Rachmaninov and Ravel never met, but would have presented something of an odd couple: the Russian outgoing, aristocratic and uncommonly tall; his French counterpart bourgeois, reserved and correspondingly short. Their compositions for piano might seem to reflect these differences in temperament; though this enlightening series of concerts curated by the Bridgewater Hall’s associate artist Noriko Ogawa suggested that the composers shared at least a few strands of musical DNA.
The final concert of the mini festival was a grand face-off featuring both composers, one piano, four soloists and seven hands (the second of Ravel’s two concertos was commissioned by Paul Wittgenstein, who lost an arm during the first world war). Ogawa herself was first up, presenting a sinuous and delicate reading of Ravel’s G major Concerto in which the slow movement particularly seemed to weep and sing. Martin Roscoe played the Concerto for Left Hand with such pulverising intensity it sounded as if the piano might explode; Kathryn Stott’s brilliantly febrile reading of Rachmaninov’s Fourth Piano Concerto drew brittle tone from a bright-sounding Steinway.
Peter Donohoe was the most physically imposing of the four soloists, yet demonstrated the lightest touch: his gossamer treatment of the 18th variation of Rachmaninov’s Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini was a pianistic lullaby, ably supported by Andrew Gourlay, whose credentials as a young conductor were further enhanced by his ability to adapt to four highly distinctive soloists. Most enthralling, however, were the musical correspondences and echoes that emerged: the dark portent of the medieval Dies Irae theme that emerged both in Ravel’s left-hand concerto and Rachmaninov’s Variations, for example; or the progressive assimilation of jazz idioms that both composers heard first hand in Harlem. If this series proved that Ravel and Rachmaninov were, in most cases, chalk and cheese, it’s curious to think that the common denominator between them may have been George Gershwin.
