United Kingdom Clandeboye Competition 2024 – Schubert, R. Schumann: Barry Douglas (piano), Michael McHale (piano), Andrey Baranov, Michael D’Arcy (violins), Ed Creedon (viola), Arto Noras (cello), Clandeboye Competition, Clandeboye Property, Northern Eire, 17.8.2024. (RB)
Schubert – Fantasia in F minor for piano 4 arms, D940
R. Schumann – Märchenbilder, Op.113; Piano Quintet in E-flat main, Op.44
This 12 months the Clandeboye Competition is celebrating its twenty third 12 months. It is usually the twenty fifth anniversary of Camerata Eire – an orchestra which brings collectively essentially the most gifted musicians from throughout Northern Eire and the Republic of Eire. This initiative was impressed by the Good Friday Settlement of 1998. The theme of this 12 months’s Competition is ‘Vibrant Connections’ to mirror the truth that we’re all related, humanly and culturally, in these unsure occasions. This was the opening live performance of the competition and it featured music by Schubert and Robert Schumann.
The live performance opened with Schubert’s Fantasia in F minor for piano 4 arms which was written within the final 12 months of the composer’s brief life. The work is split into 4 interconnected actions that are performed and not using a pause, and which mirror the standard sonata actions. Barry Douglas and Michael McHale gave a extremely completed efficiency of this nice staple of the repertoire. Douglas introduced a silky contact to the haunting opening melody whereas the tonal ambiguity and modulations have been deftly dealt with. Each gamers introduced spectacular dynamic contrasts and wealthy and diversified tone colors to the Largo second motion. A few of the entries might have been somewhat extra tightly coordinated. The Scherzo was clear and crisp and the interaction between the 2 gamers was wonderful. The tempo was somewhat gradual for my style, but it surely labored effectively nonetheless and allowed for shut consideration to the composer’s detailed articulation and markings. Douglas and McHale weren’t as intently built-in as they may have been within the opening part of the fugal finale. Having mentioned that they allowed the motion to construct to a formidable climax with every new theme rising seamlessly from the wealthy textures.
McHale joined forces with violist Ed Creedon for a efficiency of Schumann’s Märchenbilder (‘Fairy Story Footage’). It is a comparatively late work, composed in March 1851, and it depicts the 2 fictional sides of the composer’s persona, Eusebius and Florestan. Each gamers succeeded in evoking heat autumnal colors tinged with melancholy within the opening motion. The character of Florestan got here brilliantly to the fore within the buoyant second motion with its dotted rhythms and ebullient vitality. Creedon introduced virtuoso aptitude to the stressed semiquavers which open and shut the third motion. I cherished the attractive tone which Creedon evoked from the underside of the register within the remaining motion, which he and McHale reworked right into a magical lullaby.
The ultimate work on the programme was Robert Schumann’s Piano Quintet which was written in 1842, arguably some of the inventive years within the composer’s life. Schumann was the primary composer to write down for this mix of piano and string quartet. Schumann’s spouse, Clara, gave the primary public efficiency of the demanding piano half and was intently related to the piece. It has established itself as one of many best and most carried out piano quintets in your complete repertoire.
Douglas was joined by the 4 string gamers for this efficiency. There was an in depth rapport and shared understanding of the work all through the efficiency. The opening part was shiny and sensible earlier than giving approach to meltingly stunning cantabile enjoying from Ed Creedon and Arto Noras. Douglas gave an adrenaline-fuelled efficiency of the virtuoso figurations within the growth part. The opening part of the second motion was desolate and spare as we instantly discovered ourselves strolling in a funeral procession. All 5 gamers subsequently mixed to provide music of intense craving, remorse and suppressed ardour. The speeding scales of the Scherzo have been dispatched with exuberance and energy – I used to be impressed that Douglas was in a position to obtain weight and depth of sound whereas sustaining such a fast tempo. All 5 gamers appeared to relish the fast fireplace second trio with the gypsy fireplace semiquavers dispatched with brilliance. The musicians succeeded in attaining a formidable vary of textures and sonorities within the finale. The fugal writing was skilfully dealt with and tightly coordinated earlier than the music got here to a triumphant conclusion.
This was a first-rate live performance and the efficiency of the Schumann Piano Quintet particularly was excellent. It was deservedly greeted with a standing ovation from the viewers.
Robert Beattie
