MV Balmoral Cruise: Two Afternoon Classical Piano Recitals by Béla
& Julia Hartmann: 29th September and 2nd October 2013.
There is an ever-pressing danger
that any piano recital given on board a cruise liner will descend to the lowest
common denominator. I have heard well-qualified on-board pianists present the
most hackneyed pieces in an obvious attempt to be popular. Without being too
specific, it is fairly easy to cite the particular Chopin ‘Nocturne’,
Rachmaninov ‘Prelude’ and Liszt ‘Liebstraum’ that will feature in many
programmes. That is to say nothing about the inevitable arrangement of Andrew
Lloyd Webber or Lennon and McCartney. There is no condemnation implied of
popular pieces as such – only an obsession with them.
It is not my intention to second-guess
the musical ‘literacy’ of any given cruise audience, however it is likely to
much less-specialised than the Wigmore Hall crowd. Their range of interest will
span Einaudi to Elgar and back to John Barry and Sebastian Bach. Inevitably,
one of two musical ‘anoraks’ will be in the audience wondering why their
particular protégé is not given wider billing.
The odd musical snob will deprecate the presence of any pot-boilers in
the programme.
Béla and Julia Hartmann struck an
ideal balance with their two excellent recitals given on the MV Balmoral, as
the ship sailed from Southampton towards some lesser-known ports in the
Mediterranean. This husband and wife team chose to present a wide range of
music, mainly for piano solo, but also including a number if duets.
The first recital (29th
September) began with a good account of some of Saint-Saens’ Carnival of the Animals, including the
ubiquitous ‘The Swan’ and the less-commonly heard ‘Lion’s Royal March’ complete
with the roar. Although Domenico
Scarlatti (1685-1757) was born in Italy, he spent much of his career in the
service of the Spanish and Portuguese royal households. So this association
made him highly appropriate for a cruise visiting Lisbon and Malaga. Scarlatti wrote some 555 piano sonatas and unfortunately
there was only space for Julia to play two of them. These are timeless works
that defy categorisation.
Beethoven was represented by the
final two movements of his Sonata in E flat, Op.27 No.1 (Quasi una fantasia).
This was a bold choice and avoided the temptation to opt for the ‘Moonlight’ or
the ‘Pathetic’. The final movement of
this work is particularly interesting and adopts a cyclic form with references
to the opening and slow movements. Béla played this with great proficiency and
enthusiasm.
The next group of works were
given by Julia and included the famous C sharp minor Prelude by Rachmaninoff alluded
to above. However it was good to hear the slightly less-popular G sharp minor
example from Op.32. The easiest of
Liszt’s Consolations (No.1) followed before she concluded with a stunning
performance of Khachaturian’s Toccata dating from 1932. Originally part of a
larger piano suite including a Waltz–Capriccio and a Dance, this work utilises
folk-music from Armenia as well as the then-contemporary modernist techniques
with driving rhythms and a contrasting nostalgic middle section. This first recital concluded with Dame Myra
Hess’ piano duet arrangement of ‘Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring’, from Cantata
BWV147. It is an adaptation that I did
not know existed, however I understand that is was published some eight years
(1934) after the solo version. It is effective in both incarnations.
Whilst the MV Balmoral was steaming
north along the Spanish coast towards the Costa Brava town of Palamos, Béla and
Julia Hartmann gave their second recital.
This time the proceedings opened
with an arrangement for piano duet of Jacques Offenbach’s ‘Barcarolle’ from the
Tales of Hoffmann. I was delighted to
hear another work from Scarlatti, this time the well-known (certainly the most
recorded) Sonata in E major, K380. It is my favourite.
I have never heard a live
performance of Mozart’s improvisatory Fantasia in D minor, K397, so it was
interesting to hear Julia give an inspiring account of this challenging piece.
The work is characterised by a certain lack of ‘traditional’ form and has a considerable
number of tempi changes.
Béla Hartman followed this with Chopin’s
Nocturne in E minor (No. 19, Op.72/1 posth.) with its attractive cantabile
sections balanced by a more passionate middle section. This work was composed
when Chopin was only seventeen, but already reveals the hand of a master. Robert
Schumann’s Kinderszenen is always
popular with audiences. Béla played three of the thirteen movements including
the beautiful ‘Träumerei’
(Dreaming).
The major work in the second
recital was the massive Scherzo in B minor by Chopin. Béla played this work
with great absorption and matched the brilliant opening and closing ‘whirl of
stormy emotion’ with a much more poetic middle section which is composed in the
relative minor.
