Victoria Mulova rarely but regularly visits Athens. In 2011, together with the then little-known, extremely talented pianist Christian Bezaudenhout, the famous Russian violinist performed Beethoven’s sonatas. This year, on October 26, she returned to the Christos D. Lambrakis Hall, along with another talented pianist, Alastair Beatson, and began her program, as in 2011, with the Sonata for Violin and Piano No. 4, opus 23 by Beethoven.

There was a feeling that Moulova easily switched to this music. As in the sonata, no. 7 in C minor (opus 30, No. 2) also by Beethoven, the violinist’s interpretive comfort testified that these are works whose aesthetics and musical dramaturgy she deeply understands and therefore can perform with great naturalness their musical world. The ethos of simple Doric expression with limited vibrato, the formation of individual phrases with an intensity bordering on harshness, as is significant in the first movement – presto – sonata no. 4 and their dialogues, with an expression of exceptional softness and delicacy, emphasized the power of the music through photo-shading, which, although dramatic, had nothing theatrical about it. Mulov showed that redundancy does not mean dryness or lack of imagination. On the contrary: four parts of the sonata no. 7 allowed for great expressiveness that often brought out unexpected aspects of a musical paragraph or even a sonata movement.

Mulova and Beatson have shown that redundancy does not mean dryness or lack of imagination.

Beethoven provides for the equal participation of the two instruments in his sonatas, and Beatson turned out to be an interlocutor on the same wavelength as Moulova. Equally thrifty and precise, he was constantly in a creative dialogue with her, helping to emphasize the qualities of music.

The theme of the second part of the evening was repetition and eternal circulation. Moulova and Bitson began their program with two 20th-century works: Fairy Entourages (1951) by the Japanese Toru Takemitsu and a version of The Brothers (1977–1980) by the Estonian Arvo Perth. A poetic, atmospheric work inspired by a poem by surrealist Suzo Takiguchi and the modernism of Debussy and Messiaen, Takemitsu’s work was presented with subtlety in terms of aesthetics and transparency in terms of sound, elements that together created a sense of weightless levitation. which seemed to be requested.

Perth composed the piece “The Brothers”, initially leaving it unorchestrated so that it could be played with various combinations of instruments. Obviously, the choice of timbre is of great importance, as it gives a distinct stamp to the musical structure. The strict combination of violin and piano focuses on metaphysical contemplation, which, perhaps, is one of the key aspects of the work. Mulova and Beatson ended their program in a different mood with Franz Schubert’s Vivid Rondo, performed as skillfully as its demanding writing suggests.