Nomination Golden Label Chamber Music – Did you know that in Waasmunster in the middle of green surroundings in the 1970s an abbey was built, which is now no longer inhabited as there are no more clergy, even though it was built on the site where an abbey had emerged earlier during the flowering of the Middle Ages? Abdij Roosenberg is called an example of contemporary architecture. Not quite my cup of tea – give me a Romanesque or early Gothic abbey – but music comes into its own quite well in the chapel.
Pianist Yannick Van de Velde took on the challenge of a golden opportunity to organize a concert of 'the highest level' in that context. He brought together a number of musicians whom he had come to know as a fellow student and/or as a younger professional musician with a top orchestra and so on. He didn't really have to search for a cellist, his brother Jonathan has 'it' and Yannick's fiancée, Amélie Dendal is one with the soul of music. Together with them there was already a trio, but Yannick wanted to perform Glinka's little-known sextet. For this he found Nadja Nevolovitsch, violinist with the Brussels Philharmonic, David Desimpelare, double bassist with, among others, the Concertgebouw Orchestra Amsterdam, Francesca Zappa who plays viola with the Berliner Philharmoniker and a deeply rooted chamber musician violin and viola Vincent Hepp whom we still know from the former Kryptos Quartet, the Taurus Quartet and member of the symphonic orchestra of De Munt. So Yannick found a number of musicians with remarkable orchestral experience, but that would not prevent them from bringing an unforgettable evening of Romantic chamber music including a couple of lesser-known works.
The harmony of Romanticism
Glinka's Grand Sextet is a delightful lyrical Romantic work. The father of Russian Romantic music was still partly German-inspired in the composition, but manages to transform the syntax into the Russian soul. A particularly beautiful, flowing, melodious work with subtle intimate dialogues. It is such a pity that this work is rarely performed. Try to find a recording of it... The interpretation was very strong, thoroughly professional with rich phrasing, power – sometimes you seemed to be sitting in the middle of the orchestra rather than in a space where chamber music sounded – and harmony. The aforementioned strings played together with pianist Yannick Van de Velde. What a symbiosis and temperament that was controlled where it absolutely had to be and burst forth where it could.
A notch more ingenious is Mendelssohn's Piano Sextet. Breathtaking when you know that the composer was barely 15 years old when he composed this demanding virtuosic, but also incredibly melancholic and emotionally charged work. Yes, impressive and so was the performance, now with Amélie Dendal at the piano. On CD, like Glinka, that is the message I am giving here. How talents do find each other and then form an ad hoc ensemble that apparently for the 150th time or so on stage lets the best of what it can do be heard. And that best was confirmed once more with the performance of Schubert's Trout Quintet.
Well, the musicians did not fish, but they did feed the audience with their 'fish', namely all that beautiful music by Glinka, Mendelssohn and Schubert. For the first time it happened to me while listening to this famous work that I was moved by the dialogue between the piano and the violin. Also noteworthy was the contribution of the double bass which I have never, ever heard so present before with its particularly supporting colors. Amélie Dendal's touch also deserves a special mention and not only her touch, she makes music gently and with much pure love. It makes her playing very personal and yet totally fitting in the vision of the composers. Each member of the ensemble had a complete contribution without conscious profiling. Everything in service of the Music and the audience thanked it with prolonged and loud applause.
It was also nice that there was post-concert conversation over a tasty sandwich and snacks and drinks. An evening that calls for repetition and which we nominate with a Golden Label Chamber Music because of the quality in itself, but also because of the excellent program choice and structure. That is exactly how we like it.
- WHAT: Sextets by Glinka and Mendelssohn and Schubert's Trout Quintet
- WHO: Yannick Van de Velde, Jonathan Van de Velde, Amélie Dendal, David Desimpelaere, Nadja Nevolovitsch, Vincent Hepp and Francesca Zappa
- WHERE & WHEN: Saturday 17 February 2018, Abdij van Waasmunster
- PHOTOS: © Klassiek Centraal