Pavel Kolesnikov and Agnes Langer, and the Mainzer ...

Pavel Kolesnikov and Agnes Langer, and the Mainzer
Virtuosi Quartet, in Recital at Houghton Hall.
7.00 pm on October 19th 2013

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Introduction:

We are very grateful to the Lord Cholmondeley for hosting our annual concert
at Houghton, featuring our valued association with the Mainzer Virtuosi and its
Director Professor Anne Shih.

We are also very grateful to the staff at Houghton who even when pressed
hard by other duties still manages to be supportive and kind to us. Similarly, a
very big thank you to Rodney Slatford and the Yorke Trust for their important
assistance.

This year we present two of our ‘alumni’ in the presence of the Honens 2012
International Piano Competition prize winner, Pavel Kolesnikov, and Agnes
Langer, violin, together with a quartet drawn from the Mainzer Virtuosi. The
concert is anchored by the great Brahms Piano Quartet, but the Mozart G
major violin sonata is an emotional and splendid work, and the Chopin third
piano sonata is a magnificent work showing off the pianist in every aspect.

This year has been a turbulent one for us, with the virtual elimination of all
funding to state schools, and thus the virtual elimination of music as a front
line subject. We have found new friends at Anglia Ruskin University, and we
hope to build on this with new music, and by introducing academic talent, but
it is a new world in which music and drama struggle to find proper recognition.

We did find a stunning new young soprano/mezzo soprano this year, and
encouraged by Dame Emma Kirkby, and Professor Edda Moser, we have put
her in a position where her exceptional promise may blossom. We expect to
present her in concert next year at Salle Church. Also next year Agnes Langer
will perform the world premiere of the Scott Violin Concerto, first in Jerome
Booth’s superb new concert hall (Saffron Hall) in Saffron Walden, and then at
Binham Priory, where we began our own journey in 2002. These concerts will
be in cooperation with Anglia Ruskin University, and we thank Professor Mike
Thorne and Professor Paul Jackson for their support. In addition none of this
would be possible without the so much appreciated help of the Yellow Car
Charitable Trust, and the Cholmondeley Foundation.

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In my view the world is changing rather than evolving, and as age begins to ask
me questions I cannot answer, so I am pleased to tell those who have come to
our concerts through the years that we will continue to mix educational
activity with public performances and although the concerts may be fewer,
they will still happen, and we shall still bring the joy of music to the young, and
also the not so young. I am confident that the baton will pass.
A tribute must also be made to Norman Rosenberg, the doyen of the violin
cognoscenti, who has helped us through the years without reservation, and
who has lent a superb late 18th century ‘no name ‘ violin for Agnes’ concert
hall work, and to supplement the fine 1780 Testore violin that she uses for
chamber music; lent by Yellow Car. Norman has had to cope with the years,
and family losses, but never for a moment has he stopped in his constant
encouragement to us - and me personally - to continue to present music to
youngsters and to the public.
It is a privilege to do that, and we hope that you will enjoy the concert given
today by some very exceptional young players.

The Music:

Mozart: Sonata for Violin and Piano K.379 in G major

Adagio – Allegro
Andantino Cantabile - Adagio – Allegretto

Mozart wrote this extraordinary sonata in great haste after moving back to
Vienna (from Salzburg) and he gave the first performance on April 8th 1781,
with the violinist Antonio Brunetti. Mozart then quite substantially revised the
violin part before publication, a result of his initial haste!

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The sonata opens and closes in G major, although the Allegro is in G minor, a
key that Mozart used to write some of his most passionate music, and used to
express some of his most extreme emotions.
The Allegro is surrounded by music of serenity and deep lyricism, and there are
long cantabile melodies, played on both instruments. After the allegro there
are lovely variations based on a simple theme. Following the variations the
theme returns to its original form, and a coda concludes the work.

Chopin: Piano Sonata No.3 in B minor, Op.58

Allegro maestoso
Scherzo: Molto vivace
Largo
Finale. Presto non tanto: Agitato

Frederic Chopin composed his last sonata for solo piano, a very difficult
composition, technically and musically, in 1844. It was dedicated to the
Countess Emilie de Perthuis.
The work begins with a martial feel, but the second theme is more melodic. D
major beginnings go through a recapitulation of the second, not first theme,
concluding in B major. The scherzo begins in E flat and the theme sounds
somewhat like the E flat melody in Chopin’s First Ballade. The scherzo is very
short in duration. The largo is serene after a stormy introduction. It is profound
and expansive, and sustained melody is the lasting impression. The last
movement, in B minor, is dominated by a ‘galloping’ rhythm. The second
theme is in B major appears suddenly, eventually succumbing to the main
theme, and the sonata concludes in a jubilant B major coda.

