Lada Valesova, Darlington Arts Centre: 5 stars review
” The interpretation was among the most subtle I have heard.”
Lada Valesova, Darlington Arts Centre, 9.1.2010.
CZECH pianist Lada Valesova offered music of her homeland and traced the connection between Smetana, Dvorak and other composers in her recital for Darlington Piano Society.
She began with a thoughtful performance of Dvorak’s Dumka and Furiant, op24, Dvorak having played viola under Smetana’s direction in the orchestra of the Prague National Theatre. Then came the latter’s charming Concert Etude (On the Sea Shore), a delightfully skittish Scherzo-Polka.
The connections continued with Spring, by Dvorak’s sonin- law and student, Josef Suk, in which various emotions, notably the final Longing, were particularly well expressed.
Another connection with Dvorak was Janacek who, while not officially his student, used to send him his early compositions. Among them was the highly-evocative In the Mists, given a performance of great emotional strength, expressing longing, sadness and regret, anger even, for things lost through the passage of time. The interpretation was among the most subtle I have heard.
Film in Miniature (1923) by Bohuslav Martinu, an occasional student of Suk, threw us into the 1920s with dance idioms catching the essence of the age and his recently rediscovered and equally light and sprightly Spring (1921).
Valesova’s final piece was by Janacek’s former student, Pavel Haas, whose Suite op 13 dated from the same decade and spoke of a vast musical talent, terminated all too soon in the concentration camps of Terezin and Auschwitz.
Opening with a preludium best described as “Bach with attitude”, and ending with a high-speed toccata-like Postludium, she maintained total control of pace and content, being almost impressionist in the second movement, dancing 1920s’ style in the third and offering an element of the ecumenical in the pastorale.
The evening held the attention at all times with its unusually well considered theme, rewarded with a charming improvisation on Czech country folk themes as encore.
Dave Robson