The recital concluded with Franz
Schubert’s ‘Military March’ in D for piano duet which is always guaranteed to
‘bring the house down.’
There were a few concerns that I
had about these recitals, none of which reflected on the two artists’ technical
and interpretive accomplishments.
Firstly, the piano was a little ‘temperamental’.
At times there seemed to be an almost metallic ‘honky-tonk’ accompaniment to
the proceedings. To be fair, this instrument is used for all kinds of music
making, from jazz, the ‘Shows,’ the Sunday Service and ‘jazz by night.’ Secondly, the recitals took place in the Neptune
Lounge. On the MV Balmoral this is the main performance space where most of the
theatrical entertainment takes place. There is a bar for the patrons. Unfortunately
no-one seemed to have told the bar staff that a piano recital was in progress:
it is very difficult to concentrate on Chopin and Scarlatti to the
accompaniment of ice buckets being filled and emptied, glasses stacked and
bottles being thrown into waste bins. On this ‘note’ it was also unfortunate
that the ladies ‘powder room’ was near the door of the lounge – every so often
the sound of the ‘Dyson’ hand-dryer drowned the more reflective musings of the
pianists.
Finally, I should have liked Béla and Julia Hartmann to
have played one or two pieces that reflected the largely Spanish destination of
the cruise. Scarlatti is a wee bit tentative; however a couple of pieces by
Albeniz, Turina or Granados would have fitted the bill ideally.
In spite of this last criticism, these
were exceptionally well-planned recitals that explored a goodly range of music.
The quality of the playing was excellent throughout and the audience managed to
behave reasonably well: I was only conscious of a few prolonged stage-whispers
and coughing fits as events proceeded.
A prize-winner of both national
and international competitions, the Czech-German pianist Béla Hartmann has
established a reputation for lively and individual interpretations of a wide
repertoire, ranging from Rameau to Luciano Berio. Schubert, Mozart and
Beethoven form the core of this extensive range, and he was both prize-winner
in the International Schubert Competition, Dortmund (1997), and winner of the
Beethoven Medal of the Beethoven Piano Society of Europe (1995). In 2000, he
was a semi-finalist at the Leeds International Piano Competition.
In 2005 Béla Hartmann performed the complete piano sonatas and dances by
Schubert, in a series of eight recitals at Steinway Hall, London. Other
programmes include the complete first book of Bach’s Well Tempered Clavier,
works by Dvorak and Smetana and contemporary composers such as Birtwistle,
Berio and Petr Eben. Béla Hartmann had also performed widely on fortepianos. He
has given recitals at prestigious venues in London, across the UK and Europe,
as well as in the U.S.A., where he appeared at the Carnegie Recital Hall, New
York. Concerto performances include concertos by Brahms, Prokofiev, Dvorak,
Beethoven and Mozart. Béla Hartmann is also a keen musical essayist and has
published both in print and online on areas such as performance practice and
artistic identity. Béla Hartmann ©
Julia Hartmann has performed in more than twenty countries, most recently
in Austria and the Czech Republic. Her London recital venues, both in a piano
duo and as a soloist, include St. Martin-in-the-Fields, Steinway Hall and the
Crush Room of the Royal Opera House Covent Garden. Further UK venues have
included Snape Maltings, the Djanogly Recital Hall, Nottingham, the Usher
Gallery, Lincoln, Croxteth Hall, Liverpool and the Colour House Theatre,
Wimbledon. She has also given lecture recitals for Saga Classical Music
Holidays and has performed widely as a classical artist on P&O Cruise
ships.
Concerto performances have included Messiaen’s ‘Couleurs de la Cité Céleste’
with the Twentieth Century Ensemble of the Royal College of Music, conducted by
Edwin Roxburgh, and concertos by Liszt and Beethoven with the Nottingham
Philharmonia and the Nottingham Chamber Orchestra. She has also featured
extensively on British radio.
Born in Liverpool, she studied initially with Heather Slade-Lipkin (Chethams
School of Music) gaining an LTCL performing diploma at the age of sixteen, as
well as an LGSM performing diploma, which she passed with honours. She then
studied at Nottingham University gaining a BA Honours degree in Music with
first class honours in performance. Julia continued as an RCM Exhibitioner on
the Advanced Studies Course at the Royal College of Music under John Barstow,
forming a piano trio and winning the Percy and Dorothy Coates Piano Trio prize
in her first term. She received coaching from the Chilingirian Quartet and the
Britten Quartet, and graduated with an ARCM diploma in piano performance. Julia Hartmann ©