This stimulating concert was part of the South Bank's
Walton Festival, arranged in conjunction with the Philharmonia Orchestra,
and it certainly lived up to the aim of not only commemorating the music
of a great British composer but awakening interest in some works which
are all too rarely performed. The song cycle 'Anon in Love' for tenor
and guitar was astutely paired with three songs by Herbert Howells,
and these were in turn framed with two of Walton's works for quartet,
the very early Piano Quartet and the sublime 2nd in A minor, as well
as the 'Bagatelles' for solo guitar. Such a programme reads as though
it might be a bit of a rag - bag, but in fact it was beautifully balanced
and held the interest throughout.
Walton composed the Piano Quartet when he was only
17, and revised it many years later, still retaining its youthful vigour
and simplicity; the influence of Ravel is obvious, especially in the
last movement, and the Lindsays and Kathryn Stott played it with a real
sense of close ensemble and confident articulation. Stott also accompanied
John Mark Ainsley in the three Howells songs, taken from the 'Garland
for de la Mare,' a work which deserves to be better known, since these
settings of de la Mare's poems display his empathy with the voice to
perfection. They are not great works of literature, but then neither
are most of the poems which Schubert set, and Howells sets them in such
a way as to convey their best qualities of melancholy introspection
and subtle sense of time passing. No singer could be better suited to
such music than Ainsley, and he sang them with his familiar sensitivity,
producing beautifully sustained pianissimi at the close of 'Wanderers'
and 'The Lady Caroline,' and shaping the phrases with sensuous grace.
Walton's 'Anon in Love' was dedicated to Peter Pears
and Julian Bream, and is a set of sixteenth and seventeenth century
poems unusually divided into two parts, the first three songs being
romantically idyllic and the last three frankly bawdy in character;
it's hardly surprising that the cycle is infrequently performed, since
not only is the guitar's part a technically challenging one, but the
songs require a certain kind of charm to bring them off - on this occasion,
both guitarist and tenor were triumphantly successful. Few singers can
utter such lines as 'I serve thee with my heart, and fall before thee'
without sounding either coy or cloying, but Ainsley manages it due to
the freshness and ingenuous quality of his approach; he obviously has
no qualms about such sentiments, and he's right not to - these poems
are the kind of thing you could imagine Pushkin and Tchaikovsky's Lensky
to have written, so it's no surprise that this tenor, a cherishably
romantic Lensky on stage, should be able to sing them without inducing
a single cringe.
The second half of the set presents quite other challenges,
since these frank little pieces need an openness and sense of intimacy
with the audience which is the natural preserve of very few; Ogden and
Ainsley managed them perfectly, actually raising genuinely open laughter
at some points, notably the end of 'My Love in her attire' where the
poet prefers his beloved 'When all her robes are gone,' a line Walton
sets with sly wit and to which Ainsley brought his entire repertoire
of raised eyebrows and winsome grins. These were very endearing performances
of subtle mastery from the guitarist and truly idiomatic understanding
of the poetry from the singer, and were hugely enjoyed by the audience.
The second half of the programme brought us the Five
Bagatelles for guitar, written in 1970 for Julian Bream and dedicated
to Malcolm Arnold. I have to say that solo guitar music is not my cup
of Earl Grey, and it astonishes me that people do actually turn out
in droves to hear an entire evening of such music; nevertheless, if
one has to hear it, one could hardly hope for better playing than Ogden
gave us, especially in the delicacy of the second piece.
The Lindsays returned for Walton's second String Quartet,
the composer's first concert work after his years of movie soundtracks,
and they played it with a fervour bordering on missionary zeal. Desmond
Shawe - Taylor described the piece as having '.the familiar blend of
harmonic astringency, rhythmic and contrapuntal ingenuity, and nostalgic
meditation,' and it was that last quality which was most memorably demonstrated
in this performance. The Lindsays are strongly associated with Beethoven's
late quartets, and it was no surprise that their playing of this work
brought both Op. 132 and 135 to mind, particularly the Lydian chorale
movement of 132; the intense emotion, the poignant sense of loss, the
wondrous slowness are all common to both pieces, and the Lindsays brought
this out more clearly than I have ever heard. They also played the difficult
Allegros with clarity and gusto, almost convincing us that this work
is indeed one of the greatest in the repertoire.
Melanie Eskenazi
Return to:
Music on the Web