A stellar evening lit up the Giovanni Arvedi Auditorium at Cremona’s Museo del Violino, where two of the most admired performers on today’s international music scene, Augustin Hadelich and Charles Owen, captivated the audience with a recital of rare programmatic intelligence and the highest interpretative caliber. A finely crafted and coherent program brought to life some of the great classics of twentieth-century violin literature, weaving together stories, interpretative traditions, and musical genealogies spanning the entire century.

The journey envisioned by the two performers was far more than a simple succession of masterpieces: it brought back to the surface legendary names and eras of twentieth-century violin playing—from Ginette Neveu to Mathieu Crickboom, from Eugène Ysaÿe to David Oistrakh and Henryk Szeryng—reconnecting them through compositions that have left an indelible mark on the violin repertoire.

The evening opened with Hadelich’s own transcription of Récit du Chant by Nicolas de Grigny, which served as a prelude, almost like a half-open door onto a sonic universe that would find immediate and full realization in Violin Sonata in G minor. The French composer’s late masterpiece emerged in a performance that was transparent, luminous, and deeply engaging, sustained by a remarkable balance between the two interpreters. Hadelich sculpted the violin line with almost miniature-like attention to detail: harmonics, portamenti, dynamic shadings, and tonal colors were finely chiseled with complete naturalness, never lapsing into self-indulgence. Owen, for his part, drew from the keyboard a velvety and crystal-clear palette, supporting and conversing with the violin with exemplary chamber-music sensitivity.

This was followed by Distance de Fée by Tōru Takemitsu, one of the most evocative moments of the evening. The youthful work by the Japanese composer unfolded as a succession of variations and episodes built around a dreamlike, ethereal melody with almost cinematic overtones. French influences—indeed the red thread running through the entire program—were unmistakable, and Hadelich and Owen conveyed them with refined lightness and a profound sense of suspension.

Closing the first half was the Sonata for Violin and Piano, among the most dramatic pages in Poulenc’s chamber output. The openly theatrical character of the piece swept the audience away, especially in the final movement, delivered with almost dramatic-stage energy, amid powerful sonic gestures and tensions that left listeners suspended between earth and air. Equally intense was the central Intermezzo, dedicated to the memory of Federico García Lorca: the opening “mottos” stated in unison and the rarefied atmosphere introduced a lyrical and affectionate dimension that until then had remained only beneath the surface, rebalancing the entire architecture of the first half.

The second half of the concert opened with the most “French” of Ysaÿe’s Six Sonatas for Solo Violin, the one dedicated to his friend Crickboom. A diptych exploring every realm of violin technique while emphasizing all the stylistic traits that were meant to characterize the dedicatee. In this page, the Guarneri ex Leduc literally exploded beneath Hadelich’s fingers, as he displayed absolute control both technically and expressively, tackling with confidence and imagination a sonata that belongs to the true “European tour” of violinism envisioned by Ysaÿe.

The grand finale came with Violin Sonata No. 2, born from the transcription of the original flute sonata requested by his friend David Oistrakh. Here the duo likely displayed the very best of their qualities: audacity, precision, virtuosity, and absolute rapport. Every technical devilry was handled with apparent ease, never sacrificing the clarity of the musical discourse. The opening Moderato felt noble and incisive, the Scherzo lightning-fast and razor-sharp, the Andante broad and expansive, while the concluding Allegro con brio definitively set the hall ablaze.

Thunderous applause, a packed auditorium, and palpable enthusiasm greeted a recital of the highest level, in which musical intelligence, interpretative refinement, and virtuosity merged in a program of rare coherence. An evening that not only celebrated the great twentieth-century violin repertoire, but revived—with force and awareness—its living memory.

Photo by Francesco Sessa Ventura