MICHAEL DUNGANreviews Baier, Blumina at the Hugh Lane Gallery, Dublin
Telemann – Sonata in F minor.
Schumann – Fantasiestücke Op 73.
Tansman – Sonatine.
Michael Stöckigt – Sonatine.
Roger Boutry – Interférences pour basson et piano.
It's not that often the bassoon takes centre stage for more than a few bars. So here, with a whole concert at his disposal, virtuoso and champion of the bassoon Mathias Baier took care that his one-hour programme visited a variety of styles and epochs.
If the goal was to show his instrument in a good light, he – and his partner on the piano, Elizaveta Blumina – succeeded.
In keeping with the bassoon's baroque origins, the duo opened with the F minor Sonata, which Telemann wrote specifically for the bassoon. The first movement, marked triste, is indeed rich with a kind of plaintive sadness that Baier brought out naturally, immediately dispelling any persistent notions of Peter-and-the-Wolf's crusty grandfather.
Both here and in dedicated bassoon pieces from the 20th century, Baier also revealed his refined, easy dexterity in rapid passagework, playful in the Françaix-like Sonatine by the Polish-born Paris-based composer Alexandre Tansman, or full of rhythmic high spirits in the Allegro giocoso of another Sonatine, this one by the contemporary German composer Michael Stöckigt.
Flashes of pace co-existed with recitative-like passages in the mysterious and highly episodic Interférences by Roger Doutry from Paris.
Separating baroque and contemporary were the three short pieces of Schumann's Op 73 Fantasiestücke, originally for clarinet but given persuasively here in a version for bassoon. Such tender music – once again Peter's grandfather is miles away.
There were no unaccompanied pieces, so that pianist Elizaveta Blumina needed to change style as often as did Baier, employing an almost Gould-like abstention from the pedal in the pre-piano Telemann, a fuller sound for the romantic Schumann, and now-rumbling, now-spikey, now scatter-shot in the recent pieces, all with great energy, all in sensitive partnership.
