On a wonderful night and with an expectation that was fully justified in the light of the result, the series of great concerts offered by the Auditorio Víctor Villegas rewarded [this Tuesday] an enthusiastic and receptive audience with a, once again, delightful concert thanks to an impressive German orchestra, the Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie of Bremen, the baton of Alondra de la Parra and the collaboration of the violinist María Dueñas. As previously mentioned, the concert was magnificent, and for this to happen, several factors had to be present, not the least of which was the choice of a more than attractive programme that began with Ginastera's 'Variations concertantes', which surely surprised anyone who did not know them for the sensitivity, poetry and evocative capacity they exude and the instrumental virtuosity they possess. Organised in the form of short cadences of different soloists performing variations on the inspired initial theme introduced by the violoncello and harp, it is a complex work in that it alternates tuttis and solos (hence the name concertante) giving them, nevertheless, a timbral continuity (cello with treble strings, etc.) was fascinating at times (especially the viola, with its dramatic double modal strings, and the clean, bucolic and expressive horn). The last variation, an exultant dance, gave the measure of a powerful direction by Alondra de la Parra, a conductor of notable experience despite her relative youth, who knew how to envelop with a gesture adaptable to the different moments, each expression that the music demanded, extracting a truly remarkable timbral balance.
The second course on this fantastic menu was provided by a 19-year-old violinist from Granada, who astounds with a sonority and cleanliness that cannot fail to surprise. The transmutation she makes from her apparent fragility, and the multiplicity of nuances with which she sprinkles a very mature reading, all performed with admirable cleanliness, adapting to the demands that a work as complex as Sibelius's 'Violin Concerto' imposes, is extraordinary. Mastering the instrument (no less than a Stradivarius) and in full harmony with a conductor who always was in control of the different needs, the restrained and stimulating gesture came to the boil in an imposing final allegro with an expressive power and complicity between the two that did not go unnoticed. The tip, a version of the first dance from Falla's 'La vida breve', only reinforced the conviction that María Dueñas' career could be splendid. And finally, a fantastic 'Symphony No. 7' by Dvorak which, apparently less inspired than his two later symphonies, the 8th and the celebrated 9th, nevertheless conceals a very high mastery of a rich and varied language, a precursor of what is to come, which demands from the conductor a control of tempo and growth that is not easy to achieve. The orchestra, a current reference point for German music (preferably Beethoven, Schumann and Brahms), shone to the sound of the expression that Alondra de la Parra drew with undeniable mastery, and which reached its climax in a finale that requires a tension 'in crescendo' that she fully achieved.
A most brilliant evening with a magnificent conductor who showed that she masters leisure and that, seconded by a no less brilliant orchestra, she can offer rich contrasts, controlling electrifying rhythms (as in Ginastera's final variation) and capturing evocative sensations (as in Sibelius' Adagio), knowing how to delimit sonorities and languages in an exercise that is not necessarily orthodox but extraordinarily rich.
Source: https://www.laverdad.es/culturas/musica/brillantisima-velada-magnifica-20220312002018-ntvo.html
