When I read that I am about to hear an ensemble dependant for repertoire almost wholly upon transcriptions, I tend to yawn quietly and recall Dr.Johnson’s comment about a dog walking on its hind-legs, that ‘it is not done well but you are surprised it is done at all’. In the event I have often been pleasantly entertained but such concerts tend not to stick firmly in my mind.
The hour spent in the company of the Pelleas Ensemble, however, will most certainly stay in the mind. It was sixty minutes of astonishing music making. To begin with, I would never have guessed that an ensemble of flute, viola and harp would meld so well and offer such variety and flexibility, the flute taking the tenor role, the viola lending a rich middle and the harp ranging from a beautiful tripping lightness to on occasions a percussive bottom. This enabled the players to offer a veritable richness of sound that could be harnessed to music ranging from the Renaissance to the present century and sounding in each offering what was felt to be a totally appropriate sonic world.
That that was to be the effect of the concert was evident in the opening offering, excerpts from Rameau’s opera Les Boreades. I have written in my programme simply ‘Baroque balm to the ears’ and really nothing more needs to be said. The programme spoke of the delight the members of the ensemble take in making their arrangements to suit their instruments and here one was one hundred per cent taken back to France of the 18c.
There followed arrangements by Luba Tunnicliffe, the viola player of the ensemble, of several songs by Rebecca Clarke with texts by major poets. Perhaps in song the words and the voice are necessary for a full response and to have had the texts in the programme would have helped. However, the texts were read out and the music made clear a composer of some power.
There followed a work by John Woolrich ,Favola in Musica, an adaptation of a Monteverdi madrigal which the composer had transposed especially for the ensemble. I met him once or twice a number of years ago when his music was performed at the Leicester Festival and found his music full of originality whilst also wedded to the past. This rivetting work ticked both of those boxes with an amazing array of sounds.
There followed a late work of Ethel Smyth, Variations on Bonny Sweet Robin (Ophelia’s Song) quite unlike anything that I have heard of hers, much more of her time than of the previous century and perhaps therefore of rather more interest than those works written when she was so active in the world of female militancy. The music of that period such as I have heard has usually seemed to me conservative in idiom and of limited interest.
So, I reached the last work of the concert delighted with what had been offered. However, in truth I was very uncertain whether the delight would last through a transcription of pieces from Prokofiev’s Romeo and Juliet ballet score. I just could not imagine how such a rich orchestral score could possibly be transposed to the ensemble before me without severe loss. Well, Gilad Cohen, the transcriber, and the ensemble literally swept all that away. Here was one of the richest and most dramatic of ballet scores sounding as authentic as could be. There was a lovely lightness of touch in Juliet as a Young girl , throughout all the swagger with which Prokofiev surrounds the young stags, this culminating in the terrifying music by which the composer portrays the fatal fight. Here the virtuosity, particularly of the harp, was demonic to a degree that I don’t think I have ever heard surpassed and of course absolutely in your face in a small hall. I was flattened!
Congratulations to Henry Roberts, Flute, Luba Tunnicliffe, Viola and Oliver Wass, Harp and please do come again.
The Diary of a Leicester Concert-goer 