Pianist Jelena Makarova marked the centenary of Stravinsky’s Piano Sonata in a York Late Music early afternoon recital at the city’s Unitarian Chapel on 2 November. The concert began in atmospheric mood with the premiere of The Memory Box by Lithuanian composer Diana Čemerytė. Dedicated to Jelena Makarova, this haunting short work concerned faded or destroyed memories, as well as lost belongings through time or the war in Ukraine. A metallic, beaded necklace, removed from the ‘memory box’, as the composer suggested fancifully in her programme note, was placed over some of the piano strings, lending certain passages a brittle, harpsichord-like sound. Baroque composer Élizabeth Jacquet de la Guerre was also briefly quoted, in warm appreciation of the pioneering and neglected women composers vigorously championed by Jelena Makarova. The overall effect was both plaintive and stirring, as the trilling figurations, repeated rhythmic motifs and frail, clavier-esque contributions created a magical bridge between past and present, real and imagined. Painstaking in her preparations for the performance, Jelena Makarova was equally meticulous in her interpretation of this delicately conceived work.
Grace and refinement distinguished the following accounts of Nadia Boulanger’s Trois Petites Pièces pour piano of 1914 and Lili Boulanger’s Trois morceaux pour piano from the same year, while Stravinsky’s compact, neo-classical Sonata sounded freshly minted, with Baroque, Classical and early Romantic influences astutely integrated.
Written for Jelena Makarova in 2020, Colin Riley’s Hook, Line and Sinker was a brief, bravura study that begin in the keyboard’s lower reaches and ended at its highest point. The pianist had the full measure of varied material that incorporated lively, tongue-in-cheek and ornate ideas.
Hayley Jenkins took the legend of the Firebird as the starting point for her new piece, The Death of Maryushka (2024), receiving its premiere performance. Specifically, she was inspired by the story as retold by the American scholar of Russian history Suzanne Massie, centering on Maryushka, a gentle orphan girl known for her exquisite embroidery. When she rejects the advances of an evil sorcerer, he turns her into a Firebird and himself into a black falcon. As she is taken from her home, she sheds her glowing feathers to the ground below, enshrining her spirit. Her glowing rainbow of feathers was magic and never dimmed, but only showed their colours to those who love and seek the beauty in others. Hayley Jenkins took the oboe solo at the start of Stravinsky’s Ronde des Princesses Khorovode from L’Oiseau de Feu(1910) as the inspiration for the chord sequence that began her piano piece, but the material then evolved independently, to form a paean to Maryushka, her beautiful needlework and her story’s enduring message. Beginning softly and with grave sincerity, the music became more fluently lyrical, rising to an impassioned climax before returning to a slow, gentle pace. An ascending phrase in the keyboard’s higher regions concisely and gracefully suggested the title character taking wing and with a hushed reminder of the opening chords, the piece came to a quiet, dignified close. In this vivid musical interpretation of the story, the unfolding events were clearly discernible, though the material had sufficient clarity and purpose, especially in Jelena Makarova’s eloquent rendering, to be enjoyed by listeners unaware of the underlying narrative.
David Lancaster’s Venezia (2024) is dedicated to Stravinsky, who is buried on the Isola di San Michele, Venice, between his wife Vera and his friend and collaborator Serge Diaghilev. There were two sharply contrasting ideas, which jumped straight from one to another. The first was assertive, strongly rhythmic and pitted with pauses, the second slower, gentler and more flowing and subsequently developed into a well-worked fugue. In the closing bars the brusque opening chords were transformed into an expansive, elegiac evocation of Stravinsky’s tomb. Providing a compelling interpretation, Jelena Makarova was alert to the painterly and formal qualities of this highly effective music homage.
The recital concluded with Galina Ustvolskaya’s compact and punchy Sonata No.6 of 1988. In this powerful reading, there was passion, intelligence and intensity behind even the most violent gestures, rounding off in style a deeply satisfying recital.
Later the same day, another Late Music concert, also held in York’s Unitarian Chapel, given by the Amabile Clarinet Trio, contained two further notable premieres. Edward Tait’s Ballade, for clarinet trio was true to its title, being warmly lyrical in character and developing its unabashedly expressive ideas with a sure sense of narrative, pace and structure. The players responded keenly to their eloquent lines, marked each shift in tempo subtly and with conviction and located unerringly the music’s natural peaks and moments of resignation. This gloriously romantic piece, carrying the listener away with its sweeping gestures, made an admirable concert debut.
Also receiving its first performance, David Lancaster’s Anatomy of Angels, for clarinet, cello and piano (2024) was inspired by the incomplete angel studies of the Italian sculptor and architect Gian Lorenzo Bernini (1598-1680), displayed in the Vatican Museum. The piece was cast in five sections and caught some of the delicate, fragmented nature of Bernini’s five preparatory models. Two of the sections were written in an openly Baroque style, but the whole piece had an assured, neo-classical drive and polish that gave much pleasure. This accomplished score was heard to full advantage in the Amabile Trio’s glowing committed performance.
Paul Conway