Ian de Massini in Concert
How it sparkled! Jim Henderson reviews the Easter Concerts
ON EASTER MONDAY, after our commemoration of the Agony and our exaltation from
the Resurrection, those attending in Saint Mary's witnessed a revelation.
We were shown the inner drive and skill behind the wonderful achievements of
the Cambridge Voices. These frequently bless us there, and in Saints Cyriac and
Julitta's. Ian de Massini, without his choir on this occasion, presented
four more of his Bach's Preludes and Fugues. He paired each for this event
with one of Shostakovich's, composed a century and a half later, and played
all from memory. Performance from memory demands a deeper knowledge of the work
than comes from running transcription, however adept, from stave to keyboard.
Furthermore de Massini did not hold back from disclosing for us structural
features in the music which gave it meaning and made possible that quality of
memory which surely approaches integration with the soul. He drew attention to
evolutionary forces, first recognisable in Bach, which formed our later music.
Few of us think of Bach and Shostakovich together. Yet such was the wonder of
the former's creativity that the latter's, nor anyone else's since,
might not have found voice without it. All of this was made clear by de
Massini's analytic and executive genius. This last was much enhanced by the
acoustic gift from the architects and builders of St Mary's Church in our
village. The pure precision of Bach's complex, mutually supporting forms
shone constantly throughout without detracting from the totality of our musical
experience. The essence of the lines, clarified as multiplicates of themselves,
gave a diamantine character to each piece and to the whole afternoon's
performance. How it sparkled! The Mozart C minor Fantasia came then like a
dollop of schlagsahne. It was, of course, beautiful and marvellously played but
did it not serve to show where we have gone astray intellectually, emotionally
and perhaps nutritionally? Thankfully the final Bach Fantasia paired with it
returned us to the rigours of pure thinking with which it is better habitually
to face the world. Thank you Ian de Massini for being. And thank you for being
so generous in sharing fine gifts of communication and performance with us in
this village and the greater orb beyond.