Season 2009
Designing a festival programme is a juggling act. One has to balance one's own musical predelictions with what the audience might prefer, contrast it with the year/s before, and judge which new music and musicians to introduce alongside the classic masterpieces, in a spirit of continuity and progression.
Yet one of the most satisfying aspects of the festival over the years has been the revisiting of great masterpieces through different ensembles, and the deep connection to a piece that develops over time. Schubert's string quintet is the most obvious example, given perhaps the best performance to date by our great discovery of 2009, Poland's Szymanowski Quartet. I was equally riveted by their readings of Haydn's opus 77 quartets, played with imagination, humour and love.
One of the great talents of his generation, 17 year old pianist, composer and mathematician Kit Armstrong left us all speechless with the bewildering maturity of his Bach and Ligeti. It needed something magisterial in character to round off the evening; Beethoven's 'Archduke' trio, recieved its third performance in Plush by our friends Ben Nabarro and Tim Horton.
Nicholas Angelich visited us ahead of his proms appearance, and his recital displayed an expressive, labyrinthine range of character through Schumann's Kreisleriana and a Brahms intermezzo encore that has stayed with me ever since.
The Alfred Brendel poetry and music event was one of the most interesting combinations of text and music I've been involved with. Interwoven amongst Alfred's texts were pieces by six modern composers from Kagel to Ligeti, topped off with the rondo from Beethoven's cello sonata opus 5 no.2. The texts inhabit a space somewhere between sense and nonsense, complemented by Kagel's MM51 for piano and metronome, in which a pianist slowly loses the plot and begins to laugh hysterically. Tim Horton gave a great performance, and reactions were overwhelmingly positive.
And then came Marcelo.
We had talked about doing a Piazolla-themed weekend for a while, but were looking for the real thing (it gets endless tortuous performances by us Europeans). On meeting and hearing Marcelo Nisinman in Bucharest, I discovered how infectuous this music can be, and resolved to get him to Plush together with the Ensemble Raro.
The sheer power of Marcelo's character (and sound!) was almost too much for our church to take, but it held firm and hosted an effervescent end to a very enjoyable summer in Plush.
Adrian Brendel, Music Director