Strathearn Music Society Review – Perseus Duo

Wed 25th January 2023

Two young men at the outset of what by rights should be a stellar career, violinist Anthony Poon and pianist Galin Ganchev, are worthy winners of a Tunnell Trust Award which is currently enabling them to undertake a Scottish tour as the Perseus Duo. The original Perseus was a hero of Greek mythology, mostly famous for tackling and killing fearsome creatures – his two greatest achievements were beheading the Gorgon Medusa and saving Andromeda from the sea-monster Cetus – so it’s hard to make the connection between such gory deeds and the gorgeously lush and luminous concert given by this pair for the Strathearn Music Society last Wednesday. I’m going to interpret the name in the sense of “giant-slayers of the musical world”, which I’m confident in predicting that these two players will become (in the nicest possible way) before long.

They certainly don’t believe in giving themselves an easy time. In a programme which skilfully avoided some of the more obvious strands of the violin and piano repertoire, they presented two major works which should perhaps be heard more often: the sonatas by Richard Strauss and Francis Poulenc. The former, by turns heroically swashbuckling and heart-meltingly intimate, and the latter, with more than its fair share of the composer’s trademark acerbic and often dark undertones, are challenging and substantial pieces which both received the sensitive and insightful treatment they amply deserve, fully backed up by the full-bodied bravura essential to their success. In prefacing these two by Brahms’ arresting “F-A-E” Scherzo, Poon and Ganchev had in any case presented their credentials beyond any doubt, demonstrating a ravishing quality of sound allied to a range of tonal colours which would plainly be equal to all that was to come.

In concluding the evening with a selection of lesser-known but variously attractive shorter pieces by Lili Boulanger, Pancho Vladerigov and Eugène Ysaÿe, the players gradually eased the intensity of their earlier efforts into a lighter mood where sheer virtuosity and delight in (slightly) simpler things inevitably led to two encores – and lots of smiles all round – leaving a delightful impression of modest, unassuming but impeccable musicianship and immense skill and artistry, lightly worn. In short, this was a fabulous concert.