WHAT A PERFORMANCE!

Normally the task of dissecting a lunchtime recital is a straightforward task.  Ordinarily I am able to take notes during the performance, and scrutinize the performers as the concert ensues.  But this was no normal lunchtime recital.  And this was no ordinary performer.

When eighteen year old Savitri Grier graced the stage with her flowing dark hair, all smiles, charm and quiet allure, she had the audience gripped.  And this was before she even started playing. 

The recital began with Mozart’s Violin Sonata in Bb K454, which features a notable equality between violin and piano.  With her father, Francis, on piano, they demonstrated a formidable unity in their playing.  The two both displayed incredible chemistry with their instruments: Savitri’s brow furrowed as her fingers glided over the neck of her violin, breathing deeply as she moved with the music; Francis’ head leant back, eyes darting between the sheet music and his daughter, caught between a flux of pride and musical elation.

During the recital I was overwhelmed by the musicality of Savitri’s playing:  her lightness of touch, her melodic lyricism, her sweeping vibrato, and the tonal colour that shone in her music throughout.

The duo moved on from the Classical Sonata, to the Impressionism of Debussy’s final composition, his Violin Sonata in G minor.  The varying style of composition gave the opportunity for Savitri to display previously concealed strengths.  The work presented bitonality in certain passages, unsuspected modulations, and a peculiar juxtaposition of melancholy and humour that demanded a fiercer, yet simultaneously subtler style of playing.

Spawned from the French aesthetic of Debussy and Satie, Ravel’s “Tzigane” utilises melodies that are built around modal constructs, rather than conventional major and minor scales.  The opening few minutes of the piece are solo violin.  Inspired by gypsy melodies, the opening is an experimental outburst of improvisational motifs.  Savitri’s playing was explosive.  Although the passage was irregular, and to the listener the metre seemed undecipherable, the key indiscernible, Savitri attacked it undaunted, as comfortable in the discordant faux-gypsy modal experimentation as in Mozart’s conventional Classical form.

But words can never do justice to the performance I witnessed this lunch time.  To quote Sinatra, ‘[it was] much too much, and just too very, to ever be in Webster’s Dictionary’... I am unable to articulate the musicality I witnessed in words.  All I can say is, check Savitri and her family out the next opportunity you can!   

Monday 28th March 2011-03-28 ('Harping on about the St Martins Lunchtime Concert Series')

12.55pm, Trafalgar Square.  The sun is shining, the weather is mild and there’s a soft breeze.  I leave the bustle of workers, the mass of tourists, pigeons, sun and the cacophony of central London to enter the serenity of St. Martin in the Fields, where in 5 minutes I am about to witness my first lunchtime concert.  Having found a seat on the front row, with an excellent view of four illustrious-looking golden harps, I wait in the cool tranquillity of my surroundings for the performance.  As four smiling girls grace the stage, followed by their conductor, the congregation erupts in nervous anticipation for the ensuing recital, before a sudden hush, then complete silence...

Other than Joanna Newsom’s ‘Ys’ album, I was completely unfamiliar with any music written for harp, so today was an education for me.  The first piece, ‘In Olden Times’, was written by Gareth Wood, and comprised five movements.  In the first movement I was struck by the interwoven textures of melody and counterpoint melodies, creating a contrapuntal effect reminiscent of the baroque style.  As the section developed, the chord structure grew into a rousing pattern, and the melody soared throughout the church – the harps’ soft, nylon (I think?) strings singing out through the excellent acoustics of the venue.  The second movement, a waltz, was more delicate, and the sweet melody leant an ethereal feeling to my surroundings.  The third movement’s dark, minor sentiment was complimented by the following jovial fourth movement.  The fifth and final movement utilized a powerful, lyrical melody, where the players struck fantastical flourishes, their fingers dancing over the strings, until the piece ended in a triumphant fanfare.  The audience exploded into rapturous applause, and the four harpists stood to soak up the congregation’s gratitude, grinning from ear to ear.

Before the second piece the conductor explained that Philip White’s ‘Autumn Rain’, was a musical interpretation of D. H. Lawrence’s poem of the same name.  Out of all four pieces this was the one that moved me the most.  Throughout, White utilised discordant, scalic motifs to conjure a pitter-patter sound reminiscent of the rain.  The dissonant clashes between the harps’ jarring discords, and the lead soprano’s melody in the second movement created a haunting aura that sent chills down my spine.  The climax of the second movement built as Vanessa Bowers articulated D. H. Lawrence’s evocative lines: the sheaves of dead/ men that are slain/now winnowed soft/on the floor of heaven;/manna invisible/of all the pain/here to us given;/finely divisible/falling as rain.  The third movement was a requiem, and the music was simple, bare and gloomy, and seemed to touch a nerve with the whole of the congregation.