Tonight we enjoyed a varied recital by Katie Wilkinson, viola and Marios Argiros, piano, moving from the early 1700s to a new commission, and finishing with the viola sonata that Shostakovich finished just two days before he died.
From the outset we were aware of a close partnership between the performers: sensitive to each other as well as to the music. The piano lid was fully open, but Marios’s playing ranged from full and bold to whisper quiet, always complementing the viola tone. Their playing was often exciting, but at other times they really let the music breathe.
They started with a delightful sonata attributed to Henry Eccles (1670-1742). This is evidently dubious authorship, but the four movements gave both instruments the full range of opportunity, from angular passages to calm and lyrical playing.
“Neptune’s Necklace” was written for Katie just last year by Lisa Marie Verrier. It’s interesting and significant that I had not noticed the title of the piece, but as they were playing, I scrawled on my programme the words “rock pools”.
Your humble reviewer was thrown by the next item: the lovely, lyrical Sonata in Eb Op 120 by Brahms. I’ve played the piano for this myself, but never with a violist. I toyed with its being a violin sonata, but it wasn’t until afterwards that I clocked that I’d been accompanying clarinettists. How versatile is the viola!
…and again in the final item: the Viola Sonata Op 147 by Shostakovich. This was advanced, often discordant music, completed when the composer surely knew he had not long to live. The initial Moderato was heart-rending at times, and I had the feeling that the Allegretto second movement, often quite spare and grotesque, was Shostakovich thumbing his nose at the state control that had constrained his composing for so many years. The final Adagio was an extended morendo: dying away, sometimes with the viola playing bleakly, with no vibrato.
This was a powerful end to a wonderful concert which captured our attention throughout, but after the Shostakovich there could sadly be no encore.
Clifton Hughes