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Britten, Bach, Walton: Academy of St. Martin in the Fields, Julia Fischer, violin and director, presented by Cal Performances, Zellerbach Hall, University of California at Berkeley. 14.2.2009 (HS)


It is gratifying, and a bit puzzling, all the attention music fans have been showering on Julia Fischer. One might think that the most-downloaded classical artist on iTunes currently would be a flashy musician crossing over. At least that’s what seems to sell these days in the classical field.

Fischer, on the contrary, is a cool-tempered, serious musician who injects little of any of herself into the music. She is the poster child for the kind of musician’s musician who buries any ego in pursuit of pure music. Belying her youthful, Teutonic good looks, she looks uncomfortable with any show of emotion, except when an occasional smile plays across her lips.

In her performance Saturday evening in Berkeley,  on tour with the Academy of St. Martin in the Fields, this smile usually happened when a musical phrase went especially nicely with the other musicians on stage with her. It’s a mysterious smile, seemingly directed inwardly, not at the audience. But it reflects the collegiality that was abundantly clear in the performance. The two Bach violin concertos on a new recording by Fischer and the ASMF, the one that’s dominated the iTunes downloads at the moment, were sandwiched between mid-twentieth-century pieces for string orchestra by Britten and Walton.

Started by the conductor Sir Neville Marriner, the ASMF often performs without a leader. And, although listed as the director, Fischer’s conducting duties amounted to little more than setting tempi. Which is not to say she didn’t have her stamp on the music. Having seen her performing chamber music with other top musicians at the Aspen Music Festival the past couple of years, I can vouch for her willingness to submerge herself into the music and draw out the best from her colleagues rather than trying to dominate with her formidable technique. What shines through is a depth to her understanding of the music and a core of unstoppable energy that courses below the surface. You can feel it in the music.

In the concertos, rather than focusing on the first violins, as do most leaders, she directed most of her eye-contact to the cellos and basses carrying the bass line of the continuo. As a result, her violin line often played off the bass line like a springboard, adding zip and zest to the performance from the inside, rather than ladling on stylistic flourishes.

The only nods to period performance in the Bach were a minimizing of vibrato and a certain liveliness to tempo. Otherwise, this was straightforward playing that let Bach beguile us more than any glosses on the performance. It faltered only in the placement of the harpsichord at the back. Its sound reached me in the ninth row only sporadically. The added texture would have provided some needed spice.

The E major concerto, played after an intermission, came off as more sprightly and spirited than the A minor concerto, which concluded the first half of the program. Although both performances were rich in detail, the latter concerto seemed to let the music bubble up more easily. It also drew more smiles from the soloist. In both, the slow movements were especially ravishing, the pure sound of the soloist and ensemble meshing beautifully against a slow throb of rhythmic underpinning.

Surrounding these pleasant chestnuts with spiky, essentially youthful efforts from two of Britain’s compositional giants made for a bit of whiplash in the programming. In spite of some uncharacteristically unpolished playing at times from the ensemble, the gamble paid off with some brilliant playing that resulted in nice contrasts rather than strange juxtapositions.

Britten’s Variations on a Theme of Frank Bridge, written in 1937, pays homage to the composer’s teacher with a series of technically demanding episodes that had the string players using all of the tricks in their arsenals. These included strumming their violins and violas like guitars in the “Aria Italiana,” schaltzing up their sound in the “Wiener Walzer,” and looking ahead (or back) to the Bach in the Fugue and Finale.  When it all worked, and it often did, the results were whiz-bang impressive.

Walton’s Sonata for Strings, commissioned by the ASMF in 1971, is actually a ensemble version of the composer’s 1947 String Quartet. For my ears, the long, arching Lento was the highlight of the piece, more so than the skittering finale, with its col legno tapping and pastoral episodes.

Harvey Steiman


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