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Intermission (30 minutes)

Brahms: Piano Quintet in F minor, Op.34

Allegro non troppo (F minor)
Andante, un poco adagio (A-flat major)
Scherzo: Allegro (C minor-C major)
Finale: Poco sostenuto – Allegro non troppo – Presto, non troppo (F minor)

This great quintet was composed in the summer of 1864, and it was first
published in 1865. The dedicatee is HRH The Princess Anna of Hesse and by
Rhine. Following on from Robert Schumann’s Piano Quintet in 1842, the work
is written for piano, two violins, viola and cello.
The work had a difficult birth, first being written as a string quintet (with two
cellos) in 1862, and then being transcribed into a sonata for two pianos. The
outer movements are adventurous, even unsettling, reflecting Brahms mood at
the time. He was based in Vienna, and his music was receiving sharply divided
critical responses.
The first movement begins with a unison theme in all instruments. It is in
sonata form with the exposition repeated. The second subject has F minor
moving down to C sharp minor transitioning to D flat.
The second movement is more serene, first in A flat and with a second theme
in E major, again a lower harmonic as in the first movement. The third
movement is in a basic ternary form (A-B-A) with A as a scherzo and B as a trio
in C major. This movement is seemingly modelled on the similar movement in
Schubert’s String Quintet.

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The last movement is melancholy, and reminds one of Beethoven’s late string
quartets. A slow introduction leads to the cello introducing the first theme, its
simplicity drawn from Hungarian folk music. A stormy bridge leads to the
second theme in C minor. There is then a grave quieter section, and then a
presto tempo for an extended coda, which unusually develops a new theme as
well as presenting the second theme that the cello had introduced. The
culmination of the work is a fiery outburst of passion and intensity of feelings,
providing a fittingly dramatic conclusion.

The Artists:

Pavel Kolesnikov:

Pavel first played with us when he was 16 years old. Now he is the winner of
the most valuable piano competition in the world, the Honens in Calgary,
Canada. Pavel believes that music speaks to the heart and subconscious. And
his playing is full of brilliance, poetry, and sensitivity, and yet fire is there when
needed.
Pavel studied at the Moscow State Conservatory and the Royal College of
Music, where he was the Scholar, and now he is doing advanced studies with
the great Maria Joao Pires in Belgium. He made his recital debut in 2008 in
Moscow and has since played throughout Europe, Russia, and the UK, and was
a previous laureate at the Scottish Piano Competition. He appears at the
Casalmaggiore Festival in Italy, and at the Verbier festival in Switzerland.

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Pavel is appearing with the London Philharmonic, at the Spoleto Festival, at the
Wigmore Hall, Carnegie Hall and Berlin Konzerthaus. He has a very busy
schedule all around the world since winning the Honens, and Norfolk Concerts
considers itself very fortunate to be able to present Pavel here.

Agnes Langer:

Agnes continues to impress, and has matured into a very serious and strong
solo artist, where her young age has become almost an irrelevancy. This
development was at first obvious in her London recital last year, and then
confirmed in her playing of the Mendelssohn Violin Concerto in Peterborough
this past February. She will have played the Beethoven Violin Concerto in
London this past Wednesday, and will premiere the Scott Violin Concerto in
the new Saffron Hall in May 2013, with a reprise in Binham Priory. Then we
hope that she may play the Shostakovitch Violin Concerto in London next June.
For those who do not know Agnes, she is only just 21, and Hungarian, coming
from Godolo, and she is now based in Mainz in Germany, where she studies
with Professor Anne Shih. She is one of the most exciting young artists before
the public today. Agnes plays tonight on a ‘no name’ violin of great quality,
probably dating to the late 18th or early 19th century, likely Italian and similar in
appearance to a Stadivarius or Bergonzi. It is being lent to her by Norman
Rosenberg.

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Professor Anne Shih and the Mainzer Virtuosi:

Professor Shih, who with her Guarnerius is a great solo violinist, and simply
outstanding chamber music player, is not performing here tonight, but her
coaching imprint is everywhere, and she is also one of the great teachers and
pedagogues of this century. She was a pupil of the legendary Josef Gingold,
and is the Director of the Mainzer Virtuosi Chamber Orchestra. The quartet
playing in the Brahms is drawn from that orchestra (where players get up to
perform as soloists and then return to their desks to play orchestra) and each
individual player is schooled in not just orchestral works, but also chamber
music, and in listening to each other, a skill so vital to ensemble and in
partnering a pianist in a work such as the Brahms.
All of the outstanding quartet members here tonight have experienced the
MVCO approach to music, and three of them have enjoyed the special
experience of playing in Italy at the now famous Casalmaggiore International
Music Festival, also directed by Professor Anne Shih; which each July provides
a very special month long experience probably only challenged by Tanglewood
in the USA.
The members of the Mainzer Virtuosi Quartet are:
First Violin: Soran Lee
Second Violin: Pyung Hwa Choi
Viola: Timothy Chua
Cello: Hyoung-Joon Jo

Notes by Douglas Gowan (c) 2013.

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