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Shropshire Music Trust Review – London Mozart Players and Tasmin Little

SMT - LMP TL

At the end of a great Shropshire Music Trust’s season, the London Mozart Players with soloist Tasmin Little performed in ‘A Violin for All Seasons’ in Shrewsbury’s St Chads Church on Friday evening.

The title was a broad hint that Vivaldi’s ‘Four Seasons’ would feature in the programme but it was with a very interesting twist.

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Astor Piazzolla is best known for his rejuvenation of the tango ‘nuevo tango’ and other South American dances and the first piece in the concert was his ‘Four Seasons in Buenos Aires’ which contained many of his trademark rhythms and quirky harmonies, moving seamlessly from brash tango to rich expressive harmony. Violin soloist Tasmin Little led the LMP in an exciting tour through the four seasons in Argentina in which Piazzolla pays humorous homage to Vivaldi three centuries earlier, matching quotations from the Italian ‘Autumn’ in the Buenos Aires ‘Spring’ and in several other places. The effect of rapid unison glissandos throught the ensemble was stunning and exhilarating, a sound that is rarely heard to such good effect in music so full of melody and harmony. Indeed, the LMP accompaniment to Tasmin Little’s solo was totally integrated, containing some particularly fine cello and bass sections.

Tasmin Little followed this with a quite charming cameo titled ‘Tibetan Winter’ by Roxanna Panufnik, a musical picture of the high Tibetan plateau with whistling winds, high peaks and chanting monks with their singing bowls.

Vivaldi’s ‘Four Seasons’ needs little introduction or description. Tasmin Little’s interpretation doesn’t mimic some of the super-fast versions or those with strange special effects but rather shows how faithful playing of the original music can be just as fresh in the hands of a consummate artist with a first class orchestra. With tweeting birds in spring, summer storms, autumnal over-indulgence at harvest-time and icy crystalline droplets of notes in winter, Vivaldi would have been very happy with four seasons such as these. Understated brilliance just about captures it!

This was the final concert but as a postscript to the current season Dame Emma Kirkby, soprano will be performing in Shrewsbury’s Lion Hotel at 8.00pm on Sunday 24 May. Some may remember Dame Emma performing with Shrewsbury’s own early music specialist Alison Crum in early 1975 when her career was about to begin. She has performed several times in the Music Trust series and on Sunday is accompanied by lutenist and singer Joel Frederiksen.

Reviewed by: Richard Duncan

Reviewed at St Chads Church on Friday 22 May 2015.

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