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Bewitched, Bothered and B Minor New York
Lincoln Center Concert Hall
11/24/2024 -
Frédéric Chopin: Nocturnes in E‑flat Major, Op. 9, No. 2, & in F‑sharp Major, Op. 15, No. 2 – Scherzo No. 2, Op. 31
Stephen Hough: Piano Quintet “Les Noces Rouges” (World Premiere)
Cécile Chaminade: Six Etudes de concert, Op. 35: 2. “Automne” – Six Pièces humoristiques, Op. 87: 4. “Autrefois” – Les Sylvains, Op. 60
Franz Liszt: Sonata in B minor, S. 178
Sir Stephen Hough (Piano), Viano Quartet: Lucy Wang, Hao Zhou (Violins), Aiden Kane (Viola), Tate Zawadiuk (Cello)
Sir S. Hough (© Sim Canetty-Clarke)
“One of the things that touches me most when I play for an audience is that although we may be unable to communicate in words or have diametrically opposed views on hot‑button issues, while the music sounds we can be at peace, we can be friends. The vibrations that fill an auditorium have no passports, and they unite ears when hearts may be divided.”
Stephen Hough
Should Ken Burns ever decide to make a sequel to last month’s documentary on Leonardo Da Vinci, Sir Stephen Hough would obviously be the subject. Da Vinci was the esteemed Renaissance polymath. Stephen Hough is very much alive. And amongst his other talents, he is a painter, winner of poetry awards, political activist for Gay rights, Governor of the Royal Ballet Company, famed essayist, novelist, composer (for the Berlin Philharmonic, he composed a Trio for Piccolo, Contrabassoon and Piano), teacher both in U.K. and own Juilliard School and one‑time aspirant to become a Catholic priest or monk.
Take that, you insignificant Leonardo Da Vinci.
Sir Stephen also is one of the world’s greatest pianists. And that, along with a major composition, was his guise last night, under the auspices of the august Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center.
This was a paradoxical program indeed. Three short works by Chopin, and three salon works by the turn-of-the-century Cécile Chaminade. Each serving as preludes to a pair of demonic longer works.
One took us near to hell. Sir Stephen’s own composition was a quintet whose last movement illustrates a Russian bride and groom being eaten by wolves.
The Chopin nocturnes (and scherzo) before the infernos were more than charming. If one believes that British pianists perform with elegance and grace, remember that Sir Stephen is Australian. So his extraordinary digital touch which could be feather‑light in the start of the F‑sharp Major Nocturne turned into a duet between angular left‑hand keyboard playing with the smoothest right‑hand figurations. In the popular Second Scherzo, the gorgeous tonal quality was the background for, again, an effortless military contrast.
The three works were over too soon. Sir Stephen’s Chopin were each seamless, velvet-smooth or fiery exciting, beautiful for the full-house audience but dramatic and intimate at once.
The three works by Cécile Chaminade obviously lacked the emotional depth of the Chopin. Nor did it come close to the almost mystical creations of her young contemporary Lili Bolanger.
What each short works possessed was a virtuosic center, made to show off the composer. It was child’s play for Sir Stephen.
And now come the only grouchy words from this cantankerous scrivener. The three modified bagatelles before the major work and the two encores after the Liszt Sonata made us feel comfortable rather than being touched, shocked, and (in Lorenz Hart’s words) “Bewitched, Bothered and B Minor.”
In other words, the two major works should stand on their own without a few opening works.
Anyhow, after the Chopin, Mr. Hough performed the world premiere of his own work, commissioned by the Lincoln Square Chamber Music Society. And the Quintet was literally bloody.
In fact, it was almost a literal tone poem. A Russian wedding, the bride and groom and two brothers ride away in a carriage chased by wolves. The siblings, to save space, throw the married couple out. The wolves catch them, and they are devoured.
Who could have written this story? Poe?? Gogol?? The Brothers Grimm??? (No, it was Willa Cather!)
The Viano String Quartet (© Kevin Condon)
Who could have written the music? Certainly Janácek. Possibly Scriabin or early Schoenberg. Hugo Wolf? J.S. Bark? Ludwig van Bite‑oven? Not likely.
But no, Stephen Hough, with the four beautiful voices of the Viano Quartet, did the honors. The opening two movements, with church bells and Russian songs, was lovely. The final movement was simply vicious.
Not even Richard Stauss could have written the gory deaths. The Viano Quartet slashed and gashed, Mr. Hough’s piano clashed with them over the keyboard. Very exciting indeed, ending with those church bells.
As for the final work, it needed no introduction of sweet pieces by Madame Charminade. Sir Stephen started the Liszt Sonata with a terrifying descent. He continued with a massive 30 minutes of the grandest sounds, plunging into a deceiving simplicity of the Quasi Adagio, back to a fugue, more pages from Hell, and those dying notes to the dark grottos where no human voice could be heard.
And please, I thought, no encores. Yes, two. One was tiny, an amen to the fire‑breathing Liszt. The other was a virtuoso piece on the Mary Poppins song.
As if Sir Stephen was trying to show how damned good he is. We knew that from his first notes. And a shame that he couldn’t leave us with the sounds of Liszt’s endless inferno.
Harry Rolnick
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