Brighton Year-Round 2024

Evelyn Harrison and Zhanna Kemp-Dashkovskya St Nicholas Church Recital

Evelyn Harrison and Zhanna Kemp-Dashkovskya

Genre: Live Music, Music

Venue: St Nicholas Church, Dyke Road, Brighton

Festival: Brighton Year-Round

Low Down

Review

Here’s a blast of velvet. Evelyn Harrison and Zhanna Kemp-Dashkovskya return to St Nicholas to perform a cross-section of classical music.

Bach’s Flute Sonata in G minor (arranged by the great saxophone player John Harle) lends itself surprisingly well to the sax. Indeed Bach would undoubtedly ha e used the sax had it been invented. He played with sonorities and transpositions of the same work

Here the emphasis is on the final Allegro. But first an introductory Allegro where the sax gently steals in with Harrison rippling over Kemp-Dashkovskya is bewitching. Harrison’s sustained tones serve her beautifully in the Adagio too. But the final Allegro has both artists at full stretch. And played faster than Allegro … It’s pressing close to Presto. This contrapuntal and highly developed movement means that beyond the original incisiveness the performers need to find a build and give-and-take that allows the sax to bloom and not blur. It’s memorably sustained and brought to a fiendish climax.

Henri Tomasi (1901-71) hails from the generation of French composers either younger members of Les Six (orin te spirit of), or organists cneted round Le Jeune France: there’s Poulenc, Auric, Henri Sauget. Maurice Duruflé, Henri Jolivet, Jean Langlais, Oliver Messaien, Jehan Alain and Jean Francaix (all born between 1899-1912).

Tomasi  is known for his ballet arrangement of The Good-Humoured Ladies from Scarlatti sonatas. Here though he produces a sweet-toned Chant Corse that’s almost over before it begins. It’s memorably bright and worth hearing,, as is more of Tomasi. A modest but undeniable minor gem of a composer.

Gershwin’s 1934 Walking the dog gets a stalking bass workout from Kemp-Dashkovskya as Harrison effortlessly and insouciantly soars LM over the top.

Artie Shaw’s arrangement of Ted Shapiro’s own arrangement of ‘If I Had You’ is notable for the way Harrison both produces a perky but also bravura-toned rendition. There’s volume but finesse in this toothsome but wittily syncopated piece. It’s both catchy and cheeky in its importunity.

Tchaikovsky’s Melodie for Violin and Piano is here arranged by Harrison in a transcription of sustained romantic feeling. The sax carries the melodic line and Kemp-Dashkovskya projects a few phrasings and echoes. It ends in a vertiginous flight where the original violin soars, and where this sax dares.

Harrison makes a case for the neglected but melodically gifted Geatano Graga, whose La Serenata lilts its way through the Sax’s middle register in a waltz tune. There’s a memorable refrain on the piano and Harrison holds the tune in mid-air with a rapt song-like sustained breath.

Mike Garson’s Jazz Variations on a Theme of Paganini is an enormously vivacious and piano-rich work where Harrison uses a broken chord and syncopated version of the famous 24th Caprice. Fully jazzed of course.

Harrison follows Garson’s acutely reworked and reimagined Caprice. It’s both far and near in tone, but near in spirit. Paganini had passions for viola, cello and guitar too. One feels he might have got his friend Berlioz to do something with the sax, as Berlioz later did. It’s recognizable but swung and bluesy: the time and century are truly later 20th.

As Harrison fades the line in a way violins can’t, we come to an official end. But.

Ernest Guiraud’s Allegro was antepenultimate in the programme but used as an encore. It’s an edgy piece full of a darkened lyricism, almost as if it were written as a TV or film theme. There’s some tricky stopping towards the end

Harrison afflicted with NS usually plays the clarinet but often finds the sax more congenial. She’s a remarkable and underusing artist with a very time that never falters; and Kemp-Dashkovskya a loyal and gifted accompanist often seen on the Brighton circuit.

Published October 2, 2024 by Simon Jenner