REVIEW

By Spencer Allman

Violinist Judith Choi-Castro and pianist Harry Nowakowski-Fox have been working as a duo since 2009. Their programme at Holy Trinity Church on Saturday, September 26 was a demonstration of their impressive talents, all the more satisfying given their youth.

The first half of the concert featured Harry Nowakowski-Fox playing solo. His pacey account of Beethoven's Piano Sonata No. 21 in C major, Op. 53 (‘Waldstein’) was breathtaking, the work’s formidable difficulties presenting few challenges.

This was a virtually slip-free performance, with keen attention paid to the dynamic contrasts so crucial to any interpretation of this composer’s piano sonatas. Beethoven rarely makes life easy, but Nowakowski-Fox’s handling of the piece’s rapid reiterations at soft dynamic levels was astonishing.

Earlier on too, his technique and verve had been communicated in his execution of Bach’s second Partita for keyboard, the opening work of the concert. The clarity of tone, his ability to bring out key lines amid the complexity of the contrapuntal writing, and the sheer emotional weight of it all made this probably the highlight of the evening.

After the interval the Spanish-Korean violinist Judith Choi-Castro joined her partner to play two violin sonatas.

The first was Beethoven’s fifth sonata for the combination, a firm favourite with audiences that goes by the nickname of ‘Spring’. Not Beethoven at his peak of creativity, perhaps, but this was a fairly limp affair, the violin sound restrained to the point where it sometimes sounded little more than the accompaniment to the piano part. Assured, but not forceful.

Choi-Castro came into her own, however, in the last item of the evening, Prokofiev’s second violin sonata. Originally scored for flute and piano, this piece gets a regular outing. There is a plethora of strong tunes, offset by a driving, rhythmic force that ensures the popularity of this erstwhile modernist music.

The musicians delivered an interpretation of Prokofiev’s sonata that held up in comparison with other notable renditions. The violin sound was warm, even exotic at times.

In the main, an outstanding evening. The violinist played without a score throughout and the pianist dazzled us all - a tiny audience of fewer than a dozen. Had it been the rugby that kept people away? (Perish the thought.)