Review: Steven Isserlis and Connie Shih shine in pursuit of Proust
French author and the mystery of his fictional sonata serve as pegs for recital of music for cello and piano, including a work by Proust’s companion Reynaldo Hahn
Even if cellist Steven Isserlis hadn’t blurted it out midway through his recital at the University of Hong Kong, astute listeners would probably have figured out that the central peg holding Sunday’s Francophile programme in place was the author Marcel Proust.
Proust wrote passionately (if idiosyncratically) about music, particularly its effects on memory, and for roughly a century critics have tried to determine what real pieces inspired the fictional Vinteuil Sonata that wafts through Proust’s novel A la recherche du temps perdu.
For at least 20 years, literary musicians have put together programmes tracing possible suspects among Proust’s musical contemporaries, from Gabriel Fauré to Caesar Franck. Rarely, though, has the subject been surveyed as broadly or effectively as Isserlis did on Sunday with the pianist Connie Shih, in a concert that featured music by Proust’s longtime companion Reynaldo Hayn and a Proust-inspired work by the British composer Thomas Adès written for Isserlis himself.
The Venezuelan-born Hayn was best known as a composer of songs and light opera, and even his Variations Chantantes was heavily lyrical in its demands.
Adès’ Lieux Retrouvés (Rediscovered Places) explores a wide musical range, with various playing techniques used to paint different sonic landscapes. Les eaux (The Waters) was marked by a pure transparency of sound, while La montagne (The Mountains) scaled the heights of plucked and strummed sonorities. Les champs (The Fields) unfolded in wide-open melodic intervals, while the piece ended with La ville: Cancan macabre, a rather debased, devilish dance.
