Repin and Lugansky: Power duo share İş Sanat stage
Two of the world’s most notable Russian music virtuosos, violinist Vadim Repin and pianist Nikolai Lugansky, came to İstanbul to perform three beloved sonatas for violin and piano at İş Sanat on March 19.
In this momentous recital, we witnessed true genius at work: While some musicians play all the right notes in the right order, Repin and Lugansky instinctively take those notes and completely reassemble our consciousness.
Starting off with Edward Elgar’s introspective and melancholy Violin Sonata in E minor, Repin only hinted at what musical glories were to come during his reading of this highly chromatic and curiously wandering work, for which he used a score. Not that I necessarily expected this thorny work to be memorized, but doing it this way felt more like a standard professorial recital.
When he pushed aside the music stand and dug into the delightful sonorities of Edvard Grieg’s Sonata No. 2 in G Major from memory, we heard how Repin had the Norwegian composer’s soul imprinted on his very being. Composed in 1867, this sonata is a fine example of musical nationalism, as it includes many references to his country’s folk music. Its triadic tonal language notwithstanding, it clearly looked into the future as Grieg wove a sense of tragedy with lighthearted folk themes in a ruggedly sinewy texture between the two instruments. Through Repin and Lugansky’s solid mastery, we floated through the warm waves of folk dance-inspired melodies as well as moments of forlorn solitude, cascading us through the joyful whirlpools of the twirling finale.
But an even more incredible magic bewitched the entire hall and every occupant in the seats when their performance of César Franck’s Sonata in A Major demonstrated a standard to which few can measure up. Their mutual passion, their ultimate control over every phrase’s breath, the superbly uttered drama and magnetic energy with which they dispatched every note was a lesson in take-no-prisoners performing: without the fire in the belly, don’t even bother.
They made every familiar line important in ways I hadn’t heard before. Each soaring crescendo, the intensity of energy flowing through each effulgent melody, the way they mined every drop of emotional sweat with intention so that even the tiniest, most pianissimo line was delicately and tenderly delivered was the zenith of consummate music-making. This sonata’s second movement is one of the outstanding epitomes of classical music’s great romantic chamber compositions. Its rhapsodic and dramatic construction, replete with cresting waves of ecstatic energy and cadences imbued with dark passion, drops us feet first into a heady yet visceral mix. In Repin and Lugansky’s hands it becomes a transcendent and miraculous experience.
Although Repin was physically front-and-center throughout, this was an ineffable duo performance of equal partners. Having heard Lugansky play here in İstanbul during a recent summer festival, this performance reaffirmed what I felt about him then. Lugansky’s power as a chamber musician is undeniably idyllic and engaging. Feeling the weight of his organic relationship with the instrument, the wide palette of colors and the effortless precision of every note provided almost intoxicating levels of enjoyment. His consummate control of both feather-weight textures and powerful fortissimo passages, all the while supporting and encircling the role of the violin, made the perfect partner in a perfectly executed, passionately delivered musical event.
After an uproar of approval by the audience, their encore of Bela Bartok’s “Rumanian Folk Dances” was a yet more delicious fare, making us all want even more. These two magnificent artists indeed provided one of the İstanbul musical season’s highlights. I breathlessly await their return.
ALEXANDRA IVANOFF
Mar 26, 2011
Mar 4, 2011
3-03-2011
A New Scottish Concerto, Dressed Up and Dreamy
Philadelphia Orchestra: Charles Dutoit, conductor, with Vadim Repin, violinist, in James MacMillan’s new Violin Concerto at Carnegie Hall., March 1st, 2011.
Composed in memory of Mr. MacMillan’s mother, who died in 2008, the concerto derives its considerable emotive impact from graceful and grotesque elements juxtaposed with a dreamy illogic. A bubbly Scottish reel breaks out at the first movement’s climax. In the second, the winsome solo lines flutter over elegiac oboe, guttural brass and dreamy, tuned percussion; a tender passage for piccolo and piano conjures an Irish folk song.
Tougher to parse is a finale that opens with a gesture Mr. MacMillan has ascribed to his dreams : over a stolid timpani tread the orchestra’s men chant, “Ein, zwei, drei, vier: Meine Mutter, tanz mit mir.” (“One, two, three, four: my mother, dance with me.”) Brass shrieks, vivacious dance rhythms and a lurid waltz parody ensue; an amplified female speaker, unseen, precedes a final solo cadenza and hammering final flourish.
However wayward the concerto might have seemed in a first listening, Mr. Repin’s unshakable bravura and the orchestra’s magnificent playing made a compelling case for it. Audience response was rousing and sustained.
