Duo Timossi in Petersfield

 Duo Timossi, St. Peter's, Petersfield, October 17

It being nearly two hundred years since Beethoven died and exactly a plentiful number of years since I was born, Sara Deborah and Alessandro Timossi's first instalment of their Violin Sonata cycle began to mark the first while inadvertently contributing to the happy occasion of the second. Petersfield has major Beethoven things lined up for 2027 and thus need to bring this part of them forward by way of a prelude to fit it all in.

The reason for beginning the series with nos. 4 and 5 is possibly that nos. 1-3 are no good. Not 'no good' by most terrestrial standards, of course, but some say not quite as good as Beethoven usually is, those being early work. It's a bit like saying some late Vermeer is only relatively 'workmanlike' when it can give most paintings and head start and still leave them behind. 

Op. 23's Presto is impetuous with Alessandro's piano on the verge of becoming stormy. The Andante is daintier and good humoured, maybe owing something to Haydn, and the Allegro featured an industrious piano part with Sara's violin aspiring to more rarefied air before they combined in a bravura climax. All of which was hugely to be enjoyed until, after an interval, op. 24 was something else again.

The optimism of the Allegro seemed to have an affinity with Sara's natural way of playing, the carefree melody leading into dance-like passages. Her excellent programme notes provide more than enough material for me to just lift parts out them out and give myself a day off so I will make use of how the Adagio hovers 'between Sehnsucht and hope' and be grateful to have learned the German for 'longing'. In the Scherzo, her violin was a fraction of a beat behind the piano, making for some engaging effect. I'm guessing that's not as easy to do as playing in strict unison, almost like getting it wrong deliberately, but it was only one more part of the technique of one of the top echelon of musicians in the catchment area I regard as my own. The gaiety of the Rondo finale was a joyous thing. The Spring Sonata, as it is known, is one of the many not given its name by Beethoven. While I'm sure it is meant to refer to the coming alive of the Spring season, an alternative interpretation could be that it's a reference to the energetic uncoiling of a spring, for those of us who enjoy artworks that can mean more than one thing at a time, and the whole concert was a great advertisement for the rest of the series in which I intend to collect the whole set.