City Recital Hall, Angel Place, Sydney
January 20, 2015

Béla Bartók was probably the 20th century’s most innovative collector and arranger of folk music. Committed to preserving the musical legacy of his native Hungary, he was also one of the most distinctive and original composers of the period – one bar of his music is often enough for you to say “ah, that’s Bartók”. His 44 duos for violin are typical of his approach to traditional music, the melodies preserved, the arrangements ‘authentically’ adjusted to suit the composer’s tangy harmonic language.

With many of the duos coming in at under a minute, they can seem slight or elusively fleeting on record. I’ll admit that sitting down to listen to them all straight through on the CD player isn’t at the top of my ‘how to spend an evening in’ list, so I was curious as to how Czech violinists Iva Bittová and Hana Kotková would tackle the set in the concert hall.

Bittová has made her name in the Czech avant-garde. She’s a gifted violinist but, as her opening ‘warm-up’ demonstrated, she’s very much a performance artist. With a bob and a curtsey she bounded barefoot onto the Angel Place stage and proceeded to circle, stamp and vocalise while conjuring a range of ethereal glissandi and percussive effects courtesy of some neat spiccato bowing. She proved a warm-hearted presence, occasionally veering towards the cooky and cute, and communicated volumes with little more than a nod or a glance. Her vocals ranged from deep throated ululations in the Eastern European vein to squeaky yodelling more redolent of Appalachian country and folk. We even had touches of scat. Her English, alas, was only intermittently intelligible, leaving us with the feeling we’d glimpsed something intriguing in the depths of the woods but weren’t quite sure what.

For the Bartók proper she was joined by Kotková, a more sedate presence but no less talented a fiddler. The first duet augured well, played as it was entirely using tiny wands to beat he strings. Other movements utilised Bittová’s haunting vocals in what felt like an unstuffy, improvisational fashion – in one number Bittová sang the folk melody while playing the duo accompaniment herself on the violin (no mean feat if you know these deceptively tricky pieces). The pair took their time in the slower movements, allowing Bartók’s pungent harmonies to register, and Bittová did a nice line in insects for the Mosquito Dance.

Not everything in the garden was rosy. By the half hour mark, the problem with the one-after-another format was beginning to tell. A more intimate venue might have helped, or perhaps a more devil-may-care approach to the livelier numbers. Loss of momentum in getting from duo to duo was also an issue – it’s amazing how one second too many in the pause between numbers can cause the dramatic soufflé to sink.

A Janáček palate cleanser (from his Moravian Folk Poetry) in which Bittová sang to Kotková’s fiddle was a welcome break before embarking on the remaining 19 Bartók duets. The latter set saw the performers letting their hair down a little more and included an effective sequence of New Year’s Greetings (among the most immediately appealing duos) as well as the catchy Dance from Máramoros and the memorable Bagpipes duet. An engaging pizzicato strummed duet landed well before the final lively Transylvanian Dance.

Despite the evident skill on display, by the end of the evening I had the feeling I’d have preferred the performers to have jettisoned a few of the duos and, like Bittová’s warm-up or Kotková’s eloquently played excerpt from the Bartók solo sonata that came as a final bonus, wandered off the beaten track (or dare I say overgrown path) a little more often. Or perhaps the informality of the Spiegel Tent would have suited it better?

Limelight subscriptions start from $4 per month, with savings of up to 50% when you subscribe for longer.