Bach Plus with Alina Ibragimova

Thursday 19 March 8pm 
Cambridge West Road Concert Hall

Friday 20 March 7.30pm
Norwich Theatre Royal

Sunday 22 March 7.30pm
Inverness Eden Court Theatre

Interview in The Eastern Daily Press
Review on Boulezian Blog

 

Interview with Alina Ibragimova 
By Tony Cooper
19 March 2009

She is predicted to be the star of classical music for years to come. Ahead of an appearance in Norwich, Tony Cooper speaks to violinist Alina Ibragimova.

In the final concert of the Britten Sinfonia’s inaugural season at Norwich’s Theatre Royal, all eyes will be on the young, talented and strikingly good-looking Russian violinist.

Alina Ibragimova, who’ll be directing this fine orchestra in two Bach violin concerti as well as movements from the Art of Fugue while the distinguished harpsichordist, Maggie Cole, will direct from the keyboard Bach’s F minor keyboard concerto no 5 and the orchestra’s leader, Jacqueline Shave, will direct Kurtág.

But such is the scope of Ms Ibragimova’s repertoire that she’s just as happy playing contemporary music as well as works from the glorious baroque period.

And just a week before her Norwich concert she gave her first reading of Ligeti’s violin concerto with the BBC Symphony Orchestra under Edward Gardner at London’s Barbican Centre.

A star in the making she’s the youngest-ever winner of the Royal Philharmonic Society’s Emily Anderson Prize. The critic of The Times said that she performs with “a mixture of total abandonment and total control that is in no way contradictory” and that she’s “destined to be a force in the classical music firmament for decades to come”.

Recent engagements have also seen her guest with the Philharmonia Orchestra, the Vienna Chamber Orchestra and the City of Birmingham Symphony as well as making her BBC Proms debut with the London Symphony Orchestra in which her father is principal bass.

But such was her prominence in the classical musical world she was chosen to be a member of the BBC New Generation Artists Scheme in the 2005-07 season appearing frequently on BBC Radio 3 and with all of the BBC orchestras. Still only 24, she’s a precious commodity!

And the instrument she performs on is equally precious, too, as it’s a 1738 violin crafted by Pietro Guarneri of Venice kindly provided by Georg von Opel. She’s also a recipient of a 2008 Borletti-Buitoni Trust award.

Musically speaking she got off to a good start in her musical life mainly thanks to her parents.

“My mother was a violinist and my father a distinguished musician,” she says, “so it really helped and supported my musical education. By the time I was four years old I was learning the violin and a year later I found myself attending classes at the Gnessin State Musical College in Moscow.”

She was most definitely on her way. Her move to England came about when her father took up the post of principal bass with the LSO in 1996. In the following year Ms Ibragimova began her studies at the Yehudi Menuhin School (where her mother is professor of violin) under Natasha Boyarskaya.

Two-years later she performed with Nicola Benedetti at the opening ceremony of the 50th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights at UNESCO in Paris. They played Bach’s double violin concerto under the baton of Yehudi Menuhin. Three months later he was dead and as a tribute to him Ms Ibragimova performed the slow movement of the same concerto at his funeral in Westminster Abbey.

Benedetti, incidentally, will be appearing at this year’s Norfolk and Norwich Festival at the John Innes Centre on May 11 playing piano trios by Rachmaninov, Beethoven and Tchaikovsky.

“After finishing my studies at the Menuhin School,” she further explained, “I enjoyed a year at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama and then went on to London’s Royal College of Music studying under Gordan Nikolitch. I’m extremely keen on quartet playing and to this end I moved with other students from the college to form the period-instrument string quartet Chiaroscuro, which focuses on a repertoire from the classical period. However, the biggest breakthrough in my career came in 2005 when I was privileged to play Bach’s double violin concerto alongside Gidon Kremer and the world-renowned Kremerata Baltica at the Salzburg Mozarteum.”

