Exquisite violin and guitar fare

Concert
Marco Misciagna, violin Vito Velardi, guitar
Our Lady of Victory church

Those fortunate enough to have heard this young duo during one of the Bir Miftuħ International Music Festival recitals a few months ago had the great pleasure of enjoying some of the most exquisitely performed music last week at Our Lady of Victory church.

They came to provide their superb talent in aid of the restoration of the Erardi vault paintings, work on which will be commenced this month in collaboration with the Courtauld Institute of Art, London.

It is a costly undertaking but as Din l-Art Ħelwa’s executive president Simone Mizzi said, this necessary and admirable task is going ahead.

Funds are needed to make it work and presenting this duo was part of a fundraising programme for the purpose.

Would it be enough to sing the praises of this marvellous duo? Hardly, and they honoured their commitment despite family problems affecting one of the musicians.

Also despite having little time to rehearse, having their separate engagements to honour, with one coming to Malta from Italy and the other from France.

They simply provided well over an hour of gorgeously performed music.

They have a solid rapport, absolutely complementary and mutually supportive and when they get together as a duo they are superb. They move smoothly from work to work with utter concentration and commitment managing to involve their audience to the full.

The concert was dubbed A Christmas Concert but the Yuletide element was limited to the second half. The first part included works which were a pleasure to hear again after having been performed at Bir Miftuħ.

The heavenly sweetness of the violin’s tone was established right away with the first movement of Christian Scheidler’s Sonata.

It is a work dominated by the violin but as early as the central Romanza the guitar assumed a slightly more prominent role and continued doing so in the concluding Rondo.

The increasing importance of the guitar came to full fruition in Giuliani’s Gran Duo Concertante, understandable as this composer was a great guitar virtuoso.

The guitar is far from being in a merely accompanying role and often takes the initiative. Balancing it is the violin which especially in the Andante molto sostenuto had a full, unforgettable cantabile tone.

That cantabile reigned supreme again, especially in Paganini’s Sonata No. VI, in the first movement of this short two-movement work, one of dozens written by Paganini, whose favourite second instrument was the guitar.

It finished with a most sprightly dance-like movement, very much akin to the previously performed Paganini Sonatas Nos.1, 2 and 6, Opus 2. The Christmas part of the concert came after this, beginning with a needless to say impressive performance of the Bach-Gounod Ave Maria.

There followed a series of familiar works in most clever arrangements by Andrea Scarpone beginning with Brahms’s well-known Lullaby (Guten Abend) which was all the more effective as the violin played it in muted form.

O Tannenbaum (O Christmas Tree), which included passages of violin double-stopping, seemed like a theme and variations exercise of a quite virtuoso nature for the violin with the guitar accompaniment in a more contemporary idiom.

I have to admit that neither Jingle Bells nor We Wish You a Merry Christmas are among my favourites for they somehow seem very trite to me. The arrangements were far from that in these performances and were utterly delightful, “classically” dressed up as they were.

There had to be an encore and that came with Schubert’s lovely Ave Maria. At the end of the concert, which was presented by Patricia Salomone.