Selby and Friends. 5pm Sat
7th Feb 2015 Burradoo, New South Wales
Program
Pärt: Mozart-Adagio
Mendelssohn: Sonata for
Cello and Piano No.2 in D major, Op. 58
Smetana: Piano Trio in G
minor, Op. 15
Brahms: Trio for Piano,
Violin and Horn in E flat major, Op. 40
Dear Colleagues,
This would have been an
impressive concert at London’s Festival Hall or the Lincoln Center in New York.
Yet it was at Chevalier College school hall, a short walk from where I live on
weekends in Bowral.
Pianist Kathryn Selby
reintroduced violinist Natalie Chee and ‘cellist Clancy Newman with Aussie
expat French Horn player Hector McDonald in four virtuosic chamber works for
their first of five tours for 2015. http://selbyandfriends.com.au/
The concert was punctuated
by detailed and fascinating talks by the four soloists starting with Ms Selby
herself who discussed how the group chose repertoire. She has numerous rarely
heard works in mind and then after discussions with the soloists it was usually
easy to agree on pieces. They choose from the enormously varied compositions
for piano and various groupings of other instruments from early baroque to
modern. Despite this diversity there was nearly always a linking factor between
the pieces. This time by chance she found that each piece had its genesis after
a recent death in the composer’s family.
Next Mr Newman told us some
stories about his composer’s many names. Jakob Ludwig Felix Mendelssohn
Bartholdy was born in 1809 (cf. Verdi and Wagner in 1813). His grandfather
Moses Mendelssohn was a major German Jewish sage and reformer. He was the first
to translate the Torah into German and worked to allow German Jews to be
assimilated while maintaining a strong Jewish identity. After one of his son’s
successful compositions Mendelssohn’s father was quoted “Once I was the son of
a famous father, now I am the father of a famous son”.
Jews often say: “From Moses
to Moses there was no-one like Moses”, referring to Biblical Moses and the sage
Rambam (aka Marmonides). They could have added a later generation referring to
the composer’s grandfather Rabbi Moses Mendelssohn who is often quoted in
Yiddish quarters to this day.
In a remarkable turn of
evens it was Moses Mendelssohn who changed his name from Dessau, his
birthplace, to ‘Mendelssohn’ (son of Mendel) so it did not sound so Jewish.
Paradoxically, because he had become so famous in the Jewish and wider German
community the name Mendelssohn was considered too Jewish-sounding hence the son’s
change to Bartholdy after converting to Christianity. Felix mostly refused to
use this name out of respect for his grandfather. Furthermore , he was
instrumental in having Moses’ rabbinical works published posthumously. The composer’s
mother had died just before the sonata for ‘cello and piano was written.
Our violinist Ms Chee then
told us about the Smetana connection (his surname means 'sour cream' in Czech!).
There was a deceased child, another tragedy put to music one might say. He lost
three out of four daughters as well as his wife, a train of tragedy hard to
imagine. In addition, Smetana had been exiled from his home town due to
domination of the Hapsburg Empire, working in Sweden at the time.
In the second half our
brass player spoke about the development of the modern French horn. I note from
Wikipedia that despite not being French at all, the name has stuck somehow, but
only in English (it is known at simply ‘cor’ in French). We were told that
although the ‘modern’ horn with three valves was invented in 1815, Brahms, who
played the horn himself as a young man, refused to write for it, preferring the
older version. This was far more limited in the notes that it could play,
especially in the lower registers as, like the cornet, it depended upon
overtones to step up to higher notes. Other notes could be attempted by
partially or fully blocking the horn with the fist. This increased pressure in
the pipes, raising the pitch of the note by a half or full tone by careful
manipulation. Yet this necessarily reduced the volume, creating a strange scale
of uneven notes … Mr McDonald demonstrated, playing a scale without using the
valves on his modern instrument (APPLAUSE!).
No wonder the modern
instrument is preferred nowadays. We were told that horn players in the time of
Mozart would arrive with a ‘baby coffin filled with different sized crooks for
the different keys’. And the composer ‘usually’ left enough time to insert the
right ‘crook’ for key changes between arias, choruses, etc. "Woe betide a
capsized coffin!" (MORE LAUGHTER). It makes piano seem simple. Brahms had also
lost his mother just before writing this sonata.
On this summer evening
concert there was a wealth of musical knowledge imparted as well as numerous
humorous anecdotes, introducing each of the phenomenally virtuosic pieces ..
they are all available on the internet, YouTube, etc, so no need for me to describe
them, even if I could do them justice. http://selbyandfriends.com.au/
Ms Selby is still the
genius of this enterprise. Her keyboard playing is exemplary and she makes it
look easy. For the first time at Chevalier College I moved to the keyboard
side, marvelling in each of the works her stupendous talent and
professionalism. Mr Newman’s ‘cello playing is phenomenal and his measured
fingering and manipulation of his magnificent instrument was a marvel to behold
as he stared out into the audience. Likewise Ms Chee who again showed her
prodigious talents to this privileged audience. Each of the pieces was
technically as difficult, if not as long, as a concerto … and there were four
pieces in a row! Some feat for the ever-present pianist! Mr McDonald only
played in the Brahms piece which occupied the second half. Mr Newman sat with
the audience to hear the horn, piano and violin trio. One can only wonder what
Brahms would have made of this piece if he had written it for the modern French
horn.
The audience seemed
delighted with both the pre-music repartee and the main features. For me the
Mendelssohn was the take-home splendour … but others will say that I am biased.
Notes by Andrew Byrne ..
http://andrewsopera.blogspot.com.au/2014/11/schuberts-trout-comes-to-southern.html
