Season 2012–2013
Saturday 6 October 2012
St Mary's Church, Inverurie
Saturday 3 November 2012
Kemnay Church Centre
Friday 18 January 2013
Kemnay Church Centre
Saturday 16 February 2013
Acorn Centre, Inverurie
Friday 29 March 2013
Inverurie Town Hall
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Arta Arnicane (piano)
Friday 18 January 2013
8pm
Kemnay Church Centre
(map)
Tickets £12.00, £9.00 (concession), £1.00 (children & full-time
students)
available at the door or from Morgan's Music Shop
Original listing
Review by Alistair Massey
In her second engagement at the Kemnay Church Centre, Arta Arnicane gave a brilliant
performance last Friday evening. This talented Latvian is now well established on
the international stage as a concert pianist with three tours of the UK, several
in the Czech Republic and the USA arranged for this season, both as a soloist and
a chamber musician. No stranger to Scotland, she gained several scholarship awards
that allowed her to study at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama, graduating
with a Master of Music degree in 2004, and she gained further degrees at the Latvian
Academy of Music and at the University of Zurich, where she lives and teaches.
The programme opened with a set of elaborate variations by Mozart on a stately minuet
theme, Ay wife is the most glorious thing. The theme was decorated with flights
of beautifully even scales and arpeggios that never dominated the theme. Mozart
was renowned for his sense of humour, which can perhaps be detected by his understated
"throw away" ending. We hope that this was not to be taken by him too literally!
The Grieg Holberg Suite is a compilation of old dance forms and is deservedly
popular. An arrangement for saxophone quartet has already been performed this season
by Sax Ecosse and a further version awaits us when Inverurie Music invites the Chamber
Philharmonic Europe to perform in Inverurie Town Hall on Good Friday, 29th March.
Arta's piano performance lacked nothing in interpretation and control with clarity
and light pedalling for the dance-like movements and singing expressive power for
the Sarabande and Air.
Robert Schumann is one of Arta's favourite composers and her sensitive handling
of Waldszenen or Forest Scenes provided a contrast to the dance theme
of the programme. It was his last fine piano work before he became seriously afflicted
by mental illness and is a collection of pieces like the better-known Kinderszenen
or Scenes from Childhood. She introduced the collection to the audience,
read out a poem that inspired the composer and explained some of the musical imagery
that the composer used.
Arta introduced the final piece as an impression of a warmer climate that might
be appreciated by the audience — the Fantasia Baetica by Manuel de
Falla. He was born in Cadiz and the piece was inspired by his native province (Baetica
is the Latin name for Andalusia). This was a dazzling display of virtuosity with
glittering scale passages, whirling glissandos and toe-curling major 7th note clusters.
Despite the sheer energy that was needed to play this tour de force, Arta's handling
of the complicated rhythms was so precise that the music seemed to have its own
energy. Falla wrote the Fantasia as a showpiece for the legendary Artur Rubinstein,
the Polish-born pianist, who is said to have played in every country in the world
except Tibet. For an encore, Arta chose a little lullaby by Schumann — it
might be said, to calm the audience down for the journey home!
The next Inverurie Music concert is the Maxwell String Quartet on Saturday 16 February
at the Acorn Centre, West Church, Inverurie at 8pm. See
www.inveruriemusic.co.uk for details.
Photos by John Hearne
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