I first heard Alina play in 2008 with the Britten Sinfonia and was immediately struck by her performance. I heard her in Bach’s A minor violin concerto together with KA Hartmann’s concerto funebre. They were performed to an exacting degree. Her playing was clear and precise while her technique was simply superb. There and then I realised that she was destined to be a major force in the classical music world for years to come.

Completing the Britten Sinfonia’s concert at Norwich’s Theatre Royal are works by the Austrian composer Alban Berg and the Hungarian composer György Kurtág.

Berg’s Lyric Suite - a six-movement work using methods derived from Schoenberg’s 12-tone technique - is dedicated to Alexander von Zemlinsky from whose Lyric Symphony it quotes while Kurtág’s piece - Signs, Games and Messages - acknowledges the composer’s debt to Bach in Hommage à JSB, an exploration of a Bach-like melodic line. The piece features Ms Ibragimova as soloist.

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Friday, 20 March 2009
Britten Sinfonia/Ibragimova - Bach, Berg, and Kurtág, 19 March 2009
West Road Concert Hall, Cambridge

This fascinating programme was entitled ‘Bach Plus’. Three Bach concertos, two for violin and one for harpsichord, were joined by Berg’s Lyric Suite – the three movements arranged for string orchestra, not, as the programme notes implied, the original six for string quartet – and a mix of Bach and Kurtág: movements from the Art of Fugue and Signs, Games, and Messages. I was not entirely convinced by the ordering; to my ears, the second violin concerto sounded a bit too much like winding-down or even reversion, following the concentration of the Bach-Kurtág sequence. Nor could I discern why most of the players stood for the second half, having been seated for the first. But those are minor reservations, especially in a climate in which performances of Bach on modern instruments, save the works for piano solo, have become rare indeed.

Maggie Cole, who would play harpsichord continuo for the two violin concertos, was herself the soloist in BWV 1056. Her performance was unfailingly musical, eschewing the shock ‘effects’ so much in vogue amongst many Baroque performers. Ornamentation was tasteful and discreet, yet nevertheless welcome. Tempi were all well judged, again a welcome change from the exhibitionistic extremes we must often suffer. There was a strong rhythmic profile to the performance, though the music was never unduly driven, even in the final Presto. Strings were one-to-a-part – a quartet plus double bass – which, I suppose, makes sense when the keyboard instrument is a harpsichord rather than a piano. There were nevertheless still occasions when they seemingly had to tone down their contributions; at least, with the exception of the closing arco phrase of the slow movement, they never sounded ‘period’ in timbre. It was in that Largo that I really missed the sustained cantabile of the piano. Cole did what she could; the fault lies with the superseded instrument. By the end, I had had enough, though not more than enough, of its jangling sonority. (Sir Thomas Beecham put it far better than I or indeed anyone else ever could.)

A slightly larger string ensemble (3.3.3.2.1) was assembled for the Berg. I had never heard it performed by chamber forces before. If ultimately, I prefer either a full orchestral string section or the quartet original, the members of the Britten Sinfonia proved able advocates for such a compromise, producing a commendably full tone at climaxes and successfully conveying more than an impression of Berg’s labyrinthine eroticism. I especially liked the way the stomping Ländler-rhythms forced their Mahlerian way into the opening movement. Jacqueline Shave abandoned her violin to conduct the second movement, which, given its complexities, seemed a wise choice, even though she did little other than beat time. The scurrying, insect-like sounds looked forward at times to Ligeti and even Xenakis, but the harmonies and triple-time lilt in the more ‘Romantic’ passages left us in no doubt that the composer was Berg. The last of the three movements Berg arranged attained just the right note of problematic redemption, the various reconciliations Berg attempted remaining fraught, if beguiling. It was here, above all, that I thought a fuller string section would have been of great benefit, but it is testimony to the quality of the performance that my doubts were never more than mere doubts. The quotation from Zemlinsky’s Lyric Symphony registered with heart-rending clarity.

