United Kingdom Edinburgh International Festival 2024 [10]: Seong-Jin Cho (piano, Queen’s Hall, Usher Hall), Kammerorchester Basel (Usher Hall), 19 & 20.8.2024. (SRT)
Winning the International Chopin Competition is no small feat, and Seong-Jin Cho, 2015’s winner, is no small artist. In fact, he reinforces the (slightly unfair) stereotype that you need to be the reincarnation of Liszt to succeed in it.
How appropriate, then, that there was Liszt in his Edinburgh International Festival Queen’s Hall recital, nothing less than the second volume of the Années de pèlerinage. Hearing them as a complete set reinforces what a fantastically well-constructed work of music this is – why on earth don’t we hear more of Liszt in today’s concert halls?! – and it allowed Cho to showcase lots of different parts of his technique. There was bell-like clarity to his Sposalizio and gloomy weight to his Penseroso, dispelled by a light-hearted airiness in Salvator Rosa. The three Petrarch Sonnets roiled with turbulent emotion, but the melody was always clear, sparkling high over the impossible of chords rumbling beneath, and giving an overall unity to the sonnets as a subset withing the work.
The Dante Sonata, however, was a sensation. Cho played it with clarity and poise and, critically, an understanding of how it all fitted together. There was weight and darkness to the doom-laden early sections representing (perhaps) the souls of the damned in Hell, but when it got to the major key consolation of the second subject Cho completely changed the style of his playing, rippling and shimmering with terrific delicacy as he brought genuine light and shade to Liszt’s infernal texture. For all of his strength in Liszt’s impossible fistfuls of notes, he isn’t a particularly ostentatious pianist. Often he sat stock still at the keyboard, lost in the contemplation of his music while his fingers did the work. At some of the quiet moments, however, he leaned so close into the keyboard that he must have been able to smell it. When the Queen’s Hall crowd erupted into applause, he took it with such understated grace that he might as well have been surprised by it.
His Ravel was a little heavy-handed in comparison; too Lisztian, perhaps? The Menuet antique harrumphed a little, and if the Sonatine was more delicate then it still defaulted towards the loud side. The Valses nobles, however, were by turns playful, delicate, arch and muscular, all with powerful bass lines and sometimes delicate tracery in the melodies. An excellent showcase for his technique, in short.
Cho also stepped in to save the following evening’s Usher Hall concert, replacing the indisposed and previously advertised pianist in Beethoven’s Fourth Piano Concerto. It was fascinating hearing him in repertoire that’s ostensibly less thunderous than Liszt. In fairness, his approach was assertive rather than dreamy, but there was still an overall mellifluousness to his playing that suited the contemplative mood of the first movement very well. He spoke (on the EIF’s social media channels) about how he sees the concerto as a series of dialogues, like chamber music, and that is how he balanced the piece as a whole. Only occasionally were there a few issues of ensemble with the orchestra, perhaps down to the lack of clarity over who was in charge: Cho or Julia Schröder, who directed the concert from the leader’s chair.
However, the real stars of that concert were the orchestra, the marvellous Kammerorchester Basel, who played this music of the nineteenth century as though the ink on it was still wet. It was difficult to tell whether they were playing on gut or modern strings, but in some ways that was the point: they evoked a whole vanished era of musical performance as though it was all completely normal, and the result was thrilling.
Part of that was down to the choice of the instruments, with two different sets of horns used, and some terrifically characterful period winds that made a big difference in Emilie Mayer’s Symphony No.5. They paid Mayer the great compliment of taking her seriously, and she came across as a vital and exciting voice in her own right; proof that referring to her as ‘the female Beethoven’ does her no favours. Mayer’s symphony was full of intensely worked musical argument, particularly in the first and third movements, while the finale resolved on a major key only after having to work very hard for it. Yet she also wrote music of the most wonderful softness for the slow movement, unusually placing the sound right in the middle of the orchestra, writing for a lovely choir of cellos, violas, horns and clarinets. The Basel players made it sound completely magical; clear yet also lovely. In short, the best of both worlds.
And the concert overture by Fanny Mendelssohn Hensel (when are we going to finally settle on what to call this woman?!) made for a cracking curtain raiser in a bright and exciting C major, the violins sounding bright as a button as they whizzed up and down their melodic lines, and making the longer sounding notes mutate before our ears. A treat.
Simon Thompson
The Edinburgh International Festival runs at venues across the city until Sunday 25th August. Click here for further details.
19.8.2024 – Seong-Jin Cho (piano), Queen’s Hall.
Ravel – Menuet Antique; Sonatine; Valses nobles et sentimentales
Liszt – Années de pèlerinage, Deuxième année: Italie, S 161
20.8.2024 – Kammerorchester Basel / Julia Schröder (director), Usher Hall.
Fanny Mendelssohn Hensel – Overture in C
Beethoven – Piano Concerto No.4
Emilie Mayer – Symphony No.5 in F minor
Why was the Usher Hall only half full?