Sweden Vattnäs Chamber Music Festival [2] – From Stenhammar to Bernstein – Old and New Music Carved on Stone for the Future: Vattnäs Strings, Agnes Auer (soprano), Tobias Westman (tenor), Anna Baek Christensen (soprano), Martin Sturfält (piano), Michael Engström (piano), Octavian Leyva Dragomir (piano), Jacob Kellermann (guitar), Anders Paulsson (soprano saxophone). Vattnäs Concert Barn, 14.7.2023. (GF)
Felix Mendelssohn wrote 13 symphonies for string orchestra between 1821 and 1823, when he was between 12 and 14 years old, so when Vattnäs Strings opened the second day of the Chamber Music Festival with No.4 in C minor, it was indeed youthful tones that filled the concert barn. Like most of the other string symphonies No.4 is in three movements, and stylistically they are tributes to the classical period (Haydn, Mozart and others) than pointing forward to the romantic era. After a short slow introduction, Grave, the following Allegro develops to a fugato. The Andante is like a canzone, a resting point before the spirited finale. The playing cannot be criticized, but the piece that really went home was the encore, Leroy Anderson’s witty Plink plank, plunk, where no bows were used but, besides traditional pizzicato playing, sundry other methods to produce sounds from string instruments were employed.
After this rather lightweight beginning, a long section was devoted to Swedish composer Wilhelm Stenhammar, whose 150th anniversary was celebrated two years ago. His Symphony in G minor and Piano Concerto in D minor are rather frequently played, and his six string quartets are generally regarded as the best specimens in this genre in Swedish music. But his more than 90 art songs are also important, many of them composed by the teenaged Stenhammar. During the anniversary year soprano Agnes Auer and pianist Martin Sturfält explored his oeuvre in depth and even found a couple of songs that were unpublished. Here they performed eleven songs, well-known masterpieces like I skogen and Adagio, Lutad mot gärdet and Dottern sade and, possibly the most well-known Flickan knyter i Johannenatten and Flickan kom ifrån sin älsklings mote. The latter, a setting of a poem by Runeberg, is better known, at least internationally, in Sibelius’s setting. It may be more outwardly dramatic, but Stenhammar’s more inward reading has comparable qualities. They complement each other in the same way as Schubert’s and Loewe’s settings of Goethe’s Der Erlkönig do. Agnes Auer and Martin Sturfält have really probed into these songs and gave admirably nuanced and deeply felt readings. Martin, who also is a Stenhammar scholar also gave an illuminating spoken introduction speech. He also inserted a couple of piano works in the programme: Stenhammar’s Impromptu G-flat major and a five-movement suite in D major by eighteenth-century composer Johan Helmich Roman, commonly known as ‘The Father of Swedish Music’.
One of the two ‘new’ songs, mentioned above, Oben wo die Sterne glühen, was a setting of a poem by Heinrich Heine – a poet who inspired so many composers to their best lieder. Robert Schumann is probably the first name that crosses my mind, and he was the next in turn in this marathon programme with the Heine cycle Dichterliebe. Many others have set sings from Dichterliebe – including Stenhammar – but it is Schumann’s version that everybody knows. Ill-fated love is the central theme and the young man’s despair is depicted with such insight that even a heart of stone must be moved. But there are also moments of happiness, and all these aspects were superbly expressed when tenor Tobias Westman, a mainstay at Vattnäs since the very beginning, now sang his first Dichterliebe with the eminent Michael Engström at the piano. Together they created an almost magic atmosphere of inevitability, and they manage to involve the listener and never let her loose. Vocally Westman has all the means of expression, from honeyed pianissimo to outbursts of heartrending desperation. I am sure that Tobias Westman will be much in demand as interpreter of this cycle. And I wouldn’t be surprised if Schubert’s Die schöne Müllerin is in the pipeline.
The programming at the festival is built on contrasts, and in the next recital we were transported to the twentieth century with songs by Leonard Bernstein framing a quintet of French speaking composers active during the late 1800s and early 1900s. Danish soprano Anna Baek Christensen, a charismatic actress and stage personality and her just as charismatic accompanist Octavian Leyva Dragomir, invited us to an entertaining show.