Strings were once again one-to-a-part for the first of Bach’s two violin concertos. A larger ensemble would probably have helped distinguish more clearly between soloist and ensemble but I suspect that the textures of a chamber-performance were desired rather than heard by default. Lightness and flexibility were the order of the day, at least earlier on. When it came to the finale, dance rhythms were aptly to the fore, but the music would have thrived more with greater flexibility; it sounded a little too ‘controlled’ by soloist Alina Ibragimova. There was a slight paradox here, for Ibragimova actually did very little as director. I had the feeling, especially during the slow movement – which could have done with being a little slower – that, conductorless as it was, the ‘orchestra’ would have benefited from a soloist more willing to lead it. Moreover, it was here that I felt the lack of great passion – and vibrato.

Many of those reservations I would also feel in the performance of the second violin concerto, although here I discerned other difficulties too. For instance, whereas the first movement of the A minor concerto had commendably recognised the moderato part of the Allegro moderato tempo indication, that of the E major concerto was simply too fast. Just because one can play something at a faster tempo does not mean that one should. This movement was breathless rather than exciting, a problem compounded by Ibragimova’s Vivaldian approach to the more virtuosic passages. If Bach is a place for fireworks at all, then they should be of a different nature from this. Moreover, her tone, whilst sometimes leavened by freer use of vibrato, remained somewhat pallid. There were a few moments of less than perfect intonation too. The slow movement was lyrical, again in a rather Italianate way, but hints of the operatic aria are not inappropriate here. That said, there are depths that did not begin to be explored on this occasion. (One can listen to Busch, Oistrakh, Zukerman, etc., etc., to appreciate what might have been.) Rather to my surprise, the finale sounded less forced than the first movement. There were, however, once again some dubious solo Vivaldian histrionics to be endured.

Much better were the Bach and Kurtág selections. I was far from enamoured with the vibrato-less tone adopted by the violins in the opening and closing Bach numbers (Contrapuctus I and V) but there was an intriguing echo of the viol consort, which somewhat alleviated my unease. It was only in these two movements that the full ensemble, itself in any case small, was employed. Kurtág’s Hommage à J.S.B. had a nice sense of ‘following on’ from Contrapunctus I. Written for violin, viola, and ’cello, its Webern-like concision made me wonder whether that composer might have been a still more appropriate candidate than Berg for inclusion in this programme. Caroline Dearnley’s ’cello solo movement, Népdalféle followed. In this excellent performance, Bach met Bartók and was yet transmuted into something quite new: slow and gravely beautiful. Bach returned for Contrapunctus VII, from string quartet. The counterpoint was presented rather than interpreted, but there is a case – even if I am not persuaded of it myself – for saying that it needs no more. Certainly the performance’s – and arguably the music’s – abstraction exerted their own fascination. Jelek VI returned us to the formation employed for the first of the Kurtág pieces. Here, however, there was a very real sense of violent outburst. Every note counted, once again recalling Webern. The viola solo of the following Panaszos nóta, performed ably by Clare Finnimore, sounded like a weird refraction of gypsy and traditional song through the instrument’s harmonics. It moved on towards a more conventionally Romantic sound, before turning to a combination of the two. It was haunting, unpredictable, yet with an inevitability all of its own. There was a certain weirdness of Bach’s own to Canon XIV, performed by violin and ’cello, both in terms of its chromaticism and the distance between the two musical lines. A sense of life ensured that it did not sound unduly didactic; indeed, I should have been quite happy to have heard Bach’s astounding canonical writing extended for hours. Mesmerising pizzicato and a real sense of fun characterised the Hommage à Ránki Györgi, followed by a virtuoso violin solo for Ibragimova in The Carenza Jig. It was here, I thought, that she sounded most at home, far more so than in Bach. Contrapuctus V then offered a welcome sense of culmination to a provocative and satisfying sequence.

