United Kingdom Virtuoso Violin: Mathilde Milwidsky (violin), Huw Watkins (piano). Levinsky Hall, University of Plymouth, 12.11.2022. (PRB)
Bartók – Romanian Folk Dances
Huw Watkins – Arietta; Romance; Partita for solo violin
Paganini – Caprice No.24 for solo violin
Elgar – Sonata for violin and piano
Ravel – Tzigane for violin and piano
This was a recital within the Musica Viva Concert Series below the auspices of University of Plymouth’s Arts Institute. It was solely the second such occasion in Levinsky Hall because the recently-renamed venue – previously known as Lecture Theatre One – had taken over the position of the University’s important live performance venue.
The first live performance could also be remembered for its bomb scare, an unlucky consequence of an unsecure message on social media, learn by greater than its meant recipient. University audiences have come to count on the thirty-minute pre-concert discuss, however on that night time it had clearly been troublesome to listen to behind the auditorium. So, it was rewarding to see Arts Institute Director of Music Dr Robert Taub introduce, and chat with, the night’s two performers in the identical informal but most informative style, and this occasions everybody was capable of get pleasure from what was being stated.
Mathilde Milwidsky started her recital with Bartók’s Six Romanian Dances in Zoltán Székely’s 1925 association for violin and piano. They proved the best begin to the programme. All six of them launched a minimum of one side of Milwidsky’s phenomenal approach, which might then be developed as the remainder of the programme unfolded – and all in a piece acquainted to audiences in its totally different kinds.
Within just a few bars of Joc cu bâtă, it grew to become abundantly clear that not solely had been we in for a musical deal with when it comes to efficiency, however that we had been listening to a really particular instrument certainly: an unimaginable 1697 Stradivarius on mortgage from Beare’s (London). Highlights included heat and wealthy tone within the opening piece, extremely adept articulation, allure and charm in Brâul, an ethereal but splendidly managed use of harmonics in Pê loc, Gypsy rhythms and passions in Buciumeana, and a most vivid sense of dance, motion and an unbridled sense of enjoyable in Poargâ românească, and Mărunţel which completes the set.
Huw Watkins is not only a a lot sought-after pianist and accompanist, however a composer in his personal proper. He has been described as one of the vital nicely rounded composer-musicians within the UK. The pre-concert discuss revealed that there was a musical bond between violinist and accompanist which numerous years working collectively had clearly spawned. By approach of demonstration, Milwidsky continued with Watkins’s two items for violin and piano, Arietta and Romance. He briefly describes Arietta as ‘a quiet moment of introspection, where the violin’s melody unfolds slowly, suspended above the piano’s light harmonic internet’. In Milwidsky’s eminently delicate arms, it could merely seem superfluous to remark additional; the identical very a lot applies to her equally beautiful efficiency of Romance.
The artists had entitled their programme Virtuoso Violin. There have already been many moments the place mastery is clearly germane to the musical argument, virtuosity and Nicolò Paganini would very a lot appear to go hand-in-hand on the planet of violinists. That is maybe nowhere extra so than in Caprice No.24, extensively thought-about one of the vital troublesome mainstream items ever written for solo violin. It incorporates a plethora of parallel octaves and speedy shifting that covers many intervals, extraordinarily quick scales and arpeggios, left-hand pizzicato, excessive positions, fast string crossing, in addition to many double stops, together with thirds and tenths – all solid as a theme, eleven variations and a finale.
Milwidsky gave a really gorgeous all-round efficiency. She appeared to make mild of the bristling technical challenges in nearly each bar, however by no means to the purpose that the composer’s authentic intention was not realised. The taking part in shed among the work’s demonic magic – slightly like discovering out how the ‘Saw a Woman in Half’ phantasm is definitely fairly simply managed.
This was underlined, furthermore, by Milwidsky’s selection to not finish her first half on such a tour de power and retire to the inexperienced room to regroup and recharge the batteries. Instead, she continued with one other work for solo violin, Huw Watkins’s Partita, initially written for the Alina Ibragimova, a BBC New Generation Artist within the 2005-2007 cohort. Watkins’s twelve-minute work is ready in 5 actions – Maestoso, Lento ma non troppo, Lento, Comodo, Allegro molto – and seeks to mix three deftly-wrought sections, with interludes of improvisatory adroitness. Milwidsky’s virtuosity was once more plentiful within the efficiency, which, on this event, was additionally completely in synch with the mental calls for of the composer’s rating. This was but once more a fairly excellent studying; a second listening to may very a lot improve it at a while sooner or later.
Milwidsky opened the second half with arguably the spotlight of the night, Elgar’s wonderful Violin Sonata in E minor, which he described thus: ‘The first movement is bold and vigorous, then a fantastic, curious movement with a very expressive middle section; a melody for the violin […] they say it is as good or better than anything I have done in the expressive way […] the last movement is very broad and soothing, like the last movement of the second symphony.’ From the harmonic side alone, many options within the rating are worthy of remark, as is the abundance of technical difficulties alongside the best way, for the violinist particularly, however for me this work is all about heartfelt ardour of the pure Elgarian selection. It is a novel expertise that ideally must be felt and usual from a raft of life experiences, one thing that the youngest artist is much less more likely to empathise with, a minimum of initially.
This was merely not the case in Mathilde Milwidsky and Huw Watkins’s great taking part in. The non secular empathy we had picked up on in the course of the pre-concert discuss now revealed itself in all its glory. The artists had been as one all through. They drew the viewers into the intimacy of a valuable efficiency, because the composer’s beautifully-crafted rating merely wafted by means of the air-conditioned air.
We have already had a style of Milwidsky’s uncanny really feel for instrumental color once we had been transported to a gypsy dance someplace in Romania, courtesy of Béla Bartók. We returned to that atmosphere for the ultimate piece on supply, Ravel’s Tzigane for violin and piano. The composer’s final essay within the Hungarian model, it arguably represents the all-time apotheosis on stylised Gypsy music. The lengthy opening cadenza for violin takes in actual fact almost half of the entire time. Its virtuoso options consist principally of intense high-position work on the G string, along with octaves and different a number of stops, tremolos and arpeggios. Harmonics and additional fireworks are left for the quick part – a extra dazzling assortment of left-hand pizzicato that had not been heard since Paganini’s day.
The efficiency, evidently, was a tour de power. Along with the opposite works heard in the course of the recital, it made this second live performance within the Musica Viva Series most likely the best violin and piano duo recital heard within the metropolis for numerous years.
Plymouth audiences should really feel enormously indebted to the University, and notably its Arts Institute, however equally to the perception and imaginative and prescient of director Bob Taub. He as soon as extra received high-calibre artists to a metropolis that has of late appeared disadvantaged of performances at this degree of experience and musicianship.
At the second, the Steinway Grand nonetheless appears at its finest in chamber music ensembles, however the removing of among the remaining wall panels may show extra receptive to enhancing the sound of a solo piano.
Oh, and we used to have the identical previous music stands at college, a few years in the past – simply saying.
Philip R Buttall