Steve Smith for The New York Times
Philadelphia Orchestra: Charles Dutoit, conductor, with Vadim Repin, violinist, in James MacMillan’s new Violin Concerto at Carnegie Hall., March 1st, 2011.
Photo by Daniel Barry
The concerto, a 25-minute work in three movements, adheres loosely to historical conventions of form: a crackling opening movement (“Dance”) is followed with a more lyrical section (“Song”) and a finale filled with exuberant display (“Song and Dance”). The solo part’s torrential flurries and sweetly spun melodies are custom fitted to a virtuoso like Mr. Repin, to whom the work is dedicated. Mr. MacMillan’s estimable mastery of orchestral timbre and effect is evident throughout. Composed in memory of Mr. MacMillan’s mother, who died in 2008, the concerto derives its considerable emotive impact from graceful and grotesque elements juxtaposed with a dreamy illogic. A bubbly Scottish reel breaks out at the first movement’s climax. In the second, the winsome solo lines flutter over elegiac oboe, guttural brass and dreamy, tuned percussion; a tender passage for piccolo and piano conjures an Irish folk song.
Tougher to parse is a finale that opens with a gesture Mr. MacMillan has ascribed to his dreams : over a stolid timpani tread the orchestra’s men chant, “Ein, zwei, drei, vier: Meine Mutter, tanz mit mir.” (“One, two, three, four: my mother, dance with me.”) Brass shrieks, vivacious dance rhythms and a lurid waltz parody ensue; an amplified female speaker, unseen, precedes a final solo cadenza and hammering final flourish.
However wayward the concerto might have seemed in a first listening, Mr. Repin’s unshakable bravura and the orchestra’s magnificent playing made a compelling case for it. Audience response was rousing and sustained.
Steve Smith for The New York Times
Mar 2, 2011
2-03-2011
James MacMillan: Violin Concerto (NY Premiere)
New York, Isaac Stern Auditorium, Carnegie Hall (March 1st, 2011)
Vadim Repin (Violin)
The Philadelphia Orchestra, Charles Dutoit
As his (MacMillan) Violin Concerto was in memory of his mother, one hardly expected a Berlioz-style delight. Yet from the first notes, soloist Vadim Repin played a fervent, exciting, strange, virtual three-movement perpetual motion of string gymnastics. For the first movement, “Dance”, Mr. Repin was ferocious, fierce, never once taking his bow off the strings. It was not a robotic cadenza, but a work of personal energy, emotion, vying with the large orchestra, exploding with rhythmic sforzandi. We were breathless, Mr. Repin seemed perfectly cool.
The second movement, “Song”, was suitably reverent, but never morbid, rising up to a Barber-like crescendo and climax that actually worked.
The final movement was suitably pyrotechnical, but was filled with enigmas, beginning when the players recited German digits (“Eins! Drei!...”) followed later by a Third-Reich-style march. Mr. MacMillan obviously adores orchestral eccentricity, and his effects were as puzzling as they were beautiful. Piano and piccolo together, the violin singing in the upper ranges while the brass growled or barked in their lowest ranges. Myriads of rhythms (the movement is called “Song And Dance”), and further explosive punctuation from the Philadelphia Orchestra.
More than a tour de force, this was a celebration of violin playing itself.
Harry Rolnick
New York, Isaac Stern Auditorium, Carnegie Hall (March 1st, 2011)
Vadim Repin (Violin)
The Philadelphia Orchestra, Charles Dutoit
As his (MacMillan) Violin Concerto was in memory of his mother, one hardly expected a Berlioz-style delight. Yet from the first notes, soloist Vadim Repin played a fervent, exciting, strange, virtual three-movement perpetual motion of string gymnastics. For the first movement, “Dance”, Mr. Repin was ferocious, fierce, never once taking his bow off the strings. It was not a robotic cadenza, but a work of personal energy, emotion, vying with the large orchestra, exploding with rhythmic sforzandi. We were breathless, Mr. Repin seemed perfectly cool.
The second movement, “Song”, was suitably reverent, but never morbid, rising up to a Barber-like crescendo and climax that actually worked.
The final movement was suitably pyrotechnical, but was filled with enigmas, beginning when the players recited German digits (“Eins! Drei!...”) followed later by a Third-Reich-style march. Mr. MacMillan obviously adores orchestral eccentricity, and his effects were as puzzling as they were beautiful. Piano and piccolo together, the violin singing in the upper ranges while the brass growled or barked in their lowest ranges. Myriads of rhythms (the movement is called “Song And Dance”), and further explosive punctuation from the Philadelphia Orchestra.
More than a tour de force, this was a celebration of violin playing itself.
Harry Rolnick
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