Geneva Lewis NNF 2024
The audience for this intimate concert simply wouldn’t let her go, compelling her to take a bow three times with their emphatic applause.
N&N Festival
Fulfilled the ambit of its moniker, the Norfolk and Norwich festival made a rare trip outside the ring road, as Geneva Lewis performed the last leg of her whistle stop tour around the county at the Diss Corn Hall. Recently awarded Best Arts, Culture and Theatre Venue in Norfolk by Muddy Stilettos, it’s a fine venue that surely deserves to play a bigger part in the festival that just one concert. Nonetheless, what a concert it was! Last year she performed at the Octagon Chapel in Norwich, alongside pianist Evren Ozel, but for this performance she was flying solo, showcasing the superb sound of a violin constructed by Guadagnini in the eighteen century.
The first twenty minutes of her all too brief time on stage was devoted to ‘Bach’s Partita No 3 in E major’, the last work in his set of Sonatas and Partitas, written at a time when solo violin compositions were rare. Presented in six movements without any of the tiresome grandstanding that can bedevil violin soloists, her playing displayed a precision and exactitude that brought both clarity and sensitivity to the piece. It was followed by ‘Darshan’, composed by Indian-American Reena Esmail. The complete work is still in progress, with two of the five movement partita still to be written. Judging by the movement we got to hear the complete cycle will quite something. Based on a Hindustani raag, it brought to mind sounds associated with the sitar and table. The piece was as audacious as the performance was accomplished, flexing the violin in ways that were previously hard to imagine.
My favourite composition of the performance was Andrew Norman’s ‘Sabina’, which absolutely captured the spirit of his inspiration - watching the sun rise from the ancient church of Santa Sabina on Rome's Aventine Hill. It also showcased Geneva Lewis’s extraordinary virtuosity, as the music moved from barely audible sounds to a frenetic maelstrom of bowing, surely mimicking the glorious cacophony of a dawn chorus. The concert concluded with Eugène Ysayë's ‘Sonata in No.5’, which featured two parts, the opening ‘L'Aurore’ being followed by the extraordinary 'Danse Rustique'. Both written to showcase Ysayë's skill as a violinist, these were pieces that would have tested any performer to their very limits, yet Lewis accomplished them faultlessly.
Self-effacing to the very end, the audience for this intimate concert simply wouldn’t let her go, compelling her to take a bow three times with their emphatic applause. An audible sigh of regret then followed when, rather sweetly, she said “I’m going now” leaving everyone begging for more. It rounding off a lunchtime rarely seen at the Corn Hall. We can only hope that the venue, and Diss, benefits from more of the same this time next year.
