The Independend on Sunday 16 Jan 05
Park Lane Group, Purcell Room, London
By Annette Morreau
14 January 2005
For
longer than I can remember, the Park Lane Group has presented its Young
Artists Series in the first days of January. In fact, there have been 48
seasons, in which such artists as Sir Thomas Allen, John Ogdon, Anthony
Rolfe Johnson and Steven Isserlis have all performed in their earliest
years.
The
unusual aspect of the series is the presenting not only of gifted youngsters
but the combining of performing talent to the needs of new (or newish)
music. It should be Brownie points all round, and yet the reasoning is,
I think, flawed. The problem is the concerts themselves. Young artists
have yet to find their feet in terms of a well-developed musical personality,
and new work tends, by and large, to lack personality, too. So the combination
of unknown talent and unknown work can be tough on performer, composer
and audience.
It
is not entirely clear how the FCs (featured composers) get chosen - "The
FCs are never chosen in advance as doing so would have a constrictive effect..."
Rather, it seems that, almost by osmosis, the young artists short-listed
at audition suggest work and, somehow, this boils down to the choice of
one, two or three FCs. But in some years, there are none. And indeed, of
the 10 concerts in the series this year, with FCs Tippett and Dai
Fujikura, three have no works by either composer.
The
pattern of the five-day event is two concerts per day all in the Purcell
Room. At Monday's later concert, pitifully attended, the line-up was not
the easiest: a solo bassoon with pianist, and a solo pianist. Bassoonist
Adam Mackenzie is undoubtedly fiercely talented, but great new work for
the bassoon was undoubtedly not presented. John Casken's Blue Medusa
(2003) was little more than contrapuntal doodling; Anthony Payne's
The
Enchantress Plays (1991) was written in such a way that dodgy intonation
between piano and bassoon was unkindly clear. Only Philippe Hersant's Niggun
(1993) for solo bassoon introduced extended techniques - slap-tonguing
and multiphonics- that made the piece clearly structured and arresting.
The 18-year-old
pianist Alissa Firsova performed work by her father, Dmitri Smirnov, Schnittke, Tippett,
and her own The Endless Corridor (already Op 10). Playing by heart,
she is clearly
a highly expressive performer, but despite her training in this
country, she has a pronounced tendency to thump the piano Russian-style.