Remember me moaning in a previous Gig-a-Blog™ about bad balance? Well, today Anete Graudina (violin) and Simon Davies (guitar) showed how it's done. In a lovely recital of Vivaldi, Granados, Kreisler and Pujol (who he?) they treated the slightly damp St Anne's audience to a balance so natural and sympathetic that I couldn't imagine it any better. Just there, perfectly present, both performers nicely in your head without either being in your face.
I should confess to a slight bias in that I love this pairing of instruments. It's such a warm, live sound that it always makes me very aware that not much by way of mechanism is involved, that what you hear is pretty much just pairs of hands in rather direct contact with the noise itself.
Random gibberings:
- Vivaldi - Sonata in Am op 2 no. 12 - just wonderful.
- Granados - Zambra (Spanish Dance) - impressive, passionate, one or two hairy corners hey woo eek etc.
- Kreisler - Liebeslied - warm, lilting, poised.
- Kreisler - Schön Rosmarin - light, clever, witty.
- Pujol was born in 1957 so must be a good bloke hem hem. His Suite Buenos Aires is tonal, populist and light: oh dear, how awful! Actually I loved it - there are some fabulous tunes and it has huge character and vigour. The slow movement is simply beautiful (both ways round), and the finale just as flashy and exuberant as you might hope.
- Something jolly by Paganini was the encore. This was the only non-arrangement in the programme, Anete told me afterwards.
As Jana said, this was the perfect recital for the weather: it's been monsoon-like rain this morning but is currently sunny, so it's a concert's worth of warming through, drying out and cheering up. Excellent. Walked back to the office in bright sunshine, admiring blue sky with white fluffy clouds – can this possibly last? My Senior Daughter is queuing outside Waterstones this evening in connection with a certain H. Potter book, so I hope that it can, yes…
No comments:
Post a Comment