Wigmore Hall Review

Back to Reviews

THE LADY AND HER ENTOURAGE
Review by Bill Newman
 The London Chamber Music Group
Wigmore Hall – Friday 1^st April 2005

I can think of no more pleasurable way of banishing the myth that surrounds April’s Fool Day than to attend one of those special concerts that features the combined talents of some of our distinguished instrumentalists.

Susan Milan our beautiful flautist has mastered so much repertoire over a decade of music making and recordings for Chandos that one can easily run out of superlatives to describe her playing.  Besides the purity of tone and spontaneity of phrasing comes the natural affinity and stylistic understanding that communicates with others on the platform at the same time.  Performers who play together on a regular basis, after all always precisely and instinctively time their entry cues, shaping and moulding their tempi and rubatos accordingly, but the real charisma derives from the artist at the centre of the action.

 Mozart’s Quartet in C major KV285b provides a continuing stream of romantic virtuosity in a classical setting right at the start, while Beethoven’s rarely heard and utterly delightful Serenade in D, where the flute player urges her violin and viola colleagues to play truant with patchwork tapestries of notes subtly arranged as only this composer can – demonstrated its creator’s multitudinous fashionings to suit the select musicians and ever supportive public of his day.  It also admirably served to make listeners forget the discontent of the Hall’s lousy central heating, sending them happily out into the cold night air of Wigmore Street en route for tubes and buses.  In between, came two works of impressionist genius.  One by composer-conductor Eugene Goossens contained such a fund of ideas lit up by all the colours of the rainbow – Suite for flute, violin and harp – as to make one wonder what British Composers of the present are endeavouring to persuade audiences to really understand, let alone admire.  Debussy’s Sonata for flute, viola and harp is, of course, his last acknowledged masterwork.  Its tinted, shaded introspective message is now more customarily understood, perhaps due to the fact that painting and music combined from early on in the 20^th Century enjoys constant acclaim in the concert halls and galleries of Europe and Asia.

The same could easily be suggested in works by certain other composers, but the world has allowed itself to be side-tracked by musical critics who consider them out of fashion.  Jindrich Feld from Czechoslovaka is one such, as Nocturne (London première) for flute and string clearly demonstrated.  It contains that element of dry wit with darting changes of mood that belong to a handful of composers who at one time belonged to Musica Viva, but you need to attend the Prague Spring Festival or purchase their works on some of the Czech record labels for further examples.  It also applies to Guy Ropartz and Prelude, Marine et Chansons in the full Quintet complement that comprises, along with Sue, Jan Schmolck, violin, Gustav Clarkson, viola, John Healey, cello and Christina Rhys, harp.

 My congratulations to all of them for such unforgettable music-making.

Bill Newman
For www.mvdaily.com