Erotic qualities described by tone

Innsbruck – there are works of music to which erotic qualities have been attributed. One of those is Cesar Franck’s sonata in A major for cello and piano, which Franck composed for his friend Eugene Ysaye as a wedding present. As if eroticism would not make sense for such a gift! Indeed, the performance which Harriet Krijgh (cello) and Magda Amara (piano) presented as the eighth concert of the chamber music series at the conservatory of Innsbruck was more or less like a musical wedding night.

With a tone that spoke to all senses Krijgh fully captured this illustrative combination of both poetic and sensual joy, of subtleness and passion. Such gripping abandonment was to no lesser degree heard in Mendelssohn Bartholdy’s symphonically laid out sonata for cello and piano no. 2 in D major, opus 58. The young, multiple prize winning cellist unfolded a sweet-spicy euphony and a pureness of intonation of a kind that is rarely heard.

2016 05 08 Tiroler Tageszeitung (Austria)