The concert is entitled The Art of Violin. It could just as well have been entitled Art of the Baroque Violin. The baroque violin brings with it subtleties of tone and technique that the modern violin does not enjoy. In particular, there is the approach to vibrato, and a distinctly earthy, almost scratchy, timbre.
Because the violin concerto is so often affiliated with the Italian masters – in particular Corelli who perfected the concert grosso – it was well to begin with Vivaldi. Vivaldi composed over 200 violin concertos, thanks in part to his role as violin teacher in a Venetian orphanage. Stravinsky’s quip hardly rings true with Vivaldi’s Il grosso mogul. It is so lively and commanding that Bach saw fit to transcribe it for organ. The double-stopping in the opening was a bit scratchy, but Madeleine Easton’s solos in the Grave had a recitative-like expressiveness. There were guttural repeated notes in the many arpeggios of the third movement, where the cadenza ascended to the higher registers of the violin in a manner reminiscent of birdsong. The solo featured that very Italianate alternation between major and minor, which gave a delicious chiaroscuro effect.
Jean-Marie Leclair is the favourite of renowned violinist and academic Leila Schayegh, which is high praise indeed. Leclair is considered to have founded the French violin school. But his Violin Concerto in D minor, Op 7 No 1, is decidedly Italian. That is true at least of the first movement. Rafael Font as soloist began forcefully, with rapid falling thirds and many other virtuosic passages executed effortlessly. But there was little by way of dynamic variety in the whole ensemble and the impression was of a constant wave of force. Perhaps it was the resonant acoustics of St Finbar’s Church in Glenbrook. The second movement, marked Aria, was far more French. It featured the lilting sighing motifs, or plaintes, so characteristic of the French style of the time. The third movement was Font at his best – with feverish double-stopping and arpeggios played with the crispest articulation.
Handel’s Violin Concerto in B flat major, HWV 288 seems stylistically confused. It is an experimental Handel at the age of 22. The concerto begins chirpily but suddenly becomes brooding. Simone Slattery as soloist had a very subtle playing style. The following Adagio is like a recitative, and its colourful chords and key changes show that even the young Handel felt most at home in all things operatic. Some passages in the cadenzas of the third movement look forward some thirty years later to the ‘Tornami a vagheggiar’ of his Alcina.
After a short interval came Telemann’s Violin Concerto in A minor, TWV 50:a1. This too is stylistically difficult to pin down. It has all the hallmarks of the earlier stylus fantasticus and of the later empfindsamer stil; the soft beginning violently changes. The second movement had a winding chromatic theme.
Fittingly, last was Bach’s Violin Concerto in E major, BWV 1042. It was one of the best performances of this piece I have heard live. The first movement was expressive, vibrant and faultless, and the second was deeply moving.
