Steven Isserlis (cello)
Ivry Gitlis (violin)
Pekka Kuusisto (violin)
Arisa Fujita (violin)
Rachel Roberts (viola)
Daniel Müller-Schott (cello)
Nelson Goerner (piano)
Wednesday 16 January 2002
Wigmore Hall, London
Taneyev: String Quintet in G, Op. 14
Tchaikovsky: Piano Trio in A minor, Op. 50
The name of Ivry Gitlis is
well-known to violinists, even if not to all music lovers. Now in his 80s, he
has been celebrated, the New Grove notes, "for his brilliant technique
and his vital, rhythmic style." A coup, then, for cellist Steven Isserlis, who
invited Gitlis along with the pianist Nelson Goerner to join him in a
performance of Tchaikovsky's expansive, feverish A minor Piano Trio, Op. 50, in
the second half of this opening concert of Isserlis' Taneyev Festival.
Or it should have been.
Except that — and there is no way of saying this kindly — to judge from Gitlis' performance, it is plain that he has gone way beyond the stage when he should have retired. His intonation was erratic, his tone thin, his phrasing lumpy where it was not downright mannered. One thought of nothing so much as a gypsy violinist, and a poor one at that. Isserlis did his valiant best to cover for him, to make sense of the eccentricities, but it was a lost cause. No doubt some listeners might have heard through the faded technique echoes of past glories, and some members of the audience received Gitlis' efforts with warm respect. But just as many were moved to bemused disdain or even to booing, something one normally never encounters from the civilized society of chamber music lovers that habituates the Wigmore. What the wider audience, listening to the BBC's live radio relay, must have thought is difficult to imagine. But in the control room, there must have been one producer profusely perspiring or wondering what his or her next job was going to be.
Is there anything positive to say of Gitlis' performance? Only that he played with a certain confidence born of long, intimate knowledge of the music. Which is something.
On the whole, though, this was a sadly embarrassing distraction from the main matter at hand — Isserlis' mission to promote the music, all but forgotten now, of Sergei Taneyev. The composer's work-list is headed by a setting of the Oresteia, apparently a success in St. Petersburg in 1895, and alongside a large quantity of choral and solo vocal pieces are four symphonies, a relatively small body of piano works, and a rich corpus of chamber music, including a half-dozen string quartets and a pair of string quintets. The opening work on this program was the G major String Quintet, Op. 14, in which Isslerlis was joined by the violinists Pekka Kuusisto and Arisa Fujita, the viola player Rachel Roberts and a second cellist, Daniel Müller-Schott. And what struck one immediately is how eclectic a voice Taneyev possessed. The work opens with a vast sonata structure and ends with a brilliant triple fugue, both of which testify to Taneyev's ability to handle large-scale and intellectually challenging forms. The flavor reminded one of Zemlinsky, with rich, Brahms-derived textures and a ripe sense of lyricism that takes one almost to the world of Schoenberg's Verklärte Nacht. Yet it is not completely derived from Austro-Germanic models. One senses, too, influences from Rimsky-Korsakov (a friend) and, inevitably, from Tchaikovsky.
Again, though, this was
not an ideal performance, and it somewhat betrayed the soloistic credentials of
some of its participants. It is one thing to make the most of one's
own line — something at which Isserlis and the rather over-mannered
Kuusisto (his agonised facial gestures and bodily writhings remind one of his
compatriot, the pianist Olli Mustonen) proved themselves at times almost too capable.
But what is required alongside that is a sense of integration within the
group, a unanimity of purpose that was at times missing here. One suspects an
insufficiently deep acquaintance with the piece and insufficient time spent
rehearsing together.
