The Winter Chamber Music Festival 2010

This years Winterfestspill contains some of the most interesting programmes that I have seen for a long time. Several of the composers will be relatively unknown to many people and it is to be hoped that the musical public will not be discouraged in any way because of this, as in some cases these unknown works will prove to be among the highlights of the festival.

Although there is no central theme to this year's festival there are several noteworthy features. One of the most notable is the inclusion of music by Czech composers. Janacek's music is of-course already very well-known although few people will know much music by Josef Suk. Suk's Meditation on the ‘St. Wencelas' hymn featured in the opening concert is a very popular and famous piece in Czechoslovakia. Far less known is the music of Vitezslava Kapralova who died at the early age of 25 in 1940. Kapralova was a pupil of Martinu and also for a short time of my own teacher Nadia Boulanger. Another Boulanger pupil whose music I am pleased to see on this years programme is the famous Argentinean composer Astor Piazzolla. There is an interesting story regarding Piazzolla. As a Boulanger student in Paris, Piazzolla had tried to impress his teacher by always taking her his most serious classical compositions. It was some time before he had the courage to ask if he could play her one of his lighter piano compositions, a Tango that he had recently completed. Her reaction, spot on as ever, was to change his life. She told him that his classical music was decent and well-written but that the tango contained the essence of his character and spirit and that he should never depart far from this style of music. He took her advice to heart and you can hear the result in his Grand Tango at the final concert.

We always have a good deal of French music at the festival which this year includes two unusual pieces...the Saint-Seans Septet for piano, trumpet, string quartet and double bass, and Dukas' last work, written for an oriental ballet in 1912, the energetic Fanfare from ‘La PeriI'. We also have famous works of Ravel, Debussy, Poulenc, the marvellous Piano Quartet of Faure and the Cesar Franck Piano Quintet. This last work not only marked Franck's emergence as a world-class composer it also shocked the Parisian musical world who had previously thought of Franck as a composer of rather chaste church music. The unmistakable display of passion in this piece shocked many, including it is said Franck's wife! Saint-Seans, whose own music was always somewhat straight-laced and formal, was scandalised, and he thereafter always regarded Franck's music with suspicion.

The 2010 festival also features the Scandinavian composers Grieg, Halvorsen, Kaija Saariaho and Thomas Tellefsen who is perhaps best known as a pupil and friend of Frederick Chopin. Of the many remaining works on this years programme there are inevitably several great classics that require no recommendation from me, but if I was to pinpoint some personal favourites that I would not like to miss, I would have to include the Chausson Poeme and Brahms String Sextet on Saturday. Good listening.