Photo by Nigel Parry/CPI
As anyone reading this will remember, it was a little more than a year ago that the violin made by Antonio Stradivari, which Frank Almond plays, was bizarrely stolen in the parking lot of Wisconsin Lutheran College after a Frankly Music concert in Schwan Hall. Last week Frankly Music returned to the hall and attention was again on the violin, but this time for happier notoriety. The sold-out concert celebrated the 300th anniversary of the “Lipinski” Strad with a program of compositions associated with it.
Sonata Prima in D Major by Giuseppe Tartini, the violin’s first owner, was lovely and captivating. Amanda Röntgen-Maier (1853-1894), a little-known Swedish composer, was well represented in the handsome and substantial Sonata for violin and piano, written in a style reminiscent of Robert Schumann and Johannes Brahms. Schumann’s great Piano Quartet, Op. 47, rounded out the program.
Almond honored the instrument with beautiful phrasing and with his signature lyrical sound, always so perfectly in tune. Pianist William Wolfram played brilliantly, especially impressive in the monstrous piano part of the Schumann quartet. Almond and Wolfram were joined by two wonderful players: violist Mara Gearman and cellist Robert deMaine. The Schumann quartet performance was pretty spectacular.
On Saturday evening Early Music Now presented the ensemble Les Délices at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in a concert of 17th-century French music called air de cour (courtly air). Soprano Carrie Henneman Shaw sang with a light, weightless voice, gently slicing the air with the thinnest and sharpest blade of sound. Her performances grew more interesting as the program progressed. Lute solos played by Nigel North were intricate and expertly played, but the room is simply too large for the delicate and unamplified lute. It was a struggle to hear it and remain interested.
Stay on top of the news of the day
Subscribe to our free, daily e-newsletter to get Milwaukee's latest local news, restaurants, music, arts and entertainment and events delivered right to your inbox every weekday, plus a bonus Week in Review email on Saturdays.
Joining Shaw and North were Debra Nagy on recorder and oboe, and Emily Walhout on viola da gamba. There was nothing wrong with the ensemble’s performance, but I found it a little careful and without much zing, and the program itself a little dry, to be honest.
