The programme had to be revised following the fatal rail crash this week. We did not get the Khachaturian, but we did get two encores, one of Oblivion of Piazzolla and the other, I think, was the first part only of Seress’s Last Gloomy Sunday, but I could be wrong.
Sebastiani’s Paraphrase on Bellini’s Norma was a first for me. In over fifty years of concert going and the same time collecting recordings, this was the first example of the composer’s work that I have ever heard. Ferdinando Sebastiani was and Italian clarinettist to whom the Neapolitan style of playing is attributed. I could only fid one recording of the piece on the internet, which shows it is something of a rarity.
Fabrizio Meloni chose to open the concert with the clarinet beginning offstage. The familiar strains of Casta Diva emerged slowly from the wings. The work’s second section is an allegro and this provided a showcase for Sebastiani’s clarinet writing.
The Haydn Sonata that followed was both witty and elegant. After many years of listening, I generally can’t find anything more to say about Franz Josef Haydn’s music, but its playing often does not bring out these essential elements. Antonello D’Onofrio’s playing did.
The next work was a complete rarity. It was an arrangement of a sonata by Poulenc for clarinet and piano, the more well-known Clarinet Sonata coming later. The work was billed as a World Premiere, which it undoubtedly was. The success of the piece was obvious.
Antonello D’Onofrio then played Rachmaninov’s 4 pieces Opus 3. The second of these pieces is the composition that made Rachmaninov’s name, the famous Prelude in C sharp minor. Here, embedded in the four pieces it was originally published alongside, it took its place elegantly and expressively, but without the overstatement that usually comes with it.
In another arrangement by Antonello D’Onofrio, we then heard Schnittke’s Suite The Clown and the Children. Now Alfred Schnittke’s output was massive. It also covered, as was his intention, many forms of music, from the most popular to the most esoteric. His First Symphony in the 1970s was heard some years ago on London’s South Bank under the baton of Vladimir Jurowsky, a concert I heard and will never forget. The elements are all there. Russian folk music, popular forms, jazz, pop, propaganda and dissonance. Schnittke wanted always to illustrate how we modern people are bombarded with content and that it is up to us to make sense of it. This suite was a case in point, marrying folk themes with pop and jazz with just a touch of the contemporary. Schnittke’s music, like the man and his age, remains an enigma.
The performers cut the Khachaturian that was on the programme and went straight to The Clarinet Sonata by Poulenc. We tend to forget that Francis Polenc was more like Alfred Schnittke in his age than we tend to admit. Fabrizio Meloni brought out all the stresses and strains of the piece as well as its lyricism.
The duo played Piazzolla’s
Oblivion as an encore, with Fabrizio Meloni starting the clarinet pointed at
the piano strings to engender extra resonance. Piazzolla’s theme emerged from
there effortlessly. The last piece was offered in recognition of the loss of
life in the recent train crash and the music was fitting.
