Exceptional violinists

Concert
Daniel Auner, violin;
Barbara de Menezes Galante, violin
The Friends of the Manoel/Embassy of Austria.
Sala Isouard

The recital, sponsored by the Embassy of Austria, is the first of several aimed at enriching the local music scene, as Austrian ambassador Petra Schneebauer announced.

Two more recitals in this series will be presented on May 28 and 31.

This evening’s was a truly marvellous experience because the two violinists performed with great musicality, technical preparation, versatility of style and ideal balance. One could feel the complementary nature of their rapport and how well this was projected to the audience.

They were in perfect harmony and support. This was well-established in the opening, an elegant rococo sonata by Leclair, in three movements, the middle of which was a stylish gavotte flanked by more lively movements.

There was a sudden jump in idiom with Alexey Igudesman’s Samba Serio (2008). Its rhythmic vitality and diversity had this wondrous forward-moving well-shaped music which ran separately along parallel lines, each violin maintaining a different rhythm, yet they made the two parts fit very well together.

Then with the greatest of ease and smoothness, the duo launched into Mozart’s Duo No. 1 K. Anh., 152, Heft 1. This was one of the most charming works of the evening and, frankly, with Mozart they could do no less than to render it so.

Max Haager’s Sonatine im Spiegelkanon was a very compact and crisp exercise with the violins playing in a reflective canon in the opening movement marked frisch. The sehr langsam that followed provided a lively contrast with the concluding lebhaft with which the work ended on a rather suspended note.

Helmut Eder’s Hommage à J.S.B. in No. 4 of the Vier Stücke für 2 Violinen Op. 73/1 (1981) was obviously inspired by J.S. Bach.

Contrasts were even wilder and wider in Prokofiev’s Sonata for 2 violins, Op. 56. The work started with a deceptively very delicate andante cantabile, only to be followed by the sharply explosive allegro and its pungent, tense introduction. It was to remain very turbulent and quite unlike the commodo in which muted violins added an ethereal touch to the sound.

Then from one extreme to the other it was back to stormy waters in the final allegro con brio. Staccato playing, with urgent precision and tension, a few tranquil moments, and the work came to a rousing finish.

Further evidence of the duo’s versatility came with the Igudesman arrangement of the Mexican folk song, La cucaracha, which was conceded as an encore.