Beethoven: Sonata for Violin and Piano nr. 9 'Kreutzer' - Ravel: Sonata for Violin and Piano - Say: Sonata for Violin and Piano - Bartok: Romanian Folk Dances

I still have to report a live concert we attended Tuesday last week. Patricia Kopatchinskaja (violin) and Fazil Say (piano) came to Leuven with an interesting programme. I was particularly attracted by Prokofiev's epic First Violin Sonata but, to my considerable disappointment, the performance was cancelled at the last moment and the Beethoven Kreutzer Sonata came instead. But I guess that's part of the game when you want to hear and see these two 'enfants terribles' at work. Both Say and Kopatchinskaja have a reputation for waywardness. Their podium presence certainly confirms this. Kopatchinskaja plays barefeet. Say sways ecstatically behind his piano. Both bring visceral energy to their performance (the difference with the poised Ibragimova/Tiberghien duo I heard recently in Brussels is striking). But despite the fact that they must have performed this particular programme innumerable times (it already featured on their debut CD in 2008), the joint music making still sounded fresh and engaging. The Beethoven sonata did not disappoint. There was an electrifying sense of drama, particularly in the stormy outer movements, that for me threw a new light on this work. The middle Andante was slightly less successful. There it struck me that Kopatchinskaja's tonal palette seemed rather restricted, but that impression can also be due to the relatively poor acoustics of a large, new teaching auditorium. After the break came Say's own piece: an eclectic and derivative work that I forgot as soon as I had heard it. In Bartok's Romanian Folk Dances (an adaptation of the piano original by Zoltan Szekely) Kopatchinskaja could play out her eastern European pedigree to the brink. The music might as well have sounded on a dusty Moldovan village square a hundred years ago. The programme was brought to an end by a masculine and colourful rendition of the Ravel sonata. Some quirky encores (which certainly underscored the virtuoso capabilities of the duo) concluded an engaging musical evening. I must admit at being slightly skeptical when I went in, but I was won over by the ostensible honesty and musicality of what was offered. Kopatchinskaja's rough and visceral approach might smack of cheap sensationalism (and in this promo video it really goes over the top) but what I heard last week struck me as staying within the bounds of good taste and genuine musicality.