Why fiddler Lorenza Borrani loves the ACO
Italian violinist Lorenza Borrani keeps a photo of her rehearsals with the Australian Chamber Orchestra in 2016 on her phone — and now she’s back.
Wentworth Courier
Don't miss out on the headlines from Wentworth Courier. Followed categories will be added to My News.
- From prodigy to sensation
- At 30 Brandies are still putting bums on seats
- Here's to you, Mr Robertson
- A launch to inspire
Italian violinist Lorenza Borrani keeps a photo of her rehearsals with the Australian Chamber Orchestra in 2016 as wallpaper on her mobile phone.
She says that tour was one of her happiest musical memories, and she particularly loves the “democratic” approach of the band.
Now the 36-year-old from Florence is back for a second tour, performing and directing two of her string orchestra arrangements of landmark chamber works, as well as giving the Australian premiere of a recent work.
Known in Europe for her “guerrilla pop-up concerts” where she turns up to an open air venue unannounced with a group of unrehearsed top-notch musicians, Borrani is one of the exciting generation of performers who take risks and think outside the square.
She is also a superb technician, eking out of her 1754 Santo Serafino instrument all the tonal colours needed for the first work on the program, Sergei Prokofiev’s chilling and grim Sonata No1 for violin and piano.
GRAVEYARD
The opening andante, with the piano part taken mainly by the low strings, shows the Soviet composer angry and mourning the loss of friends and musical collaborators in the Stalinist purges of the late 1930s.
The scurrying figures up and down fingerboard over the sombre bass notes was said by Prokofiev to feel “like the wind in a graveyard”.
The soloist doesn’t stand out so much with all those strings, but Borrani’s arrangement worked well and was sympathetic to the music that she has grown up with and been playing since she was 14.
The andante third movement was haunting and beautiful, the arpeggio piano part working well in the deft hands of Helena Rathbone and the violins.
On her previous visit Borrani directed a string orchestra arrangement of Ludwig van Beethoven’s 14th quartet, the Op 131, and for this tour she has turned her attention to his last completed major work, the 16th Op 135.
EMPHASIS
She has said in interviews that she initially resisted the idea of upscaling these masterworks, but her experience here with the ACO in 2016 persuaded her that she justified in arranging them and enabling listeners to hear them in a new and different way.
For the most part the arrangement worked well for the Op 135, although at times its frequent unexpected twists and turns felt a little laboured in the large format approach, while the famous “Must it be? — It must be!” section in the final movement gained added emphasis.
As a contrast to these two stalwarts of the chamber repertoire Borrani premiered a piece by Bulgarian composer Dobrinka Tabakova, Such Different Paths, a work written for Dutch violin virtuoso Janine Jansen.
Tabakova has lived in England since she was a child so it is perhaps less of a surprise that some of this tonal and accessible chamber work — it was originally written for string septet — should at times bring to mind the pastoral works of Ralph Vaughan Williams
The 17-minute piece is very much a journey — Tabakova likens the transitioning layers and perspectives to “a camera zooming in and out of focus on the background or foreground”.
It’s a vibrant work and makes one hungry to hear more of this composer.
As an encore Borrani and the ACO treated the audience to Alfred Schnittke’s enchanting pantomime from the Suite in the Old Style.
The concert will be repeated at City Recital Hall Angel Place on Wednesday, March 13, at 7pm; Friday, March 15, at 1pm, and Saturday, March 16, at 7pm.
DETAILS
● CONCERT: Australian Chamber Orchestra Prokofiev and Beethoven
● WHERE: City Recital Hall Angel Place
● WHEN: Tuesday, March 12