Passages of love

Composer and pianist Veronique Vella presented a selection of her works for the Manoel Theatre’s Spotlight Concert series on November 3 in a recital at the theatre’s Isouard Hall.

The concert aria is evidence thatMaltese lends itself well to thismusical setting- Robert Micallef

The programme comprised compositions by Vella, some of which were written in Scotland where she obtained a doctorate in musical composition.

In addition, Vella played a number of pieces which, apart from her own works, included MusicaRicercata by the avant-garde Hungarian composer Gyorgi Ligeti and a concert aria composed by Alexander Vella Gregory based on a poem by Immanuel Mifsud. The latter piece, inspired by a Grimm fairytale, shows that Maltese lends itself well to this musical setting.

The evening opened with a dark composition inspired by the poem Epilogue by Louis MacNeice in which Vella evokes the Irish poet’s images of desperation and translates them into music using a variety of techniques.

A Maltese translation of a verse “You who have felt the death wish” (li ħassew xewqa ta’ mewt) is included in the middle section sung by Clare Ghigo to haunting effect.

The programme continued with a more bouncy and vivacious short piece called Kapriċċ which Vella dedicates to her former piano tutor Peter Evans who premiered the work in Germany. It is sprightly and powerful with a temporary disquieting turn in the middle segment and includes the horn performed by Josef Camilleri.

Then came a number of solos. Wens, a Vella composition for the flute, performed by Rebecca Hall, demonstrated the versatility of the instrument using several extended techniques. The piece was first commissioned by virtuoso Irish flautist Aisling Agnew who premiered the work in Dundee’s St Paul’s Cathedral two years ago.

Moon Palace 1, composed by Katrina Burton and performed by pianist Tricia Dawn Williams, is inspired by Paul Auster’s novel and is a musical exploration of the composer’s own tinnitus predicament, a health condition linked to ringing, swishing or other types of noise that seem to originate in the human ear or head.

In Fantasia Vella performs her first solo work for piano in an improvisatory mode. When she first performed it in 2010 as part of theEdinburgh Fringe Festival, Prof. Graham Hair wrote that Fantasia is “very idiomatically written for the piano and reflects compositional sophistication”.

Passages Of Love For Voice (Ghigo) and piano (Vella) uses verses by young poet Marco Montalto to create seven short songs contemplating contending feelings of love and rejection, while with Fjuri, performed by Equinox Trio – Tatiana Chircop, Lino Pirotta and Williams – Vella tries to capture Maltese soundscapes via slow and fast movements.

Examples of this are a violin melody representing the cry of street vendors and a playful section recalling the game of Passju. With Fjuri, Vella uses echoes of Onġi-o Kavallier to induce feelings of nostalgia for Maltese habits and culture. Fjuri was first performed three years ago in Edinburgh.

Despite adverse conditions such as insufficient lighting arrangements and an occasional struggle to adjust the piano stool, Vella did remarkably well to alternate between introducing each piece and performing delightfully to a reasonably sized audience.

By the time Vella bestowed her encore, Evening Meditation from Charles Camilleri’s Times Of Day, the audience applauded her impressive range of talent and, as the deputy chairman of the Manoel Theatre Kenneth Zammit Tabona put it in a short speech at the end, her ability to overcome the intellectual challenge required to amplify the beauty of her work.