Young Artists Lunchtime #2

Tuckamore Festival

Young Artists Lunchtime Recital

St. Andrews “The Kirk”

Thursday 9^th August

The second of Tuckamore’s lunchtime recitals by Young Artists took place at the Kirk today, featuring five performers.

The first, Charlotte Tyhurst from Kitchener, Ontario, presented the second (?) movement of Brahms Cello Sonata No.2 in F Major. It is one of Brahms’s mature works, composed in 1888 during a summer spent in Switzerland, and poses questions of performers and listeners. Cello and piano vie for the listener’s ears, neither succeeding in dominating through the strength of a melodic line. Ms Tyhurst’s robust tone was the equal of Mr. Cashin’s equally robust touch, but what might have been a shouting match developed into a sturdy partnership that makes of this work a highlight of late 19th century chamber music.

Our second performer, Frédéric-Alexandre Michaud from Montréal, offered the Sonata for Violin and Piano No.4 by Charles Ives, in marked contrast to the Brahms piece he delivered yesterday. Ives spent a long time on the composition, some sixteen years (1900-1916), but the work did not receive its first documented performance until 1940, and was then published in 1942. Ives entitled the sonata “Children’s Day at the Camp Meeting” suggesting perhaps that the work needed some program notes to help performers and listeners in their appreciation of the music. Mr. Michaud gave a brief summary of Ives’s hand-written notes on the original score, a strategy which certainly helped me follow the work’s line. I am always amazed at how quickly Mr. Cashin learns to co-operate with performers after a few short days of rehearsals. The piano part is daunting, yet Mr. Cashin sounded as if he had been playing the work for years. Three short movements, the last very short, and was Ives pulling a wry smile when, at the end of this work, the familiar hymn tune “Shall we Gather at the River” emerges to restore familiarity to a jangling experience?

Stephen Eckert from Stephenville, NL was next up. He had chosen Scriabin’s “Vers la Flamme”, Op.72. According to Horowitz, the piece was inspired by Scriabin’s eccentric belief (in 1914, the year of the work’s composition) that the world was going to be destroyed by an accumulation of heat, hence the title “Towards the flame”. Was this prescient knowledge of the incendiary horrors of near-continuous warfare in the twentieth century? Or was Scriabin adding his own, impressionistic take on the creative process? From a gentle beginning, a slowly descending line of half tones, the work develops into a passionate outpouring as the moth (lover, poet, Icarus) is drawn inexorably towards that which it desires, but which will eventually destroy him. Mr. Eckert showed us that cool control can balance unbridled passion to deliver beautiful art.

Joella Pinto, currently studying in Toronto, comes from Auckland, New Zealand, and was the fourth of this afternoon’s performers. She chose Brahms’s Violin Concerto, Op.77, the only violin concerto he ever created, composed in 1878. Scored for a very large orchestra, with extra brass and woodwinds, the piano reduction holds all kinds of traps for the accompanist, but Mr. Cashin was equal to that task. Ms Pinto selected the final movement of this monumental piece and gave an outstanding performance worthy of a more experienced player. The suggested pacing for the movement is Allegro giocoso, quick but full of laughter, and Ms Pinto gave us just that: the fast scalar passages were tossed off with evident enjoyment, and the all-too-brief cadanza was a delight. Youthful exhuberance combined with technical mastery made for an outstanding performance.

Raina Saunders, violin, from Victoria BC, rounded out this remarkable afternoon. Mozart’s Violin Concerto No.4 was composed in Salzburg in 1775 when he was still a teenager. Ms Saunders chose to perform the first movement and gave a beautiful rendition. “Stately”, “poised”, yet “witty” – these are the adjectives that spring to mind when listening to this work. And after the fireworks of the Brahms, it was no mean feat to create the atmsophere of an eighteenth century royal court context. But Ms Saunders managed that with aplomb, displaying admirable technique and a great sensitivity to the line required to reveal the structure of the movement.

Today we had fifty minutes of wonderful music-making. If you want more, come along to other Tuckamore shows: there are plenty to choose from. On Saturday, don’t miss the Young Composers concert at 7pm in Suncor Energy Hall at the MUN Music School, followed by a further concert by the Young Artists. You won’t be disappointed!