GARY COOPER & RACHEL PODGER : 4 stars : "finesse was prevalent everywhere"

24 June 2009

St Cecilia’s Hall, University of Edinburgh, Niddry Street, Cowgate, EH1 1LJ

  1. George Frideric Handel (1685 - 1759) Sonata in A, Op.1/3, Hwv 361 (1725-26) [8’]
  2. Francesco Geminiani (1687 - 1762) Sonata in D minor, Op.4/8 [10’]

  3. George Frideric Handel (1685 - 1759) Suite in Bb major, HWV 494 Second Set of 1733
  4. Thomas Arne (1710-1778) Sonata (c 1742) [c.7’]
  5. Francesco Barsanti (1690 - 1772) Scots Airs: [5’] [c.40’]
  6. ~
  7. Michael Christian Festing (1705-1752) Sonata OP 7 NO 2 IN C MAJOR
[10’]
  8. George Frideric Handel (1685 - 1759) 
Suite No. 8 in F minor, HWV 433 First Set of 1720 [12']
  9. Francesco Geminiani (1687 - 1762) Sonata OP4 NO 5 IN A MINOR
[8'
]
  10. George Frideric Handel (1685 - 1759) Sonata in D, Op.1/13, hwv 371 (1749-50)
 [12'] [c.42’]

View Source : The Herald - HERE

Rachel Podger/Gary Cooper, St Cecilia’s Hall, Edinburgh 21 June 2009

Star rating: 4 STARS

Among Britain's distinguished Bach violinists, Rachel Podger is the star. But hearing her in Handel at the weekend, the one composer the glorious obverse of the other, was just as much a treat. Though there was none of the starkness of what used to be called "unaccompanied" Bach, there was a compensating mellowness in the D major Sonata, Op 1, No 13, which ended her recital with Gary Cooper - no, not the film star's reincarnation - as harpsichordist.

Hearing her, moreover, in the intimacy of St Cecilia's Hall added to the enjoyment. Matching her tone to the oval surroundings, she delivered the music with a soft serenity that never strained to be heard and in which Cooper, playing the Russell Collection's stupendous 1755 Kirckman, gave her support she deserved.

The programme, second in the university's series of Sypert Summer Concerts, was artfully planned with Handel as its framework, shot through with sonatas by Geminiani, Festing and Arne plus a few sweet airs from Barsanti's collection of old Scots tunes. Even the jerkiness of Geminiani was not so much instrumental contortion in his D minor Sonata as a different way of doing things.

Podger's finesse was prevalent everywhere, though Cooper had his own Handelian solo spots, sensationally in one work - at the end of which he went through the motions of fanning the steam emerging from the Kirckman - and startling in another, when the theme of Brahms's Handel Variations rose from his fingers.

© CONRAD WILSON, The Herald

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