Festival Music
Mark Simpson, Antoine Tamestit and Pierre-Laurent Aimard
Queen’s Hall, Edinburgh
Miranda Heggie
five stars
AN interesting programme focusing mainly on the relationship between Kurtág and Schumann, Friday morning’s Queen’s Hall recital opened with the world premiere of clarinettist and composer Mark Simpson’s Hommage à Kurtág.
Scored for clarinet, viola and piano, Simpson himself played clarinet alongside violist Antoine Tamestit and pianist Pierre-Laurent Aimard. A fitting tribute to the great composer, the intricate interplay between instruments at work here creates a wonderfully vivid aural landscape. Moving on to an assortment of pieces from Kurtág’s Jelek and Játékok and Schumann’s Märchenbilder and Bunte Blätter, the order in which they were played had been expertly chosen to make perfect musical sense. Aimard’s contemplative piano playing in Kurtág’s 2013 piece …couple égyptien en route vers l’inconnu, inspired by an ancient Egyptian statue of a couple, inseparably stepping together into the unknown, was beautifully touching, while Tamestit’s interpretation of In nomine – all’ongherese for solo viola was haunting and hypnotic.
The second half saw two more "hommages" – Kurtág’s own homage to Schuman, and Marco Stroppa’s Hommage a Gy K., a fascinating work which references Kurtág referencing Schumann. With an ever-shifting stage set up, at one point viola and clarinet come very close together, both playing into the piano and at others all three instruments are widely spaced out, emphasising not only the physical space between them but the spaces within the harmonies.
Ending with the roots of the music which had come before, the concert culminated with Schumann’s Märchenerzählungen, a set of four musical "fairytales". With dreamy and animated playing, and a sublime blend of sounds, the trio evoked the magic and enchantment so often, indeed, found in fairytales.
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