When conductor and pianist Daniel Barenboim joined philosopher Edward Said to establish the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra, combining Israeli and Arab musicians, they knew it would be no magical bringer of peace. Instead, it was intended as a project against ignorance, giving space for opposing sides to understand one another and to disagree without “resort to knives”. For 24 years its achievement has been to show that mutual cooperation and respect can produce grace and beauty in a world too often defined by bloodshed and cruelty.
That spirit of understanding and friendship is distilled and refined still further in a spin-off from the orchestra, the West-Eastern Divan Ensemble, a flexible chamber group formed in 2019 and directed from the violin by Barenboim’s super-talented son Michael. That they should coincidentally appear in London on the day that the capital was engulfed by peace marchers and ugly counter-protests only served to highlight once more their example of supreme tolerance and understanding.
Anyone searching for a metaphor for fruitful coexistence could do worse than look at chamber music. Each player depends entirely on those sitting opposite them; without cooperation, the music will fall apart. It requires the humility to know when to fall back, combined with the confidence to take a lead; tempo must be felt, dynamics considered; above all, everyone has to listen carefully to one another. Would that our politicians behaved more like musicians.
Central to the evening were two pieces of sunny congeniality, chosen, it would seem, to underscore the ideals the ensemble espouse: Felix Mendelssohn’s gloriously good-natured String Quintet No 2 in B flat, Op 87 and Beethoven’s first big hit in Vienna, his highly sociable Septet in E flat, Op 20.
Here, violinist Hisham Khoury and viola players Miriam Manasherov and Sindy Mohamed were joined by Assif Binness (cello), David Santos Luque (double bass), Daniel Gurfinkel (clarinet), Mor Biron (bassoon) and Ben Goldscheider (horn), with Barenboim at the helm. In the variations, we could almost have been witnessing a spirited, civilised debate, with ideas offered for consideration, examined, accepted or rejected. There were little jokes, too. Barenboim, with a twinkle in his eye, suddenly changed gear in the scherzo, upping the tempo and daring the others to play catchup.
There were more jokes in three late fragments by American modernist Elliott Carter, interspersed between the Mendelssohn and Beethoven. Written in the last decade of his long life – Carter died in 2012, aged 103 – each is startlingly brief, yet packed with consequence. The solo Figment IV, brilliantly played by Barenboim on viola, went in minutes from furrowed-brow solemnity to ecstatic excitement. Au Quai for bassoon and viola and Duettone for violin and cello brimmed with wry invention, with amusing passagework from bassoonist Biron and questing, tip-toeing pizzicato from cellist Binness.
Extra security on the door had suggested a tense night, but this was a cheerful audience determined to show its support for the ideals so clearly displayed, applauding between every movement and, to Barenboim’s amused consternation, even crashing in enthusiastically midway through Mendelssohn’s adagio.
Talking of enthusiasm, a new septet found its way on to a London stage last week, this time at the Wimbledon international music festival. The Meliora Collective is a freshly minted, flexible ensemble of young players, formed by clarinettist Steph Yim and flautist Meera Maharaj. Their welcome exuberance sometimes got the better of them, with balance wayward in Ligeti’s Old Hungarian Ballroom Dances, but there was some truly impressive duetting from Yim and Maharaj in Valerie Coleman’s Portraits of Langston. It’s quite an achievement to convincingly recreate a jazz club atmosphere with just two wind instruments.
Sibelius’s turbulent, unsettling En Saga, in its original septet form, seemed unfocused, the narrative nature of the piece not always obvious, but Jessie Montgomery’s Strum, with its mix of Latin rhythms, American folk song and quasi-classical string writing, was a winner – a welcome burst of sunshine on a wet November day.
One of the spookiest passages in all chamber music could be heard when the exciting Sitkovetsky Trio enlivened this year’s Bath Mozartfest with Beethoven’s Piano Trio in D major, Op 70 No 1, “Ghost”. This wildly dramatic piece has at its centre a lugubrious largo that groans and shivers, with much subterranean rumbling from the piano, which Beethoven possibly derived from an abandoned Macbeth project. It’s a curious movement in a work that otherwise basks in jovial sunlight, not least its explosive opening: a unison ladder-climb up the scale that, in the hands of these seasoned players, demanded we sat up and paid attention. You could feel backs straightening all around the room.
They had opened with an elegant account of Mozart’s Piano Trio in B flat major, K502, with pianist Wu Qian bearing the heaviest load in the concerto-like outer movements, scurrying around the keyboard while Alexander Sitkovetsky (violin) and Isang Enders (cello) offered refined insouciant interjections. Only in the central larghetto does Mozart push the string players forward, with Sitkovetsky making full use of the room’s fine acoustic to add bloom to his cantabile solo.
Schubert is far more even-handed in his Piano Trio in B flat major, with players sharing equal prominence in his stormy, passionate four-movement epic. For all the brilliance of the quicksilver scherzo and quirky country dance-like rondo, it was the songlike melody in the andante, swapped so dreamily between cello and violin, that will linger longest in the memory.
Star ratings (out of five)
West-Eastern Divan Ensemble ★★★★★
Meliora Collective ★★★
Sitkovetsky Trio ★★★★★
