For a 25-year-old violinist, the programmed look ambitious – Bach’s great Chaconne, Brahms’ late D. minor sonata, and Debussy’s elusive G. minor sonata
Fears that Edith Peinemann, who played in Bulawayo last night, confronted interpretative problems beyond her youth, were banished by her pervasively generous artistry.
Possibly in time she will play the Chaconne with still greater refinement. I doubt, though, that she will surpass the compassion with which, last evening, she invested this austerely noble commentary on our condition. It was a great performance.
Candy Floss
The Debussy is like candy floss. If you attack it, it disappears. Miss Peinemann’s mercurial variations of tone exactly matched its terse capriciousness, and she maintained at all times the introspective aloofness the music needs to succeed.
Of her techniques one was barely conscious. But in Ravel’s Tzigane she lashed out in a torrent of double stops, harmonics, furious pizzicatti and glissandi up and down the instrument. Her artistry had beguiled us into forgetting the means.
Helmut Barth’s gave an enormously competent accompaniment, though he was probably cursing the deadpan piano much of the time.