United Kingdom Brahms: Michael Collins (clarinet), Michael McHale (piano), Talich Quartet (Jan Talich Jr. [violin], Petre Strižek [violin], Radim Sedmidubsky, Michal Kanka [cello]). Queen Elizabeth Corridor, London, 13.1.2024. (JC)
Brahms – Sonata in F minor for clarinet and piano, Op.120 No.1; Piano Quintet in F minor, Op.34; Sonata in E flat for clarinet and piano. Op.120 No.2; Clarinet Quintet in B minor, Op.115.
What a delight it was to spend a day immersed in Brahms’s music with Michael Collins and Co.! Regardless of consisting largely of his later music — Brahms was going to finish his composing profession when he heard clarinettist Richard Mühlfeld and determined to choose up his pen once more — the programme was participating and numerous, showcasing Brahms the hot-blooded virtuoso, Brahms the creator of swoonworthy melodies and Brahms the experimental composer. The performers who introduced Brahms’s music alive in London on a Saturday afternoon additionally confirmed to their viewers what pleasure is contained within the act of enjoying chamber music as their fraternal power permeated the Southbank’s Queen Elizabeth Corridor.
The primary half started with Michael Collins and Michael McHale performing Brahms’s First Clarinet Sonata, a problem as an opener to a live performance for each events concerned. Regardless of not feeling comfy with the place of his reed – he adjusted it between actions — Michael Collins delivered an exquisite efficiency of the sonata. His tone was extraordinarily diversified and versatile, stable in locations, delicately gentle in others. The elegant second motion was fantastically performed with out changing into stagnant, all the time lyrical. The dance within the Allegretto grazioso motion and the boisterous finale carried nice mirth and power, and Michael McHale responded with nice attentiveness and sensitivity.
As Collins retired backstage, he was changed by the Talich Quartet, bringing to the desk Brahms’s youthful Piano Quintet. Instantly one sensed the distinction between the elder Brahms and the identical composer thirty years prior. The Piano Quintet reveals a extra bold composer striving for an enlargement of kind, sturdy rhythmic motifs and muscular virtuosity, and the Talich Quartet with Michael McHale embodied all of that. They delivered an electrifying efficiency of this masterpiece! The quartet was extraordinarily delicate to one another’s enjoying which gave delivery to many spontaneous magical moments. It was very nice to see gamers who’ve clearly rehearsed loads collectively nonetheless stunning one another onstage and responding to the music in actual time. The rhythmic drive within the latter two actions of the quintet was sturdy and regardless of the technical challenges the rating poses the music by no means appeared uncontrolled. The piano might have projected extra as a way to create a much bigger sound, however it didn’t take away from the thrill created by delicate musicianship and an openness to spontaneity on this one-time musical collaboration.
After the interval was Brahms’s Second Clarinet Sonata. Sadly, the pianist appeared much less relaxed than within the earlier performances and appeared way more passive, thus making the efficiency much less participating than the one of many First Clarinet Sonata solely an hour in the past. The Clarinet Quintet, regardless of being written near the opposite compositions for clarinet, appears to come back from a completely totally different period. The Talich Quartet, who joined Michael Collins to complete off the all-Brahms programme with this late masterpiece, introduced the identical depth because it did to the Piano Quintet within the first half. They supplied a stable basis for Michael to freely direct the music, particularly within the second motion, through which the clarinet is given virtually extemporaneous passages above tremolo strings, a method quite uncharacteristic of Brahms. The quartet let Michael take the lead within the closing motion of the Clarinet Quintet, an exquisite set of variations.
This live performance was a really good event permitting an extremely versatile clarinettist to take centre stage, showcasing music by an important Romantic composer who noticed the potential of this underrated instrument greater than a century in the past and determined to champion it within the later interval of his life.
Jeremy Chan
