Shropshire Music Trust – Zoe Beyers, Church Stretton Methodist Church - review

It offered a fine, warm acoustic with an elegant simplicity which offered no visual distraction.

Violinist Zoe Beyers suggested that her capacity audience immersed themselves in the music whilst paying no attention to their surroundings. What excellent advice!

Bach’s music does not owe its existence to any visual or narrative stimulus - it transcends language and rationality.

Zoe Beyers is a musician deeply committed to a two-fold mission; to explore this miraculous music, never resting in her quest for the perfect performance and to bring her performances to the widest possible audience.

For many scholars the sonatas and partitas for solo violin are the pinnacle of Bach’s achievements and the greatest works ever written for four strings. How one instrument creates such a volume and variety of sound is an understandable response to this mystery.

This music demands energy, accuracy, total tonal control and, above all, a relentless rhythmic vitality at every tempo.

Ms. Beyers brought us performances which met all these criteria, from the opening of the Adagio of the First Sonata to the concluding Chaconne of the Second Partita. This Chaconne is simply miraculous; the Partita opens with an Allemande which does not call for any double-stopping yet ends with the Chaconne (which is longer than all the preceding four movements combined) calling for the maximum virtuosity from the artist.

It’s worth commenting that many Jazz musicians recognise that the improvisatory nature of Bach’s music has profoundly influenced their own work.

Beecham famously said: “For a fine performance only two things are absolutely necessary: the maximum of virility coupled with the maximum of delicacy”.

This wonderful recital had both these qualities in abundance. A wonderful first concert for the start of Shropshire Music Trust’s new season.

By Andrew Petch