Arousing music

Press, 20 July 1979, Page 4

Arousing music

By

C. FOSTER BROWNE

Marta Hidy, the leading tiolinist in the McMaster jtring Quartet, with John luxton at the piano, gave a ecital in the University fchool of Music on Tuesday. She gave superb performmces of the Sonata in D binor by Brahms and inendescent renderings of erne Rumanian Folk Dances j. Bartok. Such playing erried the audience on the rest of a whirlwind and it c only very rarely, if ever, hat a player in this hall as roused such enthusiasm and xcjtement. The performance of the Irahms Sonata in D minor egan with floating and elepic melodies singing sereely. It was an adventurous tit markedly secure perjrmance well endowed with rtistry and poetic inpiration. The slow mOve-

ment was movingly interpreted, for the most part with an elegant melody, mainly on the lower strings. The third movement, short but so effective, had excitingly exuberant playing, beginning in full adventurous panoply, yielding place for a while to a chorale-like theme played with moving tenderness.

John Luxton made good contribution to the interpretation of the Sonata. He will soon go to work in Australia, but we hope that we will have many opportunities to hear him again. Bartok’s Rumanian Dances had the passion and fire of gypsy temperament, and were played with a sweeping enthusiasm. The moods changed with dazzling rapidity and each change caught the audience up into its maelstrom.