Brahms 125: Day 1

The last time I stepped into SOTA was probably for a TPO’s New Year’s Eve or Lutoslawski Tonight.

SotA is full of of fond memories for this non-music student, from the many a TPO concert (Firebird, the original NYE, complete Brahms symphonies), to OMM’s rehearsals at the studio, to NUSSO’s Tchaik 5th, to the Sibelius string quartet with RISE/RJCE.

Tonight, with Arnaldo Cohen, T’ang Quartet, and Qin Li-Wei, time once again stood still.

I My wife bought tonight last night’s tickets at full price, and I’m in no way affiliated with Altenburg Arts or directly with OMM, but we both agree on their awesome work bringing in amazing artists and featuring above average to amazing programmes.

It was quite a challenge not to applaud after each single movement.

There’s still a show tonight.

Brahms Piano Quintet was the opener – a tour de force that I assumed was a late work but was completed ~1864. His first symphony was started about a decade earlier and completed about a decade later, but the scope and density, not to mention intensity, of the Piano Quintet is nothing short of symphonic. TIL Yesterday I learnt that it evolved from a string quintet (later destroyed by Brahms) to a sonata for two pianos before finally emerging in its final crystallised form.

This would be my first time witnessing the newest roster of T’ang Quartet, with Han Oh cutting very fine viola lines that Brahms wrote generously, and Wang Zihao anchoring the cello from bass pizzicato accompaniment to soaring strings chorales. Cohen’s dominant direction (the opening felt extremely broad but that was how everything sounded) and impeccable voicing elucidated dissonances and counterpoints that my ear had previously ignored, highlighting nuggets of details (the semitones, the triplets, the dotted quaver-semiquaver etc.) that outlined the vast tapestry that Brahms weaved throughout the grand first sonata-allegro. There were several moments of magic, of tragic darkness, rage; fragile sweetness.

The mottled Andante – colour me stereotypical but it might have been as at home in central Europe as Southern American. The immense space after some of the thirds on the piano reminded that some of the “easiest” to play music may just be the hardest. The Scherzo a relentless winding of tension, and very intelligent realisation of the piano against string orchestration. The finale, a sonata-allegro which to my untrained ear blurred the boundary between sonata and variations, brought us through yet another kaleidoscopic journey (echoing mementos from the previous movements) and to an inexorable finish.

Shall I disclaim all comments on this by virtue of not knowing of its existence, and being all the richer since learning of it. Preceded by the placement of a comically low student stand for cellist Qin, the second cello sonata, at once fiery, succinct, abstract, featuring open C strings and string crossings of students’ loathing. Not a note was wasted by the duo, with Qin firmly in the limelight and Cohen the polyphonic bastion. The audience couldn’t wait to applaud, doing so immediately after the third movement. The duo pulled three curtain calls, and the audience was duly rewarded with the third movement of the Chopin Cello Sonata.

Thanks are due to the wonderful musicians and whatever divine being that made it possible, to learn again what a bunch of wood and strings, and a blueprint of beansprouts over a century old is capable of eliciting.

That was Brahms’ 2 and 5, with the 1 being the piano concerto with OMM this weekend.

Did I mention tickets are still available?