WITH a classic start to his residency at the Perth Festival - running through till Saturday, with four concerts and workshop/masterclasses with schoolchildren - Austrian violinist Ernst Kovacic yesterday morning lit up a rather dreich Perth in a recital packed with the familiar, the unknown, the meatiest and lightest music, all delivered in a style so relaxed, informative, and entertaining that other solo violinists could benefit from studying the technique.
He's not pushy or zealous in his communications with the audience. ''I really like these pieces, which I've been playing for 25 years,'' he said of Webern's Four Pieces, a quartet of the toughest, most forbidding little aphorisms ever written. Kovacic cradled his jaw in his hand, quizzically, as he set about making Webern's diamond notes user-friendly to a largely conservative audience.
And the analogy he struck, drawing on a scene from an Audrey Hepburn movie (Wait Until Dark) - of the crucial significance of the tiniest sound to someone who's blind - created a precise context for these pieces. You could have heard a pin drop in the concentrated silence that surrounded the whisperings and rustlings of Kovacic's superlative performance.
And, in bringing the early Violin Sonata of his compatriot Gottfried von Einem to Perth, Kovacic unveiled a major piece, stuffed with slashing jazz rhythms, sultry hints of a boozy tango, and music ranging from darkly ruminative to violently frantic. And here, as in all the other works, he was brilliantly accompanied by the extraordinarily nimble pianism of David Owen Norris.
And from the mainstream there were pieces by Kreisler and sonatas by Mozart and Schubert, all characterised by Kovacic's sweet, intense tone, with its myriad nuances of colour and dynamic. Superb.
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