Live music in December 2020 is probably not the commonest
of commodities wherever you live. In our corner of south-east Spain, we have
some. In normal times, whatever that phrase might now mean, there would be at
least the opportunity of attending two or three concerts a week in this area,
but our new normal here has for several months changed the situation. Whether
it is this new scarcity, this new normal, or indeed whether it is simply the
quality of what we hear, I have no idea, but I can record without hesitation
that everything now sounds more vivid, more committed and more beautiful. And
so it was for the two chamber music events presented by Alfas del Pi’s
Classical Music Society this weekend.
On Saturday 12 December in Casa Cultura, the society
hosted a piano trio with what looked like at first glance a fairly standard
program. The trio comprised the clarinet of Vicenzo Mariozzi, the cello of
Francisco Mariozzi and the piano of Andrea Rucli. This was in fact the fourth
concert of the trio’s mini tour with the same program and, if the other three
venues had provided rehearsal time, then this fourth concert’s perfection might
just have another explanation apart from the obvious and sustained virtuosity
of the musicians.
We began with the Brahms trio opus114. Its gentle,
almost flickering lines assemble to present a mind in turmoil. The phrases may
be short, sometimes very short, but the statements are long and sometimes
convoluted. But eventually this is direct music, despite its almost constant
asides, whose surface a listener can enjoy at an aural glance. But there is much
more here only just below the gloss. There is the aftermath of depression, an
obvious, but, one feels, an unfulfilled desire to reflect on a past that has
some powerful memories. There is nostalgia alongside fear of the future and the
unknown. The music seems to reek of regret. Its style and hand are both utterly
assured, but the composer is suffering new personal doubt, so we are presented
with a contradictory and compelling mix of late Brahms, personal doubt
expressed via assured technique, intangible feelings precisely described. It
was a picture that Vicenzo Mariozzi, Francisco Mariozzi and Andrea Rucli conveyed
via a remarkable skill of understatement.
In retrospect the next two works on the program formed
a similar pair, an unexpectedly similar pair in that they seem to share an
unusual conceptual framework. Beethoven was a young man when he wrote his opus
11 trio, the Gassenhauer. He wanted to show off. He wanted to make his mark on
the city‘s life, future earnings being the
goal. He thus wrote a serious trio that showed off his melodic, conceptual and
compositional gift. But crucially he adopted a contemporary earworm for the
main theme of the finale. It was a tune that everyone was whistling around the
town. In Beethoven’s hands, it became a
set of variations where the main variable is rhythm. This trivial little idea
then becomes something grand, even grandiose at times, despite its humble
origins. It was rather what Beethoven himself wanted to do in his own life.
The final piece in this program was the trio by Nino Rota.
The work’s first two movements are both highly melodic and very rhythmic, but the
musical language is couched in a style that can only be described as astringent
neoclassicism. This may not be Hindemith, nor Stravinsky, but it is music with
a hard, sometimes spiky surface. The finale, however, is like a scoop of ice
cream on a crumbly biscuit, an almost hackneyed ditty that sits somewhere
between Charlie Chaplin and the Keystone Cops. It’s
a moment that reminds us not to take anything too seriously, except, perhaps, a
sideways surreal and thus revealing view of life. Beethoven chose a silly ditty
to self-aggrandise, whereas Rota seems to make fun of the whole process until,
however, one realizes how beautifully written and constructed is the entire
work. And the fact that this commentary deals almost exclusively with the
impressions delivered by the pieces is testimony to the perfection that Vicenzo
Mariozzi, Francisco Mariozzi and Andrea Rucli brought to the playing.
And then, on Sunday lunchtime Alfas del Pi Music
Society presented a violin and guitar duo in Albir. It’s
a combination and a concert we have heard before and hopefully we will hear
again. The society’s vice-president, virtuoso violinist Joaquín Palomares
renewed his performing partnership with guitarist Fernando Espí in a program
they titled Música Iboamericana. In theory, these might be viewed as lighter
pieces, an assemblage to pass a pleasant hour on a clear and sunny December day
by the sea.
But the understanding between these two virtuoso
musicians renders everything they play not only elegant but also exciting and
ultimately moving. The program was the Serenata by Malats, the Brazilian Dances
of Machado, a Milonga by Tavolaro, Amasia by Boutros, three of Manuel de Falla’s
Popular Songs and two movements from The Story of the Tango by Piazzolla. The
music went from bossa nova to tango, from Europe to South America, from folk
music to dancehall, a journey which, when contrasted with the trio of the
previous evening, really did illustrate how far music can transport an audience
and the different places it can take us.