Tasmin Little

Tasmin Little, Naked Violin, Portsmouth Square Tower, June 24th

Post concert delirium might not be the best condition in which to sit and write a review but, there again, not many concerts induce such a thing at this level. This might be going to be the best review I've ever given anything.

The Square Tower is an historic little pile in Old Portsmouth that has been put to various naval and penitentiary uses in the past including a gunpowder store. I'm sure lesser reviewers might stumble on the observation that it might never have contained anything as potentially explosive as one lady and a 1708 Strad but you know I wouldn't do such a thing.

The concert space here held 100 seats and became candlelit with Tasmin possibly in the very frock pictured here on a small stage. A quick Telemann ditty led us into an explanation of the many difficult techniques demanded by Paul Patterson's Luslawice Variations, which included remarkable picking with the left hand while bowing with the right, harmonics played with the little finger placed lightly higher up the note played, bouncing the bow on the bridge, all that dead easy double-stopping and more. Spare and sometimes bleak in its Eastern European way, it was still a mesmering performance and a fine advert for difficult contemporary music and a huge exploration of the things a violin can be made to do.

In a change to the programme, Tasmin explained that a transcription of a guitar piece by Albeniz, Leyenda from the Asturias suite, had proved popular on her very recent tour of Australia and so she gave us its British premiere. Dark and passionate and very Spanish, again it was captivating in a way that you make sure you don't miss a moment. Music doesn't last very long at all when played and listened to with such intensity.

So we arrived at the Bach and one had to think the Old Master had it all to do. Familiarity might work against him after two extraordinary and powerful novelties. Tasmin explained how Bach is regarded as a mathematically perfect composer but the whole point is that this technical brilliance carries a great emotional charge, too. She is wholeheartedly committed to a 'musical' performance rather than a technical one and the solo violin perhaps lends itself more to a breaking of restraint than the orderly patternings of keyboard music. So, of course, her approach is ideal to find the flourish and extravagance available in the baroque sonatas and that is exactly what happened. One should never have doubted the cigar-chomping old maestro. As was once said by Michael Bywater in a Sunday newspaper column, he flatters us by being of the same species. It was spell-binding and spine-tingling and all those things.

But that was only the first half. Perhaps she'll leave us alone in the second half. Some more Bach preceded a generous and entertaining Question and Answer session. She's got four violins, was it, but the Strad is on loan from the Royal Academy; her new release of the Elgar is conveniently the recording she's most proud of and, probably much to the chagrin of the 13 year old daughter, a mother was told that at that age, Tasmin was doing four hours of practice a day. I bet the poor girl said, Thanks, Taz, thank you very much.

But the perhaps the most blinding thing of all was the Melodie from the Bartok Sonata. Slow, haunting and hypnotic if not a bit disturbing. This was no jolly romp through the Classic FM canon she was serving up here. It was, if one can say, an illuminating set of some genuinely dark and difficult music that Tasmin is surely most interested in as an artist and I think we were grateful for that. Her enthusiasm for her subject has always been impressive. It's strange to think she does it all for money. Paganini might have had the devil in him but she goes for some alarming effects with such panache and can still deliver it all with infectious charm and a genuinely delighted smile. For all the despair and waste land that the Bartok might evoke, the unscheduled Ysaye 'Ballade' Sonata ended the set with spectacular verve. The superlatives run dry because words (especially mine) don't capture music particularly well at the best of times and this was something else.

You must go and see Tasmin Little whatever she's doing whenever you can but you'll be the lucky one if the performance near you is this solo presentation.

You don't see many concerts as good as this in a year. You don't see many concerts as good as this in a lifetime.