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Britten Sinfonia: Bach Plus 
Empire Theatre, Eden Court
24 March 2009
By Georgina Coburn
http://www.hi-arts.co.uk/default.aspx.locid-hianewovr.RefLocID-hiacg5.Lang-EN.htm

Georgina Coburn salutes the Sinfonia’s intelligent interweaving of old and new
lead by Jacqueline Shave and featuring outstanding solo violinist Alina Ibragimova, the Britten Sinfonia performed an exciting and varied selection of works. The juxtaposition of music by J.S. Bach, Anton Berg and György Kurtág worked incredibly well in a particularly strong and well structured programme.

The first half opened with J.S. Bach’s Keyboard Concerto No. 5 in F minor, BWV10569 (c.1738), followed by the three movements from Berg’s Lyric Suite (1926) arranged by the composer for a lager group, and Bach’s Violin Concerto No. 1 in A minor, BWV 1041(1717). The combination of high Baroque and early 20th century music complemented and inform each other beautifully.

There is great lyricism and expression in Berg’s music which is often overlooked. Heard here between two works by Bach, it is perhaps easier for audiences to appreciate his links with traditional form and the musical language of his predecessors.

Similarly the second half of the programme, which alternated excerpts from Bach’s final and incomplete masterwork the Art of Fugue, BWV 1080 (pub. 1751), with six selected movements from György Kurtág’s Signs, Games and Messages was inspired, heightening the qualities and connections between each work and exposing the listener to an extraordinary range of sound.

Each of the three movements of Berg’s Lyric Suite is equally fascinating. This is a richly textural and strangely poetic piece of music, beginning with the melancholic, meandering ebb and flow of strings, building to multiple points of tension, lower and higher registers straining against each other then separating harmoniously unto themselves.

The fragmentary nature of the second movement with its complex and intricate arrangement of high register, barely audible and percussive sounds in the strings is wonderfully expressive, conveying a state of apprehension and anxiety. This apparent chaos is deceptive because like a truly great abstract painting, it ultimately hinges on a deep understanding of composition rather than abandonment of its principles.

There is a sense of emotive freedom in Berg’s music which is superbly counterbalanced by its underpinning theoretical structure of Twelve Tone compositional techniques.

A work which has continued to evolve in various forms since its conception in 1984, Kurtág’s Signs, Games and Messages was presented like a tantalising series of sound bytes between excerpts from Bach’s investigation of contrapuntal writing in the Art of Fugue. The diversity of sound within this whole sequence was fantastic, coupled with the excitement of real exploration of musical form.

Kurtág’s Panaszos Nóta creates the most incredible sound from the solo viola, an atmospheric wailing echo that is completely unexpected. Closely followed by Bach’s Canon xiv, where violin and cello strip back Bachian form to its bare elements, a juxtaposition of sound and theory is created that is incredibly interesting and compelling.

The final work in the programme, J.S. Bach’s Violin Concerto No. 2 in E Major, BWV 1042 (1717), demonstrated Alina Ibragimova’s subtlety and amazing skill as a soloist. In her hands the pure voice of the instrument together with Bach’s writing inspired by the operatic aria created an exhilarating performance. The ensemble playing was crisp and tightly woven, with every voice – violins, viola, cello, double bass and harpsichord – in full complement.

The slow middle movement where the solo violin emerges soulfully from a fragile ground of mellow lower strings and harpsichord was exquisitely communicated. Within the triumphant and exuberant final movement Ibrgimova’s bowing sounded almost improvised within the structure of the melody, giving the work an unexpected edge. There was a sense in which all the works in the programme operated in counterpoint, uniquely independent and yet dependent on each other within the context of the Western musical tradition.

This was a thoroughly engaging concert for the heart and the mind where music itself was centre stage. Although the soloist was dazzling, this was never in the service of anything but the composition. The dynamic of form and feeling was a resounding strength of the programme and of the performance as a whole.

© Georgina Coburn, 2009

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