United Kingdom Bach, Bartók, Beethoven, Brahms: Robert Taub (piano). Levinsky Hall, University of Plymouth, 12.10.2024. (PRB)
Bach – Chromatic Fantasy and Fugue, BWV903
Bartók – Sonata (1926)
Beethoven – Sonata in A-flat major, Op.110
Brahms – Variations on a Theme by Paganini, Op.35, Books I and II
The Arts Institute at the University of Plymouth opened its 2024-2025 Musica Viva Concert Series with what has become a regular occurrence: a recital by American concert pianist and academic, Dr Robert Taub, Director of Music for the University of Plymouth Arts and Culture Programme. He has initiated this series, and he directs it.
Taub has performed at many other internationally prestigious venues and with the advent of the Musica Viva Series, he was also very much involved in moving to another venue the University’s original concert hall of many years’ standing. The new venue served originally as a large lecture hall and theatre in the architecturally award-winning Levinsky Building further along the campus. Unsurprisingly, it was most happy to rename its Lecture Theatre 2 to ‘Levinsky Hall’. The Musica Viva Concert Series programme says: ‘to inspire, educate, challenge and unite audiences by presenting leading musicians in public concert performances, open rehearsals, and informed talks’.
A theme has permeated each season’s choice of programme. This season, the focus will be on the music of Béla Bartók, to commemorate the 80th anniversary of his death in 1945. Each concert will include a pivotal work that also reflects Bartók’s deep-rooted interest in the folk music of his native area, now essentially Hungarian, Romanian and Slovakian. This had an important bearing on his emerging compositional style. He integrated the folk elements – especially dynamic, melodic and rhythmic – into his already colourful and expressive style.
Another integral feature of the Musica Viva Series is that each event begins with a 30-minute pre-concert talk, given by the artists and chaired by Taub. These chats vary quite considerably in appeal and in their relevance both to hardcore music-goers and to students who would attend a classical music happening for the very first time.
The staging and presentation have also progressed. For example, a hand-held radio-microphone now gave way to Taub’s attached personal mike. That enabled the audience to hear everything clearly, whether he was talking directly to them, or sat at the piano, reinforcing a point he was making. Last night, he was in his element, talking about composers whose music he clearly had a lot of time and empathy for. His talk became so involving that he needed a gentle reminder from backstage when he exceeded the 30-minute limit. We came to hear him play, but he could have gone on for a good deal longer. (Let me return briefly to his eminent skill in arousing interest on many musical levels. I was delighted to learn something new about Beethoven’s Sonata.)
First on the programme, Bach’s Chromatic Fantasy and Fugue is a real winner as a recital opener. There are quasi-improvisatory runs at the outset, abrupt stops and starts, and frequent sorties into remote keys and associated ambivalent harmonies. That really begs the question: what would listeners in the early eighteenth century have made of this pioneering work on just one hearing? Take Bartók’s Sonata. While it can still sound somewhat challenging even to today’s audiences, it has actually been around for almost a century. Listeners today have had more than ample time to familiarize themselves with its unique style of writing – unlike their predecessors hearing Bach.
Taub immediately demonstrated what years of diligent scale-playing practice in his formative years had given him. He rattled through a veritable cornucopia of scales of all shapes and sizes. It was all played with the total security of a roller-coaster, as it rushes headlong, back and forwards, with numerous death-defying twists and turns, yet with the minimum of support – and despatched with the utmost panache.
The technical demands in the Fantasy are far removed from those in the ensuing Fugue. Its long, flowing contrapuntal lines lie all within the confines of a three-voice texture. Taub showed himself to be a past-master in this kind of pianism. Equally. it is important for the listener to be able to follow the outlines of the fugue subject as it literally pops up in various voices in its original, and sometimes altered versions. To achieve this, the pianist has two options.
They might adopt the ‘Bring out the Subject’ method: try to hammer out the subject material more loudly than the rest of the texture. Or, and informed teachers and performers generally favour this, they might reduce the volume of non-subject material at any point, so that the subject ‘stands out in relief’ rather than being hammered into submission. The latter was Taub’s modus operandi throughout. In fact, in terms of touch and balance within the hand, he is a very highly-accomplished exponent of the latter method.
Some people may prefer to hear Bach’s iconic work played, as originally, on the harpsichord. For others, the use of the piano’s sustaining pedal can be quite contentious, since plucked keyboard instruments like the harpsichord have little mechanism to sustain sounds. But the right-hand pedal, a defining feature of the piano, needs to be used whenever necessary. How successful this will be in performance, though, is down to the performer. Luckily, this is just another area of piano technique of which Taub shows complete mastery.
Bartók’s Sonata is all about conveying the composer’s use of the piano as a percussion instrument, the family in which it historically finds itself placed. Taub elicited powerful sounds from the instrument, with frequent rapid martellato (hammered) passages in octaves along the way, which he had absolutely no problems in delivering. Yet he never eschewed the more expressive and lyrical moments when they occurred.
It might now be auspicious to say a few words about the piano. The Model C Steinway grand previously had pride of place at the University’s earlier concert venue at the Sherwell Centre. Levinsky Hall is larger, so an upgrade to a Model D, the largest size, might be required – in case the present instrument proves dynamically challenged when performing with larger ensembles or chamber orchestras.
Even so, it is still a lovely instrument. Taub decided to work on the hall’s acoustics by bringing in large sound panels to counteract the significant amount of ‘soft furnishings’ and their dampening effect. This has been something of a labour of love, as the number of interconnecting panels have gradually been acquired, rather like the pieces of a jigsaw puzzle. Last night witnessed the completion of the main phase. Without a doubt, the piano once more sounded at its very best, even if this was still just a solo recital.
Musically, and perhaps from a pianist’s standpoint, Beethoven’s warmly lyrical penultimate Sonata was the evening’s highlight. Taub has performed all thirty-two of the composer’s sonatas. He also prepared a new edition for Schirmer and wrote a book Playing the Beethoven Piano Sonatas published by Amadeus Press. Taub brought a great sense of cohesion to the performance. It encapsulated virtually all aspects of piano technique heard during the recital. Tempi were finely judged and highly appropriate for the musical content, and never was the musical quality of Beethoven’s writing compromised by any purely technical issue. And if this evening’s highlight were to have a highlight of its own, then it would have to be the way Taub addressed the fugal moments – intellectually faultless, but still pure music all the way.
If ever you wanted a double work-out at the gym but needed to achieve the same in the comfort of your own home, then turn to either of Brahms’s sets of Variations on a Theme by Paganini, and work through it. After an already demanding programme, most would be happy with either book of Variations, but Taub went on and played both books in quick succession. Rather than comment on the enormity of this task, I will let Bob Taub’s words sum this up: ’Devilish virtuosity – both compositional and pianistic – reaches its zenith in this set of variations.’
The performance was immediately met by cheers and a standing ovation. It seemed to acknowledge not only Taub’s superb musical achievements at the keyboard, but his supreme contribution to the University and City of Plymouth in the time he has already spent here with us.
Even then, this outstanding evening was not quite over, until the pianist had delighted his listeners with a charming little encore: Scriabin’s exquisite Poème, Op.32 No.1.
Philip R Buttall