This might well have been another pair of hand-me-down tickets from one of Janie’s wealthy, music-loving, globe-trotting clients. Or perhaps Jilly at that time. My log is silent on the matter. It doesn’t feel like the sort of thing I’d have booked myself.
No matter – it was a very good concert, in that Midori is/was quite a special talent, who emerged as a child prodigy in the 1980s, then withdrew from public performance in the mid 1990s and since then occasionally reappeared. This was during one of her reappearance phases.
It was good to see her perform chamber style rather than with a big orchestra, although most of her concerts on that tour, by the looks of it, were big concerto stuff. In truth the Barbican Hall is not ideal for smaller scale works, but still it worked.
We heard:
- Claude Debussy – Sonata in G Minor for Violin and Piano
- Maurice Ravel – Sonata for Violin and Cello
- Camille Saint-Saens – Fantaisie for Violin and Harp in A Major, Op 124
- Gabriel Faure – Quartet for Piano, Violin, Viola and Cello No 1 in C Minor, Op 15
I remember especially enjoying the violin & harp piece. Very charming. Here are some other people performing that Saint-Saens work.