The presence in Malta recently of virtuoso performer Gjorgji Cincievski enabled him to make history with the first-ever double-bass recital.
The opportunity to do the same in Gozo came when, with pianist Joanne Camilleri, he gave an acclaimed performance at the Aula Mgr. G. Farrugia as part of the 14th International Victoria Arts Festival.
The Macedonian musician, who leads the double-bass section with the Malta Philharmonic Orchestra, showed yet again how he could make short shrift of seemingly insurmountable technical difficulties in works written for his instrument or in works for other solo instruments transcribed for the double-bass.
Unwieldy as the double-bass may look, when entrusted to such an accomplished performer results in the most surprising effects. It ranged from warm lyrical cantabile to mischievous playfulness, and the high level of virtuosity could perhaps be even better gauged when Cincievski performed two solo works.
The first was Motivy, by Bulgarian composer Emil Tabakov. This was underlined by frequent changes of rhythm in true Balkan fashion. The piece never lacked keen expressiveness while at the same time there was plenty of scope to exploit the instrument’s sonorous possibilities.
With Czech composer Miloslav Gajdos’s work, Invocation, the instrument and performer were put to an even harder testing of their abilities. Nothing seemed to deter the performer who regaled the work with passion and was to end it with an almost mischievously soft note.
Camilleri excels both as soloist and accompanist and here she was at her best in a supporting role which enhanced the Cincievski transcription of Joseph Vella’s lovely Elegy for Cello and Orchestra, Op. 66. Form and structure combine with an infectious lyricism in this work which was projected with a warmly detached kind of dignity.
Cincievski has a penchant for arranging works which strike him as suitable material for transcription, with the double-bass as the main beneficiary. Yet no less the public too because it is provided with insight into a different sound world to the familiar one as presented by Bruch’s Kol Nidrei, Op. 47, also originally for cello and orchestra. A lovely work throughout but the enchanting mid-section, with its emotional and irresistible outburst, and which reappears towards the end, outshines anything else in the work, and it was all coming from the great-grandfather of the strings and the piano’s harp-like tone.
Two brief bonbons were provided, beginning with Kussevitsky’s bright and not-so-easy Valse Miniature, where display meant to be difficult was made to seem so easy.
Ombra Mai Fu from Handel’s Serse was a fine contrast with its suavely projected warmth. Glière’s Intermezzo and Tarantella, Op. 9 was left for the end. This deliberate show-stopper begins with a slow intermezzo which develops and explodes into a wild tarantella at the end of which the audience accorded the performers a standing ovation, the latter being in turn regaled with an encore of the Tarantella.