★★★★★ An invigorating tour of Vienna with a star violinist.
Utzon Room, Sydney Opera House
June 26, 2016
In a world divided between the givers and the takers, Japanese-US violinist Midori Gotō is definitely a giver. Committed to passing on the benefits of three decades of classical music performance to young students, no sooner had her nine-and-a-half hour flight from Japan to Sydney touched down the day before her Sydney Opera House Utzon series performance than the 44-year-old virtuoso was giving a masterclass to members of Sydney Youth Orchestras.
Her recital consisted of five challenging pieces by composers associated with Vienna – this would be demanding for one recital, yet alone repeating it three hours later. Midori makes virtuosity seem so effortless. With her perfect intonation the music lives beneath her fingers. She’s a physical performer, stamping her foot to emphasise a beat and swaying and weaving with her Guarnerius del Gesu tucked under her chin.
Our journey around Vienna began in a lively way with Franz Liszt’s Soirees de Vienne, Valses-Caprices, dedicated to Schubert and with a nice little waltz in the middle. It wouldn’t be Liszt without challenges to both performers but here Ozgur Aydin was given a starring role with evermore ornate runs over Midori’s sustained notes. Arnold Schoenberg’s Phantasy, Op. 47 brought a bracing breath of air and some Second Viennese School serialism to the afternoon and here Midori executed some of the fiercest pizzicato passages this reviewer has seen in a while. The yearning and lovely opening of Brahms’ Violin Sonata in G, the first of three he composed, set the scene for an idyllic 25 minutes or so of superb interplay between violin and piano ranging over all the emotions in its three movements.
Midori and Aydin’s symbiosis was also a feature of the second half of the recital, starting with the grand opening of Mozart’s Violin Sonata No 32 in B Flat which unfolds into a glorious work in which both instruments are equal partners, each playing off the other in a question and answer session. It’s easy to forget that Mozart was equally proficient in both instruments.
There’s no such thing as a bad seat in the Utzon Room when the acoustic is so good and the furthest you can be from the performer is maybe 15 metres. And for this most intimate of rooms what better composer to conclude Midori’s tour of Vienna than Schubert? His Fantasie in C was composed in the last year of his life and is a substantial work – so much so that when it was premiered in Vienna quite a few people got bored and walked out. Divided into seven parts it all culminates in a set of ever more virtuosic variations on his song Sei mir gegrüsst. In all it made a fine ending to this lovely recital from one of the most generous of classical music’s stars.
Midori Gotō perfoms at Melbourne Recital Centre on June 28
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