Continuing their Summer Shorts season with live chamber concerts at St Luke's Church, London, two members of The London Symphony Orchestra gave a performance of music for violin and piano to a sadly, empty room. A trial live audience seated according to social distancing guidelines should have been present, but since new lockdown rules had been put into place, this was no longer possible, but the concert went ahead in any case and was filmed and presented online.
Father and daughter duo Francesca Lauri (piano) and Carmine Lauri (violin) played and introduced the pieces as if to a live audience. They even bowed which seemed distinctly odd and very sad. So, to compensate I found myself clapping extremely loudly at my computer screen after each piece. Goodness knows what my neighbours made of this!
The concert itself was a delightful one, and I listened to a couple of old favourites as well as being introduced to new works by unkown-to-me composers. To start they played Kreisler's arrangement of the lovely and well known Danse Espagnol (La Vida Breve) by De Falla, which was followed by the equally famous and sonorous Melodie (Memory Of A Dear Friend) by Tchaikovsky. Following this was my first new piece, a rather jolly and delightful 'Cortege' by the female French composer Lili Boulanger. Next came the tuneful and very lyrical piece written originally for guitar and violin by Paganini, known simply as 'Cantabile - always a joy to listen to this piece; which was then followed by the final three pieces all of which were unknown to me, and all of which I am happy to say were brilliant. In fact I really must do some searching for more pieces by all three of these composers. Highly enjoyable, and yet, all three so very different.
The first of these three was a novelty piece of American music, greatly influenced by the African-American music of Jazz, Spirituals, Gospel etc, titled 'Levee Dance'; whilst the penultimate piece brought us back to Europe, and more specifically to Spain with a superb and technically tricky traditional dance, the 'Jota Aragonesa' by Sarasate. The 3/4 beat strong and yet so unlike a waltz in tempo and mood. Finally to Poland, and Wieniawski's very Polish 'Polonaise'. A nice piece to finish on, and a lovely contrast from the Spanish rhythms. This piece also highly technically demanding and thrilling, and Lauri handled them with skill and obvious joy.
A great concert, with great music; such a shame it was to an empty hall!
Reviewer - Matthew Dougall
on - 9/8/20
No comments:
Post a Comment