The picturesque pieve (parish church) at Elici spreads its Romanesque architecture on a truly romantic spot.

We reached it when it was enveloped in the soft pink of a fading sunset and admired the extensive views sweeping down from the Apuans to the coastal plain of Versilia which here are splashed by the waters of Massaciuccoli lake.

We were early for the last chamber music concert of the summer season but a queue had already formed outside the main portal. On a previous occasion, when we heard a ravishing Messiaen quartet for the end of time, the venue was in the courtyard of the church. This evening, however, due to weather uncertainties, we were seated inside the building where the temperature approached the sauna levels I had only recently experienced in London’s central line tube trains.

This was the concert programme:

SERGEJ KRYLOV violino
EDOARDO MARIA STRABBIOLI pianoforte

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791)
Sonata n. 26 per violino e pianoforte in si bemolle maggiore (Bb major) K.378
Allegro moderato
Andantino sostenuto e cantabile
Rondò. Allegro

Johannes Brahms (1833-1897)
Sonata per pianoforte e violino n. 1 op. 78 in sol maggiore (G major)
Vivace ma non troppo
Adagio
Allegro molto moderato
* * *
César Franck (1822-1890)
Sonata in la maggiore (A major) per violino e pianofort
Allegretto ben moderato
Allegro
Recitativo-Fantasia: Ben moderato. Largamente con fantasia
Allegretto poco mosso

Krylov is a muscular player with an extraordinary technique and very much in the Russian tradition. He was a friend of Rostropovitch, has spent much time in Italy and is chief conductor of the Lithuanian Symphony orchestra. Strabbioli, too, is a formidable performer and I felt the two matched each other perfectly.

It would be churlish to criticise such a high quality recital. I felt, however, that the balance in the Mozart unduly favoured the Steinway piano. The Brahms, composed by the shores of an idyllic Carinthian lake and overflowing with melodies distilled in the purest honey, was rather more balanced.

For me, however, the Franck, suffused with composer’s late life passion for the Irish -French Augusta Holmes (herself a fine composer and the mother of these charming children painted by Renoir) took the laurel. Krylov and Strabbioli fully revealed the cyclic structure, immense flow and virtuoso writing (especially for the piano) of this, one of the repertoire’s greatest violin sonatas.

The performers let rip in the two encores: Falla’s fire dance from ‘la vida breve’ and one of Bartok’s Rumanian dances. Indeed, the whole evening was so riveting that I entirely forgot the high temperature and the hard church pew.

Special thanks are due to my friends who invited me to come with them to Pieve a Elici.

Incidentally, the web site, ‘luccamusica’, displaying concert events in the lucchesia and for which I have edited the English language section, has, this year, been purchased by Andrea Colombini, famed for his Puccini concerts in the city’s baptistery. It is now fully operational and, together with the AML (Lucca Musical Association) site, is quite informative about music events around here. However, it is always essential to Google round and about as neither guarantees a comprehensive listing.