might have a been a new French Revolution. Its perfect classicism, often tiresome, was blown apart. It may have been early Brahms or Rimsky-Korsakov. The three cool movements were put to the blowtorch and we soon had a Paris bush-fire near Los Angeles.
After this shock we had Ravel's Piano Concerto in D major for the left hand with Huseyin Sermet to carry the load. The concerto is a one off rival to Tchaikovsky's B flat minor -- who can make the most noise? Sermet, with one hand, almost did the trick. But with Saedi in jubilant mood, pianist, composer and maestro made an absolutely riveting show of Ravel's combustible concerto -- central Africa, the New York Blue Note under Ellington with Himself at the key -- the blowtorch did the job. We had an audience-screamer, a knock-out.
Later we had somebody's fourth symphony in E minor. The somebody was rumoured to be Brahms. Never. Brahms did not write this.
