SARAH KAPUSTIN AND ROELAND JAGERS - REFLECTIONS
Reflections is a recording made especially to combat the impact on music of the COVID 19 pandemic. Internationally renowned players Sarah Kapustin and Roeland Jagers (they’e married now) played once with the famous Rubens Quartet. Their names will doubtless suggest they are Dutch: and their music is not only world class - if it’s July it must be the Indiana Summer Music Festival, autumn, Carnegie Hall and Cité de Musique in Paris,but being based in the Netherlands means support and finance from the government. From their priceless instruments , Sarah plays on a violin built in 1690 by Rogeri in Brescia and Roeland’s ancient Gagliano, actually made as late as 1910 by Giovanni Pistucci in Naples, they find their status attracts continuing recognition during the current contusions. Would that it were the same in Britain.
The Times newspaper has announced a revolt against trivia It wants us to use this lockdown to get more intelligent and well informed. ‘Stop scrolling’ it orders, concentrate of the acquisition of some serious arts understanding . It provides half a dozen highlights in different spheres of culture, Tolstoy for novels, Goethe for poetry, Last Year at Marienbad for film and Goethe’s Faust for theatre. For music they suggest the later work of Scott Walker.
That is an idea. But Reflections is a better bet. These brilliant young players take listeners through a daring range of compositions from Joaquin des Prez and his Canons of 1475, right up to their own friend Joey Roukens who has composed pieces for the couple’s marriage In between come some dazzling compositions Orlando di Lasso in the fifteenth century with his thrilling Caniones - and up to the present., “It’s amazing to realise , Roeland reflects ‘that the modern composers on our album have more in common with Joaquin and Orlando than one might think’. This carefully curated repertoire takes the mind is taken through time. Between the avant garde still living performers and the distant past, come some familiar faves; Johann Sebastian Bach - we’ve heard of him before somewhere - this Canon all’Ottava from The Art of Fugue; his famous piece generally gets the organ treatment but this abstract material also demands an emotional quotient and here the two young musicians provide both. ‘Bach’s music is the epitome of a perfect work of art’ they tell us,’a sublime balance of structure and emotion, technique and craftsmanship’. Next up Is Mozart , the duo play music designed for their own combo, Duo for Violin and Viola K.424. Sarah declares “ This is a masterpiece of harmonic excellence, .enriched with double stops which often give the impression of their being more than two players at work” . You can say that again.
Into the twentieth century and Ernst Toch,Divertimento Opus 37 composed in 1925 .It is ‘virtuosic with slices of melancholy in the intimacy of the central Adagio. ‘Or so contends Dominy Clemends when he questions Roeland about this brilliant polyphonic piece. The violinist replies ‘Yes”
On to 1950 and Bohulslave Martinú offers his piece Duo No.2 (1950). How the the two musicians here actually manage to play this at all is the question., Martinu was a violinist and it appears to try and trap future players with technical tricks. Roeland disagrees. He remarks that Martinu on the contrary is a ‘player’s composer’ and adds “His style is inviting to musicians and listeners alike, and playful in the true sense of the word.” Generous of him, like Liszt on piano, the work is hard and demanding, but what a treat. to have it here short and startling in this magazine of an album. It ends with the aforementioned Joey Roukens (born 1982). He was in the Rubens quartet with Sarah and Roeland. They say his music, some dedicated to their little daughter, is ‘wonderfully diverse and timeless’ So interesting it must be to watch music made for your own family absorb into the canon , there for all time.
I have had to listen to this album at least five times to begin to come to terms with the breadth and depth of its ambitions. After the next five times I. think I will be getting there as music so simple but so demanding begins to feel a natural part of my own cultural life. Whilst Scott Walker deserves a spin of discovery, these musical pieces are a good start at expansion of the range of appreciation. And all on only two, splendidly precious warm beautiful instruments, supported by an entire national effort to make sure the art of music is not drowned in a sea of distress.
