KEY POINTS:
It was a year ago that Aucklanders first experienced the magic of Feng Ning and Michael Houstoun in concert. Returning on Monday, under the auspices of the Auckland Philharmonia Orchestra's Twilight Chamber Music Series, the two men gave a capacity audience a memorable example of what chamber music is all about.
The evening started modestly and poetically. Mozart's E minor Sonata has no place for fire-and-brimstone virtuosics; virtuosity is required, but its more subtle shadings can easily defeat the unwary player.
Phrase by phrase, against Houstoun's limpid keyboard, Ning was the soul of elegance, even if the sometimes precipitous drops in dynamics meant that his artistry was being overheard rather than heard.
The fireworks were ushered in for Richard Strauss' only Sonata, a particularly juicy specimen of the late romantic spirit. Here there was a balance of intimate confession and grand passion; Ning's violin soared in the outer movements and, with the sympathetic Houstoun, shaped the ebb and flow of its Andante cantabile to perfection.
The Finale was a heroic stand, with Ning in full arpeggiando splendour and Houstoun's piano hinting at worlds yet to be fully revealed in the composer's tone poems and operas.
After interval, Poulenc's only Sonata shimmered like shot silk, a child of the salon and the jazz club in equal parts. And yet, deep down, there was immense seriousness here as the piece was inspired by the murder of the poet Garcia Lorca. Ning and Houstoun captured this in the fragile lyricism of its middle movement and also in the brusque and unexpected anger of its Finale.
Ning the showman is well aware of the almost primal power Paganini has and, after the finely-spun lyricism of an 1824 Cantabile, the full virtuoso armoury was brought out, fully polished, for I Palpiti, one of the great Paganini party pieces.
Although it felt like we'd had our encore already, two were offered.
The first was Heifetz's muted and lovely transcription of Debussy's Beau Soir. The second, Happy New Spring, a jolly taste of triteness in Chinese traditional style.
REVIEW
* Feng Ning and Michael Houstoun
* Town Hall Concert Chamber
* Reviewer: William Dart
