SEEN AND HEARD INTERNATIONAL

Beethoven, Mendelssohn, Mathieu, Mozart: Alain and David Lefevre (piano and violin), London Mozart Players, Matthias Bamert, Cheltenham Town Hall, 16.1.2009 (RJ)

Mendelssohn Concerto for Violin, Piano and String Orchestra in D minor.
Andre Mathieu Piano Concertino No 2
Mozart Symphony No 39 in Eb K543


How many Canadian musicians can you name? Angela Hewitt, Marc-André Hamelin, Louis Lortie, Glenn Gould, perhaps - but then you have to think very hard indeed.If asked to name a Canadian composer, I would have been completely stumped ...... until now - thanks to the London Mozart Players. LMP's latest concert introduced us to the Lefèvre brothers from Montreal who performed Mendelssohn's Concerto for Violin, Piano and String Orchestra in D minor.

Pianist Alain Lefèvre is described as having "the ten most agile fingers to have emerged from Quebec" and has given concerts all round the world. His violinist brother David seems to have active mainly in France and southern Europe.

We shall doubtless be hearing plenty of Mendelssohn this year as we celebrate the bicentenary of his birth, so why not start off with one of his early works as LMP did here? He wrote this concerto at the astonishingly early age of 14, two years before his wonderful Octet and Midsummer Night's Dream Overture.  I would dispute whether the word concerto correctly describes the piece however. To me it was more like a sonata for violin and piano interspersed with orchestral interludes to allow the soloists to regain their breath.

The work begins with a 74 bar orchestral introduction which could have been from one of Mendelssohn’s  string symphonies. It was played with commendable delicacy by the orchestra under Matthias Bamert's direction until the soloists entered with a declamatory flourish. The pair then held the stage for much of the lengthy first movement with occasional contributions from the orchestra There was plenty of dramatic interplay between the two soloists who often seemed to be purloining musical ideas from each other. At times the violin soared away with a lush melody of its own leaving the piano to provide an accompaniment.

There was more fine playing from David Lefèvre in the Adagio, with his 1746 Dalla Costa violin producing an engagingly sweet sound. The finale, still more of a duet than a concerto, was a swashbuckling tour de force by the two brothers. However, a better balance between the instruments might have been achieved if a forte-piano had been used instead of a strident Steinway.

The fourteen year old Mendelssohn may not have entirely succeeded in combining the solo parts with the orchestra. The six year old Andre Mathieu, on the other hand, seems to have had a much surer grasp of concerto technique when he wrote his Concertino No 2. He went on to win the New York Philharmonic's Young Composer's Award with this work six years later. (Leonard Bernstein, another contender for the prize, did not fare so well.)

Alain Lefèvre announced that he was giving the world premiere of the twelve minute long Concertino with a recently discovered extended cadenza in the third movement. The opening movement was a highly competent affair with musical ideas exchanged between soloist and orchestra. The meditative Andante seemed amazingly mature for one so young. The work culminated with a thrilling, tempestuous finale with some dexterous playing from Mr Lefèvre, especially in the cadenza.

Alas, fate was unkind to Mathieu who in later life suffered emotional problems, succumbed to alcoholism and died in 1968 aged 39. But perhaps with Alain Lefèvre's help we shall hear more of this remarkable Canadian composer's legacy of 200 works.

It hardly seems necessary to comment on the London Mozart Players' performance of Mozart's Symphony No 39. These musicians know their Mozart inside out, and with the reliable Mathias Bamert at the helm their authoritative, yet fresh sounding, performance was nothing short of perfection.

Roger Jones