Sonatas in a small Concert Hall

On Friday I have been to a concert at the Palace of Bruchsal – you may have seen the pictures of it – with Elin Kolev and Triantafyllos Liotis playing the Kreutzer Sonata of Beethoven and the Sonata for violin and piano no. 2 of Robert Schumann. 

Chamber music with an audience of 200 people leaves a very different impression than a large concert in a big concert hall. It is much more direct and you seem to get into contact with the artist. Yesterday this actually happened because the professor who should have given a short lecture on the pieces mixed up the dates and was not available. Therefore Elin answered some questions about the pieces himself. He shared some insights on how he approached the piece of Beethoven with whom he shares the birth date.

The pieces were played wonderfully as far as I can assess. And there were two encores. The polonaise of Wieniawski that they also played in October and the Fiddler on the Roof in the version of John Williams. They got a tremendous applause and the audience was very happy. And so was I.

At the end I had to run to catch my train to Frankfurt and I only made it in the last minute. I had not expected a second encore but of course I had to listen to it.