Guy Johnston February 2008
Simon Brown is in Year 13 at Monmouth Comprehensive School. He plays ‘cello and double bass, and is studying Music, Music Technology, RE Philosophy and Ethics and Maths for A level. Next year he intends to go to Oxford to read Philosophy, Politics and Economics.
On Wednesday 27th February, the ‘cellist Guy Johnston, winner of the BBC Young Musician of the Year 2000, and the pianist Huw Watkins, visited Monmouth. In the afternoon they gave a masterclass to 5 young ‘cellists (including myself) from Monmouth Comprehensive School and Monmouth School. Then in the evening they gave a recital for the Merlin Music Society in the Blake Theatre.
The masterclass, held in the Auditorium of Monmouth School’s music department, was very interesting and useful for all who were present, as Johnston gave excellent guidance to each of us, and a wide range of repertoire was heard, with Bach, Saint-Saëns, Brahms, Rachmaninov and Vivaldi being played.
The programme for the evening’s performance was even more varied. Johnston started with a set of variations Beethoven wrote on a melody from Mozart’s “Die Zauberflöte”. These are a particularly inventive set of variations, and are more a duet between ‘cello and piano than a ‘cello piece with piano accompaniment. He followed the Beethoven with a number of works by Frank Bridge – his Sonata in D minor, Spring Song, Mélodie and finally Scherzetto. Just as WWI changed poetry dramatically, its influence could be heard in this music. The sonata, written during the war, was significantly darker and more dissonant than the next three pieces, all written before the war. The earlier pieces seemed much lighter, prettier and somehow more innocent, and were certainly much more diatonic in tonality. The Mélodie presents significant technical challenges to the ‘cellist, and Mr. Johnston handled these admirably.
The second half of the concert consisted of Shostakovich’s sonata in D minor and Chopin’s “Introduction and Polonaise Brillante”. The ‘cello sonata is one of Shostakovich’s most lyrical early works. I found Mr. Johnston’s account of the third and fourth movements particularly convincing. He varied the tone colour in the third movement very effectively, especially when he played high on the low G and C strings. The fourth movement featured delightfully spiky staccatos. My only gripe was that the second movement was not manic enough – he was on the sane side of the line between sanity and insanity where he should have been well off the scale on the other side. Mr. Johnston’s bow was slowly disintegrating throughout the performance, and although he broke one hair in the second movement, I felt it should have been more like 4 or 5.
Johnston and Watkins brought the Chopin, which is essentially a showcase for the technique of the players, to life. They made incredibly difficult passages seem easy, and Mr. Watkins in particular played it with a great sense of humour – at several points in this performance several members of the audience laughed out loud (in a good way - laughing with the performers, not at them). I was very impressed by Mr. Watkins’ piano playing, both in the concert and in the masterclass. All in all, both Mr. Johnston and Mr. Watkins were well worth seeing and provided fantastic teaching and entertainment.