HEARSAY | THE ARTS DESK REVIEW
By: Bernard Hughes
October 2023
I’m not sure if critics are allowed to be fans too? A degree of disinterested coolness is important of course, but there is also a place for expressing a very keen enthusiasm. I freely admit to being smitten with the music of Guillaume Connesson (b.1970) and eagerly keep a lookout for new recordings of his work, and here are two albums in the same year with different versions of the same piece, and one of my favourites. Connesson’s Sextuor dates from 1997 and has been previously available on the Sony compilation of his chamber music. It is now the opener to the album Hearsay by the Atlantic Chamber Ensemble, and the finale of pianist Simon Trpčeski’s Friendship album, in a re-scored version that adds percussion. It works well in both roles and versions, its extrovert charms and captivating middle movement served well in both performances.
Simon Trpčeski toured the programme on his album widely in 2022, and I reviewed the Wigmore Hall performance for theartsdesk. It puts the Connesson alongside the Brahms Piano Quartet no.3 alongside Pande Shahov’s three-movement Quintet, the Connesson arranged by the percussionist Vlatko Nushev, and who is its hyperactive star turn. The Brahms is earnest and eloquent, Trpčeski leading from the front, and Shahov’s Quintet pointillist and lithe – but it’s the Connesson I’m here for. On paper at risk of gilding the lily, adding the percussion actually gives the Sextuor (renamed as Divertimento) an expansiveness and plays up the lively humour of the outer movement. The middle one, though, is all about Hidan Mamudov’s silky clarinet solo, underpinned by pianissimo bass drum and suspended cymbal. It’s magical.
The Sextuor kicks off the Atlantic Chamber Ensemble’s Hearsay, and it is immediately reassuring to have the double bass (Ayca Kartari) and oboe (a poised Shawn Welk) back in the picture (they are missing from the Divertimento line-up). The first movement is an homage to John Adams, albeit with Poulenc popping up the whole time, mercurial and flighty. There is odd editing at the end of the second movement, with the end going into the following track – I have no idea why, but will make for a strange listening experience if not listening to the whole piece. But the last movement is as sparkling and “festif” as its heading requests. The rest of Hearsay is as varied as Friendship. Óscar Navarro’s Juego de Ladrones, for a classic wind quintet line-up, has a multitude of characters, switching from playful dance to unlikely reminiscence of Purcell. Gerald Finzi’s Eclogue is an unlikely bed-fellow for both the Navarro and Mason Bates, whose incorporation of electronics into his Rags and Hymns of River City adds another colour to the winds, particularly groovy in “The Slip”. I hadn’t heard of the Atlantic Chamber Ensemble, who are based in Richmond, Virginia before, but enjoyed both their playing and their programming.
