SIBBI BERNHARDSSON Violin Recital / Review

 

SIBBI BERNHARDSSON Violin Recital

Yong Siew Toh Conservatory Concert Hall

Tuesday (13 January 2026)

Imagine a concert of works by composers whom I had never heard of. That was the first half of a solo violin recital by Icelandic violinist Sibbi Bernhardsson. He was for 17 years the second violinist of the USA-based Pacifica Quartet, well-known for its recordings of 20th century and contemporary string quartet repertoire. He is now a faculty member of Oberlin Conservatory, Ohio where he was an alumnus.

Sibbi Bernhardsson spoke briefly
about all the works.

A very attentive audience caught all of his notes.

His recital was centred on works by Icelandic composers and American composers based in Ohio. For a small but privileged Singaporean audience, there were even two world premiere performances. The first was Finnur Karlsson’s Dalalæða (translating loosely as "light"), a four-movement suite performed without break. On A Gravel Road was minimalist and gritty, built on an ostinato of repeated notes. The influence of folk music may be discerned, and there was lyricism in Waltz, while in Valley Mist, double-stopping and hints of haunting melody wafted in and out, before A Merchant Alone closed quietly and ethereally.

The other world premiere was Una Sveinbjarnardottir’s Kaer which involved outtakes of breath at the beginning and end, as well as strategic places in the score for dramatic effect. The music operated in the highest registers of the violin and also explored harmonics, besides in engaging in Paganinian exercises. This work was dedicated to Bernhardsson’s mother.

Extended techniques were heavily involved in this recital, of which Bernhardsson proved to be a true master as well as persuasive advocate. Tryggvi Baldvinsson’s And the Silence – in memory of a poet involved silent bowings which later coalesced into diminutive sounds. Absolute quiet from the audience had to be exercised to catch these moments. There was an element of call and response, where utterances provoked a reply of some sort. I am reminded somewhat of Charles Ives’ The Unanswered Question, the replies gradually building up to something epic and full-blooded, before receding into silence. Bernhardsson described this work as a requiem.

The fourth Icelander, Þorkell Sigurbjornsson (1938-2013), a prolific and pioneer of contemporary Icelandic music, happens to be Bernhardsson’s uncle. His More Steps alternated opening pizzicatos with fast virtuosic etude-like passages, the sort virtuoso violinists are wont to practise and overcome. Maybe he had foretold high hopes of a nephew reaching Parnassus by becoming such an instrumentalist.

The two American composers featured were Jeffrey Mumford and Stephen Hartke. Mumford’s an expanding distance of multiple voices comprised five continuous movements, opening with Estatico e molto appassionato, with descriptions matching to a tee what was actually being played. Emotionally charged, the music scaled peaks and pored troughs before closing with Maestoso, and a series of pizzicatos. Hartke’s Caoine comes from the Irish word for cry, and channels folk fiddling from the Emerald Isle with a folk melody yearning to come out.

The shorter second half of Bernhardsson’s recital featured one very familiar name, Johannes Brahms. Make that two, as Singaporean pianist Lim Yan was his partner in Brahms’s Violin Sonata No.2 in A major (Op.100). This music sang and soared through its three lyrical movements, and let it not be said that a specialist in contemporary music cannot also thrive in traditional and mainstream classical music. As much as the first half was a discovery of new sounds, the second half was a reunion of old friends. That is, simply, the joy of chamber music at its purest.