Aybolek Mukhieva, a brilliant Turkmen violinist and prize-winner of international competitions, has given a solo recital at the Maya Kulieva Turkmen National Conservatory’s Small Hall.Aybolek, who graduated from the Conservatory, where she had studied violin with Honored Art Worker of Turkmenistan Nikolay Amiyants, played the Violin Concerto by Benjamin Britten, an outstanding English composer, pianist and conductor.
One of the most important themes in the career of Britten a pacifist and philosopher was his protest against war and violence.He composed his Concerto for Violin and Orchestra in response to the horrors of World War II.
As this year marks the 75th anniversary of the Great Victory, the work has taken on new urgency as a musical celebration of peace and humanism, Aybolek said before the recital.
The concert opened with Johann Sebastian Bach’s Violin Sonata No. 1, Adagio and Fugue.Aybolek began the piece with grandeur, accentuating its philosophical character and making the most of her violin’s full potential and depth.
A gradual transition from the Adagio to the Fugue brought the versatility of chords, double notes and intensity of hidden voices.The Conservatory graduate, who held the audience spellbound with her masterful performance, earned a burst of applause. … And then Britten’s emotionally charged and dramatic music filled the air.
The originality and wonderful expressiveness of the Concerto helped to use the violin’s potential to its full.The soul-stirring and piercing sounds reflected a sense of wartime tragedy: cries, whizzing bullets, deafening explosions… The music did not follow the usual pattern of the classical concerto, particularly the one for violin.
But war is also not normal.The listeners hoped very much that the tragic and endlessly dramatic Concerto would end on a more cheerful note symbolic of peace.
However, Britten remained true to his conception probably to eloquently express his uncompromising attitude toward the war.The evening of music ended with Scherzo-Tarantelle’ by nineteenth-century Polish composer Henryk Wieniawski.
Aybolek had chosen the piece to inject some lightness and cheer into her recital.Scherzo’ translates as a joke’ from Italian, and tarantella is a rapid and passionate dance that originated in Italy.
Aybolek’s performance was effortless and gracefully precise.Then, Aybolek Mukhieva’s mentor Nikolay Artemovich Amiyants and piano accompanist Stella Faramazova joined the violinist on stage to thunderous applause.