Commemorating its landmark 80th anniversary, Australian chamber music organisation Musica Viva showcased an evocative programme of dreamy works at the Melbourne Recital Centre.
Their Northern Lights concert, presented under the suggestive concert banner of “Music Makes Memories” across this celebration year, indeed proved to be a night to remember.
Featuring virtuoso Johan Dalene as guest violinist, he shared the stage with Australian’s own Jennifer Marten-Smith on piano, for a bravado performance of works from composers all over the globe.
The two players exhibited luminous onstage chemistry, credited not only to their exquisite sense of harmonic balance but also toward the obvious admiration they upheld for one another. As the works became increasingly spirited throughout the evening – notably after the intermission, where the two star soloists dramatically heightened the volume of audience excitement within the hall – so, too, did their endearing sense of fun become more pronounced.
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This upward scale was apparent from the evening’s opening piece, a measured, technically excellent recital of Beethoven’s Sonata #8 in G Major, Op. 30 No. 3.
Dalene’s swift motions across the fingerboard of the violin were so precise and definite that it was a challenge to scarcely see them move. Every part of his playing was exquisitely deliberate, an intensely controlled range of motion that was reflected in Marten-Smith’s own pointed, fluttering gestures across the keys.
Much of their performance maintained this quality of simple, essential excellence, removed of extraneous upward flourishes denoting the culmination of a movement, instead leaving such outbursts of physical flair only for the final triumphant notes.
This cautious poise was riotously deposed in the second half of the programme, especially in the pair’s performance of the Grieg Sonata #2 in G Major, Op. 13, a scintillatingly glamorous show of verve and laser-point precision. With enchanting, jovial strides across the keys, Marten-Smith threw upward a sparkling sheet of metallic textures that was then draped over the shoulders of Dalene’s explosive solo passages.
Not so much a passing of the two torch between two generations of solo performers, but a union of shared passion and glowing respect between two masters of their craft, Tuesday’s Northern Lights concert proves Musica Viva has much to celebrate in its 80 years.
Musica Viva Australia’s Northern Lights concert series will be performing in cities across Australia until 23 June 2025. Get your tickets here.