Concert review | Richard Tognetti, who conducted the Tapiola Sinfonietta, showed that the high-quality violin can also withstand rough handling

Classic

Tapiola Sinfonietta at the Espoo Cultural Center on September 14. Richard Tognetti, violin and leader, Emil Holmström, piano. – Kilar, Lutosławski, Beethoven, Mozart.

Australian Richard Tognetti is considered one of the most original personalities in the violin world. He has at his disposal a magnificent instrument, the Guarneri del Gesù violin from 1743. It allows him to move freely from old music to modern and from one mode of expression to its opposite.

Guarner’s honey-singing beauty could only be enjoyed in one song, Beethoven’s In F major romance for violin and orchestra. It was a kind of instrumental song scene, where the violin often soared in glittering heights supported by the orchestra’s stringy sound waves.

In the other two pieces at the beginning of the concert, no shrill notes were heard, as Tognetti often treated his Guarneria as a kind of percussion instrument. The Guarneri del Gesù is not a timid violin, but can withstand rough handling.

Opening number was Polish Wojciech Kilarin (1932–2013) Orawa for string orchestra. It was played briskly to a standing room, like the whole concert.

Orawan the steadily pounding beginning was like a movie score, leading into a wildly pounding mountain herdsman dance. The music was so physical and down-to-earth that I could literally see the shepherds getting excited to jump faster and faster.

With his fiery violin, Tognetti incited the strings of the Tapiola Sinfonietta to strike sparkling rhythms from their violins and to play a frantically sawing pelimanni ensemble. The piece ended with a fun surprise, the final roar of the players, which echoed as if straight from the Tatra Mountains.

Folk dance ingredients in a modern form could be heard in the second Polish piece of the evening, Witold Lutosławski (1913–1994) Partitafrom which Tognetti has made his own arrangement for violin, piano and strings.

Part of the folk music background can be the great sense of spontaneity that characterized Tognetti, the pianist by Emil Holmström and a performance by the orchestra’s violinists. As weird as it is I’m parting the chain-shaped structure is, the music seemed to come alive in the now-moment, without the control of theoretical dogmas.

Tognetti often grated the Guarneria with pounding and roughly flaring gestures, the orchestra’s strings following suit. The tonal effect of the bowstring was physically straightforward and came to the skin. Instead, the tinkling of the pipe bells seemed to come from somewhere far away, like a church tower.

The piano played an important conversational role. It was interesting to watch how the violin and the piano took their own paths towards the same goal in mysterious interludes.

Tognetti led the evening’s closing number from the concertmaster’s place, Mozart’s 39th symphony. Sometimes he detached himself from the other first violinists for a moment and beat the orchestra with his bow.

The symphony sang and roared joyfully, fast and colorful. However, from the conductor’s position, the symphony would probably have received an additional dose of comedic drama and more variations of hope, consolation, pain and despair.