On June 18, Violinist Mandhira de Saram gave a recital at 49 Queensgate Terrace, the South Kensington home of Vernon Ellis, Chairman of the English National Opera. This was one of a series of recitals organised by the Vernon Ellis Foundation to promote promising young musicians. Mandhira’s musical sponsor was Mark Dundas, 4th Marquess of Zetland. Performing with Mandhira was American pianist, composer and musicologist Gregory Martin, who had flown in from the USA especially for the concert. Mandhira and Greg have performed frequently together since they met as students at Worcester College, Oxford.
Their programme opened with Britten’s Reveille (“wake up call”), a short concert study written by the composer for a violinist friend who found it difficult to get up in the morning! The piano has a subsidiary role in this piece, acting as a foil for a dazzling pyrotechnic display by the violin including harmonics, left-hand pizzicato, glissandi and tremolandi.
Britten’s bracing and often angular modern idiom was followed by the classical harmonies of Mozart’s Sonata in G Major, K 301. This has a lyrical yet spirited first movement and a coquettish second movement, which nevertheless - as so often with Mozart - has its darker moment, in a minor mode passage dominated by the violin. Mandhira’s lovely, limpid tone was perfectly suited to achieving the lucidity and transparency which Mozart’s music requires.
A dramatic contrast was provided by Prokofiev’s Sonata No.2 in D Major, Op. 94a, a piece intended originally for the flute but re-written for the great Soviet violinist David Oistrakh. Mandhira handled with aplomb the frequent virtuosic displays required of the violin part, using a wide palette of dynamics and tone colour to capture changes of mood as the piece progressed through its four movements (Moderato, Scherzo, Andante, Finale - Allegro con brio). Beginning in a mood of refined elegance, it transforms into spirited quasi-balletic music, then lapses, after a winsome and youthful melody, into a mood of exotic languor, only to burst out again into a boisterous finale.
Mandhira’s performance of Boulanger’s Deux Morceaux (comprising Nocturne and Cortège) had a searching sweetness of tone, a combination of piquancy and pathos which managed to discover in the music both the composer’s extreme youth and a prophetic awareness of her early demise. The final piece, carried off with great panache by the performers, also had a strongly national flavour: Grieg’s Sonata No. 2 in G major, Op.13, dominated by Norwegian folk melodies and demanding both lyricism and a strong sense of rhythm and attack. A hectic fortissimo climax brought the scheduled programme to a suitably dramatic close.
But the evening did not quite end there. At popular request, Mandhira and Greg performed an encore, the well-known Czardas, by Vittorio Monti, which was played with great stylishness and vigour. The duo had performed in seemingly effortless synchronism throughout, demonstrating the perfect musical understanding between them.
Mandhira, who was a Leverhulme Scholar at the Junior Royal Academy of Music, numbers Igor Petrushevsky, Howard Davis and Levon Chilingirian among her violin teachers. She graduated with a First Class honours degree in Music from Oxford University, where she was leader of several orchestras and chamber ensembles. She has performed widely, including at the Sheldonian Theatre and the Holywell Music Rooms, Oxford, and has recently returned from performing in Hong Kong, China and Japan, where she appeared as a Crystal Headline Artist. In addition to performing and pursuing academic interests, Mandhira also teaches violin.
Here is a wonderful young musician, whose flawless technique achieves extraordinary precision without sacrificing anything of her spontaneity and grace. It is a rare pleasure to listen to and watch a performer with such an easy and unaffected manner, who exhibits obvious joy in playing her instrument. The listener is borne away on the wings of her effortless brilliance and infectious joie de vivre.
Those attending the sold-out concert included former President Chandrika Kumaratunga, author and philanthropist Sir Christopher Ondaatje, and Lady Ondaatje. The evening was made all the more pleasant for its elegant ambiance - a beautifully furnished and spacious salon with high ceilings and huge windows, well-equipped with comfortable sofas and armchairs. One must not forget the delicious refreshments and plentiful supply of wine. This was truly chamber music with a difference….
For more information and to listen to Mandhira’s playing, see her official website: www.mandhiradesaram.com
|
E-mail