Victoria Arts Festival opens with thrilling virtuosity

Opening concert
Malta Philharmonic Orchestra
St George’s Basilica

The 16th edition of the Victoria Arts Festival kicked off last Wednesday with a concert by the Malta Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by its resident composer Joseph Vella.

One could label this cultural event as a mini-miracle

The climax of the evening was Piotr Iliya Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto Op. 35 with virtuoso violinist Dejan Bogdanovic regaling the appreciative audience with an exhilerating rendering of this technically most demanding showpiece.

Up to then, the orchestra, which seemed to raise its performance by a further notch for the violin concerto, had warmed up with three short pieces namely: the overtures from Gioacchino Rossini’s Tancredi and from the opera-comique Cimarosa by our French-based Maltese composer Nicolò Isouard, and the evergreen Morning from the incidental music Peer Gynt Op. 23 by Norwegian composer Edvard Grieg.

Tchaikovsky’s masterpiece, teeming with melodies, is in three movements: an Allegro moderato followed by an Andante-canzonetta which flows without pause into the Finale: Allegro vivacissimo.

Written in Switzerland while recovering from a bout of depression following marriage breakdown, this violin concerto did not go down well neither with Leopold Auer, the fabled Hungarian violinist to whom the original score was dedicated, nor with music critics.

Auer himself, having had a change of heart, altered some parts especially in the breathtaking cadenzas, declaring that some passages were not suitable to bring out the real character of the instrument; hence, he always performed his revised version.

Given these remarks, the outstanding performance of the concerto adds credit to the soloist as on the night he rendered the original version rather than the revised Auer one.

Sitting in awe on the edge of our seats we had the sensation that more than an instrument, Bogdanovic had an extended arm producing the most thrilling runs, creating a dialogue with the very supportive orchestra and creating artistic tension of the highest order.

Whether playing cadenzas or passionately engulfed in the broad melody of the second movement canzonetta, the rapport with the audience was mentally and spiritually elevating.

As an encore, Bogdanovic played another bravura solo excerpt by an undisclosed contemporary Italian composer, based on themes from Gaetano Donizetti’s Lucia di Lammermoor.

A word of praise for our national orchestra is not amiss because the first three pieces were full of colour and character displaying well-controlled dynamics, especially in the carefully built-up Rossinian crescendi and in the meditative rendering of Grieg’s Morning.

Obviously, if the evening was such a success, credit must be given to Mro Vella, who with his team of just four people, masterminds this annual cultural event which is gaining international recognition. The Victoria Arts Festival comprises a series of 32 concerts. If the aperitiv reached such a high calibre, there is a feast of music waiting for all those who intend patronising the forthcoming evenings.

Considering that entrance to all concerts is free of charge, one could label this cultural event as a mini-miracle.