NCH John Field Room, Dublin
Debussy — Sonata in G minor. Bartók — Rhapsody No 1. Brahms — Sonata in D minor Op 108.
To judge by the turnout for last Friday’s lunchtime recital at the National Concert Hall, violinist Mia Cooper has won quite a following in Dublin since her appointment in 2006 as leader of the RTÉ Concert Orchestra. This recital came hot on the heels of a busy enough August schedule, the RTÉCO’s nine concerts during that month having dealt Cooper solo parts in Dvorák’s Romance and Bill Whelan’s Inishlacken. Perhaps it was as a result of this activity that, collaborating with Viv McLean in top-drawer works by three 19th and 20th-century pianist-composers, Cooper seemed at one with her instrument.
What marked Cooper and McLean’s partnership on this occasion was the nimble cross-communication with which they appeared to interpret the music in the very moment.
This quick-wittedness didn’t work entirely to the advantage of the whimsical Debussy sonata, where the composer’s fleeting ideas were exchanged with almost too much spontaneity for comfort. Brahms’s third violin sonata, however, succeeded as much through McLean’s temperate handling of the weighty piano part as through Cooper’s sometimes highly coloured characterisation of the melodies. And it was by these qualities that the fervent folk idioms of Bartók’s Rhapsody No 1 were served best of all.
