For most of us on the Monterey Peninsula who regularly hear Monterey Symphony concerts, we have only been exposed to a small portion of concertmaster William Barbini's talents. Well, this week he revealed all as he played a magnificent violin recital assisted by pianist Dimitriy Cogan.
The event was a fundraiser for the Mozart Society of California held at the fabulous Pebble Beach home of Jean Hurd. Simply stated, Mr. Barbini just blew us out of the water. Not only was this masterful artistic playing of the highest order, but also there was an additional high voltage factor of extraordinary passion and commitment in his playing that made it so compelling.
A distinguished audience had an opportunity to hear this concert in a lovely spacious room where a panoramic ocean view framed by Monterey pines provided a magical backdrop to some of the best music making heard this season.
For most of us, the talents of Mr. Barbini have been largely obscured in his role as concertmaster of the Monterey Symphony. Yes, he tunes up the orchestra prior to the appearance on stage of the conductor, he gets his hand shaken by a lot of soloists, and he is in charge of string sectional rehearsals and makes sure that string bowings are musical and consistent. And, yes, he often has a brief solo passage in standard symphony programs. On rare occasions he will even be featured as a soloist, as indeed will Mr. Barbini next season with the Monterey Symphony when he will play the Sibelius Violin Concerto.
But nothing in our previous experience with Mr. Barbini had prepared us for what we heard on this occasion. His program during this evening was not the standard fare you might expect today in a classical violin recital (a few major sonatas and one contemporary work), but rather a charming old fashioned program containing two sonatas (one of them in a romantic arrangement by Fritz Kreisler), followed by some bon bons (two of them transcriptions by Kreisler), and ending with a virtuoso violin concerto with the assisting pianist playing the orchestral reduction. It was a throwback to the kind of program you might have heard in the 1960's at Carnegie Hall by someone of the stature of Mischa Elman. And, the audience loved every moment of it.
The program began with a solid, musical performance of the Mozart Sonata in
B-flat Major, K. 454. This was stylish playing with an exceptionally satisfying slow movement. The liquid playing of Mr. Cogan at the piano added much to the success of the performance.
Tartini's "Devil's Trill" Sonata in the Kreisler arrangement that followed is frowned upon by some purist snobs today and is rarely played on serious programs. However, when played as boldly and dramatically as Mr. Barbini did this program, (especially the wonderful difficult cadenza that he made look so easy), it made you wish that more violinists would take us back to this lovely romantic tradition, for there are undoubtedly more neglected masterpieces where this came from.
After intermission we heard two more Kreisler transcriptions, a rondo by Mozart and a Hungarian Dance by Brahms that were audience charmers, and they easily achieved that effect. The most remarkable piece on the program was
La Fontaine d'Aréthusa by Szymanowski. It was a stunning impressionistic work with shimmering colors and a wonderful section where the violin is muted and achieves some remarkable sounds.
The program ended with Saint-Saens "Introduction & Rondo Capriccioso" and here Mr. Barbini pulled out all the stops and delivered a top-notch virtuoso performance, which, incidentally, he made look very easy. This performance brought the audience to its feet in a rousing standing ovation. We received one encore, Debussy's "Maid with the Flaxen Hair."
Pianist Dimitriy Cogan deserves much credit for his first rate piano collaboration. Not only can he deliver polished Mozart in very good style, but also he proved himself capable of some extraordinarily beautiful playing in the very difficult Szymanowski piece. His playing of the orchestral reduction for the Saint-Saens "Introduction & Rondo Capriccioso" was dazzling. Playing orchestral reductions is a thankless task, for they are often unpianistic and awkward, but Mr. Cogan made us forget that the original was for orchestra, so satisfying was his rendition.
An interesting aspect of this concert was the absence of any representatives from the management of the Monterey Symphony, for, after all, Mr. Barbini is their concertmaster. It is a pity that one concert presenting organization on the Peninsula does not apparently support another.
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