Lunch-Hour Recital

Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31729, 12 July 1968, Page 12

Lunch-Hour Recital

Gregory Baron, cellist of the Alberni Quartet, and Susan Baron, pianist, gave a lunch-hour recital in the University Hall yesterday afternoon to a very good audience. The programme began with Seven Variations by Beethoven on a duet from Mozart’s “Magic Flute,” a beautiful air treated with shapely grace. There were times when the balance between the instruments was not happy. It is hard for a cello, in its low register, to compete against a piano part in which there is high scoring. Mr Baron never sacrificed tonal quality to volume and always produced an elegantly singing tone; and Mrs Baron appreciated the dramatic drive of the work.

Shostakovich’s Sonata Op. 40 began with beautiful textures of sound from both instruments. There was strongly tense atmosphere in the first part of the first movement which was followed by calmer musing and extended development in strong idiom. Towards the end the cello sang with golden tone. Very lively and vivacious mood was created by both instruments at the beginning of the second movement, contrasting with some weird sliding sounds heard later. Both ideas were exuberantly brought forth. The slow movement had a lonely sound richly sung by both instruments in delicately appealing colour and expression. The last movement began with rollicking good humour that became introspective for a while until its original idea reappeared and romped home in a burst of coruscating fireworks. —C.F.B.