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Britten, Hindemith, Schumann:  Simone van der Giessen (viola), Amy de Sybel (piano). Royal Festival Hall, London. 11.11.2008 (ED)

This short concert was given as a precursor to the Philharmonia Orchestra’s evening concert as part of their Martin Musical Scholarship Award-Winners’ recital programme, Simone van der Giessen being the featured recipient. Currently a student at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, her extensive performance experience includes being the violist for the Navarra String Quartet.

Britten’s Lachrymae, a series of variations on a song by Dowland, began with some smoky textures in both viola and the piano parts, before picking up richness of string tone against the piano background in the second variation. The third was notable for the clarity and articulation of the viola’s pizzicato before proceeding to a contrasting nuance of muted bowed playing. Thereafter, the piano established itself as a dominant force once again, Amy de Sybel revelling in the richly romantic writing Britten requires her to play, before insightful playing from both musicians brought the work to a rousing, yet not overly rushed conclusion.

Hindemith’s Viola sonata in F was the centre-piece of the concert. Playing the three movements almost as one, the composer’s multiple gifts as a performer – not least as perhaps the leading violist of his day – were readily apparent in the challenges placed before both artists in the youthful enthusiasm of the music, which displays clear debts Brahms and Bruckner. The opening is dominated by chordal writing in the piano, which Amy de Sybel dispatched with authority and fluency of phrasing, which was echoed largely in the viola part also. Much of the movement saw some imaginative exploration of shadings of tone, though equality between the two instruments was found as the music progressed. Variations dominate much of the material in the last two movements and the intricacies were explored by both artists in some sensitively nuanced playing.

Schumann’s Fantasiestüke completed the programme. The performance took a wide emotional range from romantic melancholia in the first movement to a certain skittishness in the second movement and constrained passions dominating the closing movement. Simone van der Giessen’s playing carried extra freedom about it now the score had been dispensed with, particularly notable was her shaping of the second movement’s long sinewy phrases. As earlier in the programme, Amy de Sybel came truly into her own as a pianist to watch as well as listen to when the “mit Feuer” element of the last movement was exploited to produce a memorable bravura finale.

Evan Dickerson


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