VIOLIN AND PIANO DUO CONCERT / TASMIN LITTLE & MARY WU / Review

VIOLIN & PIANO DUO RECITAL

TASMIN LITTLE, Violin

& MARY WU, Piano

City Hall Concert Hall, Hong Kong

Sunday (25 June 2017)

It is a short distance between Shenzhen and Hong Kong, such that I was able to hop over the China-Hong Kong boundary to spend a couple of days in Hong Kong – to shop, eat and listen to more music. After four nights of relentless piano concertos at the Shenzhen International Piano Competition finals, it came as a relief to hear the solo violin again. The source was the great British violinist Tasmin Little herself, partnered by her former schoolmate and good friend, the Hong Kong pianist Mary Wu.

To refer to Tasmin Little as a virtuoso would be an understatement. Her many recordings through the years (on the EMI labels, Decca and now Chandos) attest to her musicianship and versatility, and it was a pleasure to hear her in a full-length recital rather than just in concertos. The evening opened with the short Scherzo in C minor by Brahms, part of the multi-composer F.A.E. Sonata written for Joseph Joachim, which yielded a fiery response from both violinist and pianist.

This was the appetiser for Schubert’s lovely Sonata (or Sonatina, as it is sometimes known) in D major D.384 which was a lyrical balm for the ears. Here is the Lieder composer at his most congenial, aided by Little’s sweet and lovely tone in its three movements. Never too cloying or over-sentimental, the singing tone was what one would expect in this most effable of chamber music.

This was contrasted with the impressionist textures of Frederick Delius’ Second Sonata, a work championed by Little and which she recorded with Piers Lane on the Conifer label during the 1990s. The shortest of four sonatas, it swept through breezily in a single movement, revealing sumptuous melodies and harmonies. There was an element of folk and dance music, playfully captured before closing in the comfortable home key of C major.    

Both Little and Wu had solo works on their own. During the first half, Mary performed Debussy’s L’Isle Joyeuse, a reading that dazzled in its play of colour and light, revelling in a glorious climax before a truly joyous close. Tasmin’s arrangement (with her friend Rachel Jennings) of Albeniz’s Asturias was just as stunning. Despite its repetitious figurations and rhythms, it traversed through an entire gamut of mostly jaw-dropping technical tricks.

The concert proper closed with a masterful account of Cesar Franck’s popular Sonata in A major. As with the earlier works, Little’s mellifluous voice impressed in the static beauty of the slower first and third movements. This was backed by Wu’s impressive pianism, not least in the treacherously difficult second movement’s thrills and spills. The finale’s canon was a thing of beauty, its simple theme first heard on the piano and repeated on the violin, building to an impassioned climax and rapturous close.  

The audience was treated to four encores from the duo. Following two of Brahms’ Hungarian Dances, the peach was Lili Boulanger’s utterly beautiful Nocturne, a work that deserves to be heard over and over again. Following that, William Kroll’s playful Banjo and Fiddle provided the icing on the cake. My stopover in Hong Kong was well-rewarded indeed.