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Festival Review Christopher Morley, Wednesday August 13th. 2007, The Birmingham Post
Unanimity of tone covering a wide range of styles.
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Now a firmly established fixture in Stratford's cultural calendar, The Virtuoso Violin festival has confirmed its credentials by drawing a sizeable paying audience to its concluding concert, and the whole enterprise has stepped up several notches in terms of status and presentation.
The amazing thing about Monday's finale was the quality of the orchestra coached by festival director Rimma Sushanskaya , young people drawn from a variety of countries playing with a wonderful unanimity of tone and attack in music covering a wide range of styles.
Sushanskaya directed from the violin for Bach's C minor Double Concerto, where her oboist player was the much-loved ex-CBSO principal Richard Weigall. His beautifully turned, controlled phrasing was matched by rich , dark tones full of significance from Sushanskaya, the sounds of her great teacher, David Oistrakh seeming to live on here. The orchestra was alert and well drilled, and there was much dynamic delicacy in this generous acoustic.
Weigall was also the flickeringly deft. lyrical solo in Guy Wolfenden's sparkling Oboe Concerto, a work almost Finzi-esque in its bucolic evocations, with busy, bouncing strings expertly marshalled under Sushanskaya's baton.
There was a Russian-sounding episode in the finale here, but the conductor found herself equally at home in the two very English string interludes from Walton's film music Henry V. With bravely sustained tones , sonorous yet gentle, this was an affecting performance , and I suggest Warlock's Capriole Suite for next year.
Finally came some genuinely Slavic music , Dvorak's deeply-felt Serenade for Strings, flowing and graceful under Shushanskaya's direction, and with some confidently shaped rubato.
All we need now is the flash-happy cameras, which diminish an otherwise highly professional event, to be banished.
Christopher Morley |
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