Half a century ago Din l-Art Ħelwa, an NGO working for the safeguarding of our national heritage, was founded by Judge Maurice Caruana Curran and a small nucleus of associates.
The event took place at the Manoel Theatre... so it was most appropriate for the golden jubilee concert commemorating it to be held at the same location.
The concert works, which featured no solo part, started with Carmelo Pace’s Sinfonietta – an assertive and forceful statement displaying a contrasting tenderness in the middle of its three movements .
While the music was entrusted to the Malta Philharmonic Orchestra, directed by Brian Schembri, the evening’s star attraction was violinist Carmine Lauri, who was greeted by a very warm applause which became deservedly stronger with every work he performed.
The violin is Lauri’s magic wand because the music he interprets is little less than magic, an enchanting trip along a route charted by Wieniawski, Sarasate, Tchaikovsky and back again to Wieniawski.
These composers were all contemporaries and hailed from what many still consider the golden age of violin virtuosi. Of the three Tchaikovsky was the only one not a virtuoso violinist-composer.
Wieniawski’s Polonaise in D Major Op.4 certainly has many brilliant and fiery virtuoso touches, but there were some more reflective passages midway through the piece.
Even when keeping in mind the overall impression Lauri made, nothing could surpass the immensely exquisite and superbly controlled, deeply-moving passion and tenderness with which he interpreted Sarasate’s Romanza Andaluza, Op. 22, N. 1.
A violinist with Lauri’s superb technical prowess could make light of all difficulties and obstacles in his path. However, it takes a special musicality and feeling to be able to exert such fine control and to project that ethereal feeling he projected in this piece.
The violin is Lauri’s magic wand, because the music he interprets is little less than magic
Very different was the Waltz Scherzo, a pretty folly performed in style, that kind of waltz (molto non ballabile, just like Chopin’s) which in many parts would be quite difficult to dance.
In this case the violin launched into quite impressive perky flourishes. Lauri’s last offering was the Rondo: Allegro Giocoso from Wieniawski’s Concerto in F # Minor Op.14. It has its fair share of reflective and calmer passages, but it is virtuosity which wins out as it strives after and obtains the desired effect in an atmosphere worthy of a concerto finale.
Except for a rather slippery entry by the horn in a second statement of the main theme, Ravel’s Pavane pour une enfante defunte moved on as smoothly as ever, perhaps even more warmly this evening.
As regards the concluding work, Shostakovich’s Symphony N. 9 in E flat Major, Op. 70, it did not hit one so much in that sardonic first movement, one which still retained that underlying defiant cheek.
The slower passages continued maintaining the right balance with the faster and occasionally more bombastic ones.
In the latter there was no slowing down in the energetic drive, vigour and zest with which the orchestra hurtled forward, always done, however , in a sure footed way. No less, of course, in the concluding allegretto, the symphony’s climactic crowning glory.