Bournemouth Chamber Music Society, Talbot Heath School

EVEN though I have heard Chloe Hanslip play violin superbly with the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra it still comes as a gratifying surprise to find that this 18-year-old rising star can give such a revelatory recital as here.

The tremendous collaboration between pianist Roderick Chadwick and Miss Hanslip held the BCMS audience spellbound with performances of enormous energy and artistic insight.

Prokofiev's Sonata No.1 is a demanding, highly charged work of coruscating anger. Begun with fragmentary inferences and developing into a full-blown (allegro brusco) altercation there follows a conciliatory Andante. Finally a tortuous return to the opening "wind in a graveyard" freddo and a spooky conclusion. Do we have here the ghosts of Romeo and Juliet having a bit of a ding-dong concerning a "second opinion"?

A thrilling account also of Beethoven's Sonata No.9 "Kreutzer" in which Hanslip's rich. lustrous tone gave the often vehement, darkly melodic drama a steely glow. Chadwick's pertinent pianism was always inside and in step with Hanslip's ravishing performance.

Though proof was hardly needed, Vitali's Chaconne in G-minor and Castelnuovo-Tedesco's formidable Figaro: a concert transcription from Rossini's Barber of Seville embraced flawless technical expertise.

Bravo!

Mike Marsh
Review courtesy of the Daily Echo (Bournemouth)

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