Reviews

Open Arms: String Duo Plays O'Connor, Mozart & Handel-Halvorsen
Chamber Recital by Violinist Johnathan Spence & Violist Andrew Minguez, Hosted by DOU's Community Music Division
Chandler Hall, October 12, 2018
Review by John Campbell

Both Johnathan Spence and Andrew Minguez studied at East Carolina University and the University of New York at Stonybrook, but were not in the same class. Johnathan came to our area and established Spence Academy for Strings in Chesapeake and has successfully anchored himself in the musical community, becoming a fellow of the ODU Community Music Division and a string teacher at the Governor's School for the Arts. Andrew Minguez, after a year of being mentored at Stonybrook by the Emerson Quartet, has joined the Spence Academy as a viola teacher.

Mr. Spence and Mr. Minguez opened with FC's Gig for Violin and Viola by Mark O'Connor (b. 1961). The lively duet was intense from the start, with an equal voice for both players. The performance was equally challenging for both men who gave a seamless reading and shared a wide, satisfied smile with their audience of 90-100 students, parents, grandparents and friends and of course, curious listeners like us.

On August 4, 1782, Mozart took his wife Constanze to his native Salzberg to meet his father Leopold. The Mozarts had married recently in Vienna without his father's blessing. While there he called on his old friend Michael Haydn (Joseph's brother) and found him ill in bed, unable to complete two of six duos for violin and viola commissioned by Archbishop Colloredo. Two days later Mozart made Michael a present of two sonatas. We know them as Duo in G, KV 423 and Duo in B flat, KV 424.

Mozart was a fine viola player and his masterpieces are of excellent musical content. His innovation was to treat violin and viola as equals. On the other hand, the Michael Haydn pieces, as was the style of his day, treat the violin as soloist and viola as accompaniment. No one knows whether the Archbishop noticed the difference.

The viola follows the violin melody line, wrapping around it in the first movement Allegro. In brisk tempos Dr. Spence elongates his body, going up on the toes of one foot in a dance-like movement. The Adagio movement's beautiful opening has the violin bringing the melody while Mr. Minquez's viola dances around it until it becomes a lovely duet. The concluding Rondeau Allegro movement offers flashy, ultra-quick notes for violin while the viola is more earthbound. The coordination was superb and we were totally reassured that these young men are masters of their instruments.

After a brief pause the duo returned with Passacaglia in G minor for Violin and Viola by Handel-Halvorsen. The piece was based on a movement of G.F. Handel's (1865-1759) from a suite for Baroque harpsichord. A passacaglia was originally a Spanish street dance. Some 175 years later Johan Halvorsen (1864-1935), who helped to develop the Norwegian Romantic tradition, created a virtuoso violin and viola (or cello) arrangement with all sorts of musical variations jam-packed into the piece. Here we find an edgy violin with a sweet melody in the viola with a progression of short resolved chords as a bedrock for a series of improvisations and inventive variations. It was played as a scintillating dialogue, frequently expanding into four or five simultaneous parts. Bravo!

The encore piece gave us the middle movement of Mozart's other sonata, Duo in B flat, KV 424—an eloquent Andante cantabile in 6/8 meter, it offers a pastoral mood that impressed with the lyrical quality of the playing.