Both Bliss And Bluster From A Boisterous, Dynamic Duo

Sydney Morning Herald

Wednesday November 29, 2006

Reviewed by Harriet Cunningham

CLASSICAL

JULIAN RACHLIN/ITAMAR GOLAN

City Recital Hall, November 27

"EVERY year is a Brahms year," said the violinist Julian Rachlin, as he introduced the final work in his Musica Viva recital program.

It was a throw-away comment, but telling. In a year where Shostakovich and Mozart have dominated concert programs, Rachlin and Itamar Golan relaxed into Brahms's Violin Sonata No. 3 in D minor, op 108 as if they had come home after a long journey. These Lithuanians, who are celebrating 10 years of playing together, gave Brahms an easy verve and effortless grace in a crowd-winning combination of power and beauty.

It almost felt like a reward for the hard yards of the first half, opening with Shostakovich's final work, Sonata for violin and piano in C major, op147. Rachlin loaded the empty open strings of the first movement with a sense of bleak reflection and closure. The performance was not without passion - in fact, Rachlin's passion in the second movement overwhelmed any attempt at clarity with muddy bluster. The final adagio was more composed, demonstrating Rachlin's amazing ability to voice and sustain a resonant pianissimo with a barely moving bow.

With Mozart's Violin Sonata in A major, K526 they launched into another world entirely. Golan, a fiercely impressive musical partner, took off with a cascade of notes, all spidery articulation. Rachlin matched the almost feverish gleam of Golan's phrasing with the brilliant higher registers of the violin. It was a totally convincing transformation.

The remaining movements, however, were not as inspiring, with Rachlin's charismatic energy boiling over into what felt more like a musical duel than duet.

Chausson's Poeme for violin and piano, op25, was a welcome treat, as were the two encores, a wonderfully dysfunctional Shostakovich polka and a transcendent arrangement of Gluck's Dance of the Blessed Spirits.

Rachlin and Golan are the original dynamic duo, boisterous, thrilling and at times exhausting, but also capable of moments of bliss.

Rachlin and Golan appear at the City Recital Hall on Saturday at 8pm.

© 2006 Sydney Morning Herald

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