‘Rise of the Concerto’: Bach, Vivaldi, and Biber (Ibragimova, AAM)
Biber: Passacaglia in G Minor (from the Rosary Sonatas)
Bach: Sonata in E Major for Violin and Harpsichord, BWV 1016
Bach: Violin Concerto in A Minor, BWV 1041
Vivaldi: Violin Concerto in D Major ‘L’inquietudine’, RV 234
Vivaldi: Concerto in D Minor for two Violins and Cello (L’estro armonico, Op.3/11), RV565
Biber: Battalia
Bach: Violin Concerto in E Major, BWV 1042
Academy of Ancient Music
Alina Ibragimova (violin/director)
West Road Concert Hall, Cambridge
Monday, 27 February 2012
The AAM is currently going through a phase of thematic and storyline programming, and why not: better that than endless unearthings of Gibbons or Stamitz. This one builds from Ibragimova standing alone through Biber’s challenging Passacaglia, to Bach concerti at the close of each half. Alina Ibragimova is a violinist of the highest order, easily straddling the supposed divide between period and modern performance and doing so with pizazz. On this evidence, she is also a nuanced and insightful director.
The Bach concerti were of stunning quality. Heavily rehearsed but still fresh and improvisatory, these soloist-focussed works nevertheless managed to keep their chamber-like quality. In BWV 1041′s opening Allegro, contrapuntal lines came out strongly, passed merrily throughout the orchestra and with shards passing tantalisingly to and from Ibragimova. Bach’s concerti can be rather busy at times (including those for keyboard) as he melds his own style with the more demonstrative traits of Vivaldi, but the AAM’s strings kept their tone happily balanced between overly dry and overly zesty, keeping the textures as clear as one could realistically hope for, if a little staid in a rather lumbering accompaniment to Ibragimova’s jilted Andante. That said, Ibragimova revelled in Bach’s suspensions and harmonic clashes, particularly in some enjoyably horrid moments in the closing Allegro assai. Here fugal intrigue was capricious in the extreme – and at some speed too.
The second Bach was even better, with Ibragimova coming to the fore less coyly. The Allegro was played with grounded freedom and fiery invention, subtly inflected phrasing balanced by attention to structure, and a teasing out of counterpoint. In the Adagio Ibragimova seemed completely lost in Bachian bliss, an angry passion allowed to smoulder by Rodolfo Richter’s reticent direction of the accompanying strings. The chasing phrasing at speed, the constantly shifting variation and off-kilter emphases of the Allegro assai were signs of baroque playing at its taut, pungent best. This was not monumental or profound Bach, but that is not what the music suggests (the E Major’s Andante aside). Instead, it was both fun and unerringly musical.
Fun also characterised the Vivaldi concerti. More purely virtuosic than the Bach, the ‘L’inquietudine’ was given a showpiece treatment looking forward to Paganini and the like. The finale was at times scorchingly intense, the Larghetto embracing Vivaldi’s corkscrew effects with a tongue-in-cheek zeal. Joined by Richter and cellist Joseph Crouch, freshness was again amply evident for one of the concertante works from L’estro armonico, even if the purity of the slow Largo e spiccato inevitably paled next to aural memories of Bach’s transcription of the piece (here, for Spotify users).
Richard Egarr might have been proud of the humour employed for Biber’s Battalia, an otherwise irredeemable romp of a comic-book battle, which at one point features at least nine out-of-tune soldiers’ songs at the same time. Biber’s Passacaglia made one long to hear Ibragimova’s solo Bach, her massive but but never less than poignant tone rendering the composer’s rather long-winded iterations of a lamento theme almost entrancing. Technical skill was never in doubt, especially as whizzing rockets fired up in scales from the slow, low bass. Perhaps the only weak spot came in the Bach sonata, when we needed a little more personality from the harpsichord: it seemed a rendition in tension with itself, not sure whether to be a true duo or a solo vehicle. Still, the bigger Bach made such slight slips fully worthwhile.
‘Rise of the Concerto‘ moves on to the Wigmore Hall on 29 February, the Ludlow Assembly Rooms on 3 March and Bury St. Edmonds on 4 March. It’s also on BBC Radio 3 at 10pm on 3 March.
