Page 184 - ASMF Marriner 100 Coverage Book

Introducing her work at the beginning of the concert, Beamish (pictured below by
Ashley Coombes EPCSCOTLAND) told us how her mother played in Marriner's

Academy of St Martin in the Fields, and having turned pages during a session (and
later been principal viola in the Scottish Chamber Orchestra, golden years I
remember well), the daughter was approached by the great man to be
ASMF Composer in Residence. He died at the grand age of 92 before hearing the
results, but she's right – he would have liked the way she honours the individual
players, as he dd, in the Partita, and the various ways she homages three of their
musical gods, too.

Perhaps there's a stuttering awe in even approaching a fragment from Bach's D
minor solo violin Sonata; the Prelude proceeds in stops and starts. But "he shall
reign..." is transcendently handled, and the opportunities for each string player in the
Chaconne were gratefully taken, above all by first cellist Richard Harwood – such a
tone – and first viola-player Robert Smissen, who finally makes the subterranean
reference in the main theme clear (Beamish spilled the beans in her introduction –
it's the Wedding March from the music for A Midsummer Night's Dream).

The real buzz about the evening was the relatively late announcement that Murray Perahia would
be returning to play in London after too long a gap (it is hard to realise that Maurizio Pollini will
not longer be making similar annual appearances, so the re-emergence of another keyboard
hero, after too long an absence owing to a bone abnormalty in his hand, came as special balm).
An American tour with the ASMF was one of the earlier casualities, so it was especially
meaningful that he re-emerged last night to join four of the players (Tomo Keller, Harvey de
Souza, Smissen and Harwood) in Schumann's Piano