They opened with I Hate Music: A cycle of Five Kid Songs for Soprano and Piano, composed in 1942, when Bernstein was 24. It has become a standard work in the American song repertoire and been recorded by numerous artists, including Barbara Bonney. He wrote the texts himself and also accompanied Jennie Tourel at the premiere in 1943. My Name is Barbara, Jupiter has Seven Moons, I Hate Music, A Big and a Little Indian and I’m a Person Too are the song titles and they were sung with tongue-in-cheek and expressive facial expressions.
Then followed a French section with songs by Poulenc, Debussy, Fauré, Duparc and Reynaldo Hahn, the crème de la crème of composers of mélodies. Poulenc’s contribution was two songs from Banalités, composed in 1940 on poems by surrealist Guillaume Apollinaire: Chanson d’Orkenise and Hôtel, and in between Les chemins de l’amour composed the same year on lyrics by Jean Anouilh. It was written for the comedienne Yvonne Printemps who also recorded it. Debussy’s Beau soir is one of his finest songs, and it was preceded by the charming piano prelude La danse de Puck. By the oldest of the five, Gabriel Fauré, Anna and Octavian presented the two songs Op.46 from 1888, Les présents and the well-known Clair de lune. Henri Duparc was one of the most talented of the French composers of the late-nineteenth century, but due to mental illness he ceased composing at the age of 37 and completed only 17 songs. They are, however, some of the most brilliant gems in the repertoire, and Extase from 1874 to a text by Jean Lahor, one of the brightest. Reynaldo Hahn is the odd bird in this quintet. He was born in Venezuela to a Venezuelan mother and a German father, but the family moved to Paris when Reynaldo was a child and he quickly assimilated everything French and became a brilliant entertainer. À Chloris is my personal favourite among his many melodies, and it was performed utterly sensitively.
Back to Bernstein for the final round: Another cycle from the 1940s, titled La bonne cuisine – Four Recipes for voice and piano. The texts were culled from a French cookbook printed in 1899, and the dishes were: Plum Pudding, Ox-tails, Tavouk Gueunksis and Rabbit at Top Speed. I only wish that the recipes had been printed in the programme, since they sounded so appetizing! The response from the audience was overwhelming, which led to an encore – in spite of the late hour – a song by Anna Baek Christensen’s compatriot Peter Erasmus Lange-Müller.
But there was still more to come. Two world stars entered the stage: guitarist Jacob Kellermann and soprano saxophonist Anders Paulsson. Besides their individual careers they have recently also toured worldwide as a duo, and here they presented a substantial taster of their repertoire, including four works written specifically for them. But they started in a lighter vein with Astor Piazzolla’s Oblivion Tango #2, sweet and rhythmically enticing, followed by three pieces by film music maestro Ennio Morricone: the unavoidable hit Gabriel’s Oboe, Cera una volta il West and Playing Love, music that caresses the ear. ‘That was the easy part of the concert’, said Paulsson, implying that the rest would be tougher. Bo Hansson’s Interact started with some forbidding dark chords, but the piece develops to something melodious and beautiful but also rhythmically thrilling. Anders Nilsson’s Ballade goes the opposite way: the romantic beginning develops to ‘some daftier things’ as Paulsson expressed it in his presentation. Sven Hagvil’s Find wonder is a thrilling dialogue with melodious ornaments. Thomas Persson’s Sonata No.2, which was a near world premiere if I understood Paulsson correctly, is strongly influenced by contemporary jazz and in the third movement also bossa nova. For the final numbers Kellermann and Paulsson returned to Piazzolla and one of his most played works, Histoire du Tango. Originally composed in 1985 for flute and guitar, it is often arranged for other instrument combinations. Soprano saxophone and guitar is quite close to the original. Here they played the two middle movements: Café 1930 and Nightclub 1960. The playing of these two world stars was, as could be expected, outstanding. A superb close to a varied, stimulating and very long festival day.
Göran Forsling