French-style soiree with violinist Akiko Miyazawa and pianist Liam Wooding at Lawson Flats on Bastille Day

Bastille Day proved auspicious for a French-style soiree, Morceaux de Salon, with violinist Akiko Miyazawa and pianist Liam Wooding at Lawson Flats on Monday, July 14. The boutique CBD venue made a fair double for the Paris salons that influenced much European chamber music, with a smorgasbord of “little bites” drawn from as far afield as Argentina and Poland. Fritz Kreisler’s Prelude and Allegro opened with intent; Miyazawa wringing powerful phrases from violin over Wooding’s carefully complementary piano chords in a studied partnership. Lyrical violin led with passion through the Prelude, turning playful in the Allegro as piano danced attendance; returning to passion in conclusion. Antonin Dvorak’s Humoresque instantly flipped the mood to whimsy. Miyazawa’s lighter touch was every bit as precise, teasing out a rubato that Wooding followed to a “t”; empathy being the soul of musical wit. Villanelle, by Miyazawa’s composer husband Lachlan Skipworth, used poetic form to emotive effect. “The goal is emotion and the game is moving notes around to achieve that,” he said. Rippling piano set a pastoral ambience for a folkloric melody in violin, with Skipworth’s characteristic rhythmic elaboration asserting itself through the keyboard while violin ran footloose over the top. A restless air set in as violin fell to introspective musing, rose to a romp over energetic piano then returned to the pastoral scene of the opening. Zapateado, by violin virtuoso Pablo de Sarasate, was laced with fiddler’s tricks, launching a frantic race towards harmonics over a perpetuum mobile of intricate, energetic detail. The composer showed no mercy in testing rhythm and technical challenges for both players; the effect the more dazzling for being at close quarters, surging to a breakneck finish. Astor Piazzolla’s Café 1930, from L’Histoire du Tango, cooled the mood with late-night lethargy writ large in haunting violin phrases over agile adornments in accompaniment. When the tempo lifted it was like a passing breeze in a tropical evening, finding relief in balladic melody before returning to rumination at the close. Johannes Brahms’ Adagio, from Violin Sonata No.3, again moved the dial, this time closer to the salon of the program title. Tone and tempo were nicely judged to settle the listener after such a series of contrasts; lulled into a warm Romantic wallow with dramatic highlights before subsiding to a fade-out cadence. Maurice Ravel’s Blues, from Violin Sonata No.2, began with robust pizzicato and off-beat piano in challenging counterpoint. When the two coalesced in disruptive, fragmentary figures the pairing appeared almost precarious, yet held together in a defiant way; true to its blues motif in the ending. Henryk Wieniawski’s Scherzo-Tarantella set Miyazawa on a frenzied dance, an echo of her student days in Germany. Playing without notation she hit every note and nuance; waxing lyrical then racing away over constant piano support. Glissando and polyphonic effects again tested technique before a reprise of the furious dance to close. Manuel Ponce’s Estrellita (Little Star), in Jasha Heifetz’ arrangement, played out like a sweet dessert after so much spicy fare, calming the farm before an encore of La Vie en Rose drew the focus back to Paris as each artist indulged their inner Piaf; a parting gift to savour. Miyazawa’s Cygnus Arioso Strings return to the stage at WAAPA’s Richard Gill Auditorium in Baroque Transfigured, with pianist Tommy Seah, on August 17.