Ysaÿe - Wieniawski - Bartók - Brahms - Ravel
Laurent Korcia, violin
Saténik Khourdoian, violin
David Lively, piano
Four notes in to the opening number, the G-string on his violin snapped, leaving Laurent Korcia eyeing his Stradivarius with a rueful air before going off to repair it. Better then, right at the start, than later - the last time I saw a violinist lose a string in concert, it was right in the middle of Ravel's Tzigane, which was the closing item of this evening's programme, and that would really have spoiled the mood! And the last time I saw a string instrumentalist lose a string, the cellist had forgotten his spares and had to go back to his lodgings, leaving his pianist to fill in the ensuing half-hour delay with an impromptu solo recital. Fortunately, Korcia is a professional, and the delay was minimal; he returned within five minutes and recommenced the Ysaÿe Duo for two violins, the first item in a 20-odd minute sequence of pieces for Korcia and the young French-Armenian violinist Saténik Khourdoian.
The Ysaÿe was a curious piece. I'm reasonably familiar with the Sonatas for solo violin, which are highly original, but this was rather more conventional, with strong overtones of late Beethoven. In its writing, it was not unlike hearing a piece for piano four-hands, with very clear Primo and Secundo parts, but the problem was that Korcia's violin tone is much richer than Khourdoian's, and as he was playing Secundo, he tended to swamp her a little. In the later pieces, where the roles were either inverted, as in the Wieniawski Etude-Caprice No.1, or much more equal, in a selection from Bartók's 44 Duos for two violins, Khourdoian was able to assert herself rather better. The Bartók items are still clearly learning pieces, violin equivalents of the Mikrokosmos studies for piano, but their folkloric tang is nevertheless delightful.
Khourdoian made way for the pianist David Lively, to partner Korcia in a relaxed and lyrical reading of Brahms's 1st Violin Sonata. Here, Korcia's warm timbre ensured that the work had all the autumnal glow one expects from the mature Brahms. On the other hand, although the Tzigane was certainly technically proficient enough - and Lively was relishing the dissonant crunches of Ravel's piano evocation of the cimbalom - the velvety texture of Korcia's playing, and the speed he had chosen, tended to obscure the details of the violin line. The piece is better suited to a leaner violin sound, which permits clearer articulation. Nevertheless, it went down well enough with the audience for them to insist enthusiastically on some encores, and if the first was a piece of Kreisleriana tosh, the second was rather more interesting, two charming pieces for two violins and piano by Shostakovich in popular vein, a soulful Romance, and a wry and wistful little Waltz.
[Next : 10th August]
No comments:
Post a Comment