Rochdale Music Society concert: Oscar and Barney Tabor

Somerset born brothers Oscar and Barney Tabor both showed early promise of a career in musical performance, Oscar as a violinist and Barney as both a pianist and an accordionist.

Having studied separately and pursued their varied performance options they now come together from time to time to make music both as individuals and as a duo.

The programme they played in St. Michael’s Parish Church, Bamford on Saturday 19 November, for the Rochdale Music Society on 19 November offered a well chosen sequence of works which gave them the opportunity to display their personal artistic accomplishment as instrumentalists and their skill in combining with each other in happy agreement to the delight of a receptive and discerning audience.

They began with the Sonata No. 21 in E minor by Mozart for violin and piano, a delightful two movement work which they delivered with close attention to its charming melodic detail. Written at a time not long after the composer’s mother’s death, it has an underlying strain of melancholy, which they let emerge without undue emphasis, as Mozart would probably have wished.

Oscar then played the first of two solo works he was going to include in the programme, this one being by J.S.Bach: the Sonata in G minor, music of an intimate nature which enabled Oscar to demonstrate his considerable technical skill with the multiple stopping it called for at its climactic points adding depth and colour to its melodic appeal.

As a foil to this, the brothers played a novelty piece for violin and piano by this Reviewer entitled ‘Galopins’ (French for ‘Scallywags’), which they executed appropriately with tongue in cheek but fingers firmly placed in the right places.

Two solo pieces for Barney followed, both by Debussy. These he performed with just the right attention to fingering and pedaling that each in its way requires to produce the effect of the movement of sunlight on water (‘Reflets dans l’eau’) and to show off the pianist’s dexterity (’Dr. Gradus and Parnassum’).

To end the first half Oscar and Barney combined in a telling performance of the elegiac and passionate Legende by the 19th century composer, Wieniawski.

The second half of the concert began with Schubert’s Sonatina No. 21 in A minor, a more expansive work than the Mozart Sonata. As this performance displayed, it is filled with characteristic Schubertian tunes and harmonies which fill both performers and listeners with excitement and pleasure.

Oscar then played the other solo violin work in the concert, a Passacaglia by Heinrik Biber, who was a prominent composer of the generation before J. S. Bach. This inventive and powerful demonstration of the instrument’s wide range of expression within the compositional constraints of Baroque style proved quite a revelation to the audience, whose applause showed how appreciative they were of both the music and the performer’s artistry.

Barney then played two more works for solo piano, Debussy’s Arabesque No. 1 and Chopin’s ‘Raindrop’ Prelude. These are both captivating music guaranteed to please when executed, as they were, with precision and delicacy.

To end the concert the brothers produced a splendid performance of the ever-popular virtuoso violin work by the 19th century composer Sarasate: ‘Ziguenerweisen (Gypsy Airs). Once again the audience showed its appreciation by its prolonged applause, which brought the performers back to delight all those present by playing Massenet’s ‘Meditation’ from the Opera, ‘Thais’, as an encore.

The next Rochdale Music Society concert will be the first of a Spring Series of 4 Concerts to take place in Heywood Civic Centre. It will be held on Saturday 11 March at 7.30 pm.

Details of the ticketing arrangements for the Series can be found on the Society’s website.

Graham Marshall