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SEEN AND HEARD UK CONCERT REVIEW
Schumann , Sonata for Violin and Piano No.1 in A minor (Op. 105)
Szymanowski, Mythes (Op. 30)
Prokofiev, Sonata for Violin and Piano No.1 in F minor (Op. 80)
Tchaikovsky , Valse Scherzo in C major (Op.
34)
Jack Liebeck and Katya Apanisheva have worked together fairly
extensively (especially given their relative youthfulness) and
this, no doubt, contributed to that perfection of instrumental
balance and interplay which was one of the most striking
features of the very enjoyable recital they gave as part of the
attractive series of concerts presented under the banner of
"Performer +", in which soloists working with the BBC National
Orchestra of Wales - either in the concert hall or the recording
studio - also present recitals. The idea is a good one and the
resulting music has been of a high standard, so it is a great
shame that the concerts have, for the most part, been relatively
poorly attended (despite the ticket price being very modest). It
would be a pity if the sparse audiences led to an abandonment of
the scheme after this initial season.
Liebeck and Apanisheva began their programme with the first of
Schumann's two violin sonatas, both products of the last phase
of his creativity. This sonata was written in just five days -
between September 12th and 16th - in 1851,
during the composer's spell as Director for Orchestra and Chorus
in Düsseldorf. It is tempting to hear in some of the music's
intensities and changes of mood signs of Schumann's final mental
illness; but it is probably best to resist the temptation, since
to indulge it may limit the range of our responsiveness to the
music itself. Liebeck and Apanisheva were never guilty of
hyperbole in their reading of this sonata (the first movement of
which carries the marking Mit leidenschaftlichem Ausdruck).
If anything they erred on the side of understatement and the
result was a performance which was less dramatic than some
readings of the sonata, but which had a compensating subtlety
full of nuance and graduation. Transitions in that first
movement were more organic than rhetorical, though the duo
responded fully to the sense of relentless drama in the coda,
with Liebeck relishing the abundance of 16 th notes.
A momentary note of playfulness was struck in the opening of the
second movement, though the fragmentary nature of the materials,
avoiding polish and closure, was invested with a sense of
instability which was even more striking in the recapitulation
of these materials at the movement's close. Even in the
restlessly agitated and turbulent final movement there was no
hint of indulgence or emotional wallowing; melodic lines
retained some gracefulness, the contrast with some of the
discords and the acceleration of the fiercely agitated
conclusion all the more effective.
The following performance of Szymanowski's three Mythes
was profoundly poetic. Szymanowski's highly original (and surely
very influential) writing for the violin found Liebeck at his
very best, his range of colour and his sureness of technique
fully integrated in a well-nigh perfect articulation of the
composer's wonderful musical fantasies - whether in the
shimmering fluidity of 'La Fontaine d'Arethuse' or the complex
self-reflective patterns (fittingly enough) of 'Narcisse', where
the waters, shining still, were altogether more placid, or in
the ambiguous moods, by turns dreamy and fearful, of 'Dyades et
Pan'. The technical demands of Szymanowski's writing - with its
sul ponticello bowing, its use of quarter-tones, its tremolandos,
its call for simultaneous pizzicato and bowed tones (and much
else) - were overcome with such ease by Liebeck that one
scarcely thought of it as the considerable demonstration of
instrumental virtuosity that it certainly was. The music, as it
should, mattered more and, complemented by some superb work by
Apanisheva (especially in the third piece), this was an eloquent
affirmation of the remarkable beauty of these pieces.
After the interval, Prokofiev's First Violin Sonata,
begun in 1938 but not completed until 1946, was played with
powerful expressive force. This is a dark and troubled work and
Liebeck and Apanisheva gave us a committed and passionate
performance of it. Their first movement, beginning as it does
with an ominous piano line and some haunting violin writing and
ending with muted scales that the composer told David Oistrakh
should sound "like the wind in a graveyard", had a brooding 'Gothick'
atmosphere in this fine performance, a setting of a mood that
nothing that followed could ever fully dissipate. The ensuing
allegro was played with percussive intensity, with an
all-pervading sense of drama that ensured that the brief lyrical
passages were overshadowed by the accuracy and aggressive force
with which the main theme was played. A sense of fear, and of a
kind of Gothic madness were predominant in this deeply
conflicted music. The third movement - an andante - began with
tensile grace, full of flutterings and quasi-impressionistic
patterns, reminiscent in some ways of the Szymanowski that
Liebeck and Apanisheva had played earlier in the evening; but
darkness soon reclaimed its ground, and the note of brooding
inevitability and disturbance, even of a kind of elegiac
desolation, was insistently heard. The declamatory playing of
the last movement's opening pages responded admirably to the
score's seeming hints of affirmation and hope, even of
playfulness; but the hints of folk-dance rhythms don't long
survive the darker more troubled shadows. Liebeck and Apanisheva
were very impressive in terms of the exactness of the way in
which they handled Prokofiev's highly complex instrumental
dialogue in this movement; the precision with which the music's
fierce accents were managed wholly transcended any question of
technical competency, so as to become memorable for its
emotional and musical exactness. This was a remarkable
performance of what is surely one of Prokofiev's finest works.
The duo closed their programme with some more immediately
'comfortable' music - Tchaikovsky's Waltz Scherzo, composed in
1877 - altogether more elegant and, in a traditional sense, more
sophisticated. Though Liebeck responded attractively to its
buoyancy and to its attractive melodies; although he
demonstrated his ease in the different technical demands that
this music presents to a soloist, it isn't really for this piece
that I shall remember this concert. It was in the readings of
Szymanowski and Prokofiev that we heard the duo of Liebeck and
Apanisheva at their considerable best.
Glyn Pursglove