Hallandsposten.se

Thursday 21 February

Inspiration and sonor refinement

2008-02-21 11:50
MUSIC
Maximilian Bratt, violin;
Carl Pontén, piano

Music by Beethoven, Aulin, Brahms and Kreisler

Staffanssalen, Söndrum,
20 February 2008

Halmstad's Chamber Music Association provides many occasions during this Spring season to listen to chamber music for piano and strings. The violinist Maximilian Bratt and the pianist Carl Pontén - an impressive duo - started the opening concert of the season on Wednesday by sharing a well created programme where Violin Sonatas by Beethoven and Brahms flanked Aulin's solemn aquarelles.

The artists started with Beethoven's first Violin Sonata in a performance that, after the first nerves calmed down, offered a dense intensity and a fine ensemble play. The pianist Carl Pontén succeeded with the fine balance to unite a sonor distinction and fullness of tone as well as he kept an expansive and powerful playing within strict boundaries.

After that followed Tor Aulin's four Aquarelles - a pleasant composition where the Violinist Maximilian Bratt showed his beautiful tone and tasteful phrasing. The character and mood changes were consistently well captured by the two musicians. Regardless if they had to chisel and uncover Beethoven's intentions with a surgical precision or with imagination and inspiration form the shifting moods in Aulin's Aquarelles, Bratt and Pontén did it with bravura.

The highlight, both in size and inspiration, was Brahms' first Violin Sonata in G Major, the final piece of the concert. In this composition Brahms is quoting his own song "Regenlied", the rain being used as a poetic as well as symbolic metaphor. Despite the fact that the sonata was written shortly after the death of Brahms' 24 year old godson Felix Schumann, I have always perceived it as a bright and hopeful piece of music. On a personal level I have speculated if Brahms used the rain that is always followed by sun, as a metaphor for emotional purification when he wrote this composition.

In this last performance of the evening all the qualities that were present earlier melted to an impressive entirety where a sonor refinement, ensemble playing and inspiration raised to yet another dimension. We listeners  were enclosed by a cocoon of Brahm's  emotional spectrum where time and place seized to exist. After such an experience the reality feels - even if it is temporary - slightly paler.


PER BJÖRCK
kultur@hallandssposten.se