44 GSCENE
NOTES
BY NICK BOSTON
REVIEWS
) Brothers Paul and Huw Watkins
continue their survey of British
works for cello and piano, with
Sonatas from YORK BOWEN (18841961), Sir ARNOLD BAX (18831953) and JOHN IRELAND (18791962). All three were written for
the same cellist, Beatrice
Harrison, and composed within
three years of each other (192123). Sometimes known as ‘the
English Rachmaninov’, Bowen’s
Sonata is full of rich and virtuosic
writing for both instruments, yet
he also shows great subtlety,
especially in his use of a recurring
bell-like figure, which he makes
use of in each of the three
movements. The rhapsodic central
slow movement provides the
emotional heart here, and the
energetic finale brings the work to
a dramatic close. Bax’s Sonata is
the most substantial of the three
works here, coming in at just over
half an hour long. For the central
slow movement, Bax re-uses music
from an earlier symphonic poem,
Spring Fire, and the writing is
particularly expressive and
evocative. He rounds the work off
with a lively, folk-inspired dance.
Rather than driving straight to a
lively finish, however, Bax places
an Epilogue before the final climax,
giving him the opportunity to pull
BRIGHTON DOME
) The BOURNEMOUTH SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA
are back in Brighton (7.30pm, Sat 25), with a
concert that includes Spanish music by De Falla,
Turina, and Rodrigo’s Concierto de Aranjuez,
with Xuefei Yang on guitar. They also perform
Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No 6, the Pathéthique,
and are conducted by Pablo Gonzalez.
BRIGHTON CORN EXCHANGE
Church Street; box office: 01273 709709; www.brightondome.org
) Soloists from the Royal College of Music (11am, Sun 19) perform
Schubert’s great Octet and Haydn’s String Quartet Op 20 No 2, in
the Strings Attached Coffee Concert series.
CONGRESS THEATRE
Eastbourne, 01323 412000,
www.eastbournetheatres.co.uk
) The LONDON PHILHARMONIC ORCHESTRA,
conducted by Damian Iorio, are in Eastbourne
(3pm, Sun 12) to perform Verdi, Tchaikovsky
and Dvořák’s Violin Concerto, with Philippe
Quint (violin).
SUSSEX DOWNS COLLEGE
Mountfield Road, Lewes; www.nyslewes.org.uk
) The Nicholas Yonge Society welcomes soprano LOUISE ALDER
and pianist JOHN PAUL ELKINS (7.45pm, Fri 24), with a programme
including music by Debussy, Strauss, Poulenc and Ireland.
PHILIPPE QUINT
XUEFEI YANG
Church Street, BN1 1UE; box office: 01273
709709; www.brightondome.org
) The BRIGHTON PHILHARMONIC ORCHESTRA,
conducted by Barry Wordsworth (2.45pm, Sun
12), performs Dvořák and Beethoven, with
Andrejs Osokins playing Beethoven’s own reworking of his Violin
Concerto as the Piano Concerto in D major, Op61a.
ANDREJS OSOKINS
CONCERTS
together threads from the whole
sonata, creating a very satisfying
conclusion. Ireland’s Sonata
finishes the disc here, and in
contrast, it is more contained and
concise. In fact much of the
sonata’s musical material is derived
from just a few of the cello’s
opening bars. This economical use
of material creates an intensity that
is particularly noticeable in the
slow movement, with both players
getting to play its beautiful singing
melody. The finale is somewhat
brief, but highly virtuosic, with a
dashing finish. The Watkins
brothers inhabit this music
convincingly, certainly making one
wonder why these works are not
heard more often. I enjoyed this
second volume even more than the
first, so await a third with
anticipation.
Chandos CHAN10792
) A couple of years ago I enjoyed
discovering the Piano Quartets of
Romanian composer GEORGE
ENESCU (1881-1955) performed by
the Schubert Ensemble. They have
returned with another disc of his
chamber music, with his Piano
Quintet, the Piano Trio, and a brief
Aria and Scherzino for solo violin,
accompanied by a sextet ensemble.
As with the first disc, I find his
music intriguing and difficult to pin
down. There are influences of his
French teachers Jules Massenet, and
especially Gabriel Fauré, and one
can also sense the influences of his
time studying and performing as a
young man in Vienna. But somehow
the combination of these influences
with his strong use of Romanian
folk melodies and idioms create a
highly individual and fascinating
sound world. His writing for the
violin is particularly strong, and he
was a highly accomplished violinist
and teacher, counting Yehudi
Menuhin amongst his pupils. The
Piano Quintet is the most
substantial work on offer here, and
it was unknown in Enescu’s lifetime
– in fact he never even heard it
performed. It was only discovered
and performed in the 1960s. The
structure is in itself interesting,
with essentially two large-scale
parts, each further split into two,
to create its four movements. The
music moves from extremes of
intensity and darkness (particularly
in the slow second movement) to
lightness and dance-like folksiness,
as in the opening to the third
movement. The Piano Trio has
complex origins, being completed
from Enescu’s original manuscript
by Pascal Bentoiu, considered the
authority on Enescu’s music.
Furthermore, the Schubert Ensemble
has further revised the edition as a
result of their process of
exploration of this music, and there
are some interesting notes on this
process with the CD. In this Trio,
Enescu manages to balance an
overarching structure with allowing
space for expressio