The second in the series of three recitals in this year’s edition of the Bir Miftuħ International Music Festival was presented by Din l-Art Ħelwa with the support of the German-Maltese Circle and the Goethe-Institut.
It featured the Karlsruhe Konzert Duo from Germany, wherein cellist Reinhard Armleder and pianist Dagmar Hartmann are acclaimed soloists in their own right. However, performing as a duo they were a model of mutual support, balance and understanding, seeing only to the needs of the music. Their confident approach and sheer enjoyment of music-making was evidently felt and extended to a very appreciative audience.
It would be silly to say that the recital consisted of some easy pieces and some more difficult. All music should be given the full attention and consideration it deserves and this duo did it with all the expected precision and feeling. They plumbed the deep recesses of Schumann’s Romanticism in the Fantasiestücke, Op. 73 and brought out the best of Romantic lyricism in Mendelssoh’s original Lied ohne Worte in D Major Op. 109.
The same could be said of the very popular Liebestraum, Op. 62, N.3 by Liszt. The transcription for cello and piano by Gaspar Cassadò of this original solo piano piece easily made it sound more like a song without words liked the preceding Mendelssohn work. I could not but convincingly say that the duo reached an unassailable peak with the Sonata N. 2 in F Major, Op. 99, by Brahms. It was the highlight of the performance, in which practically the two instruments are on an equal level. The often mistaken impression of Brahms as the dour, grumpy and unkempt composer is given the lie in works of his such as this.
The Classical and Romantic go hand in hand in structure and expression. A wide variety of moods and feelings, tender and assertive followed in quick succession, with a conclusion that was no less than glorious.
No less impressive was Fauré’s Elegie in C minor, Op. 24, with its basic melancholic sobriety including an intense climax. On a different note was the rather odd, and infrequently performed, Nocturne and Scherzo by Debussy, it not really being neither one nor the other but equally intriguing.
Continuing with a display of idiomatic versatility, the Karlsruhe Konzert Duo concluded with Orientale – Danza Española Op, 37 N.2 by Granados (arr. Gregor Piatigorsky), and Danza Española N1, from La Vida Breve, by de Falla (arr. Maurice Gendron) in which all the rhythmic verve, colour and energy certainly did not lack. The audience’s very warm accolade resulted in an encore, the warmly elegant and wistful Salut d’ Amour by Elgar.