Music / The Spirit of Youth, Calvin Abdiel and Cedar Newman. At the Belgian Embassy, July 25. Reviewed by  HELEN MUSA.

For any developing young solo instrumentalist – whether Mozart or the girl next door — success as an artist very often begins with a performance in a salon.

With something like this in mind, Belgian ambassador Michel Goffin has been throwing open the doors of the Belgian Embassy for regular salon concerts, one of which I attended on Thursday night.

On the podium were 22-year-old Indonesian-Australian pianist Calvin Abdiel, seen at the Canberra International Music Festival and at Greenway Studio, joined by 19-year-old violinist Cedar Rose Newman, whom I reviewed at the Bowral Autumn Music Festival two years ago.

The pair had been brought together through their former piano teachers Natalia and Gian-Franco Ricci, but only started practising together at the embassy on Monday. You wouldn’t have known it.

Abdiel and Newman have both studied overseas, Abdiel in Berlin where he is doing his masters and Newman as a President’s Scholarship student at the Manhattan School of Music, so they come from quite different musical traditions,  Abdiel preferring impressionist and 20th century composers and Newman soon to perform a new requiem for solo violin and string orchestra by Andy Ford.

Given the short time the pair had work together it seemed like a perfect combination, with Abdile providing erudite commentary on the different musical movements and Newman chatting affably with the salon audience.

This concert, aptly named The Spirit of Youth, revolved around a work by Franz Schubert composed at age 20 and another by Richard Strauss, composed when he was just 23.

They opened with Franz Schubert’s Violin and piano Sonata No. 4 (the Grand Duo) in A major, Op. posth. 162, D 574, a work Abdiel said showed Schubert’s relatively quiet nature and “relaxed elegance”.

Maybe so, but this lyrical style quickly gave way to a  scherzo in the second movement, which somewhat belied that impression.

It was then time for Newman to take the podium alone to perform, solo, Belgian composer Eugène Ysaÿe’s one movement Violin Sonata no. 5 Aurora & Rustic Dance, a serious, focused performance.

Without taking a break, the pair launched into Richard Strauss’s sonata for Violin and Piano in East flat major Op. 18.

Here we could see the kind of dramatic intensity that contrasted with Schubert. As Abdiel brought his face and whole body into play, constantly reacting to the violin, Newman swayed and moved to the romantic music.

To me, throughout, Newman’s special skill was in the refined, almost silent moments of bowing, whole Abdiel’s forte was dramatic flair and virtuosic keying.

They were not shy in immediately proposing two encores, although Newman asked the onlookers which they would like first.

The audience chose Fritz Kreisler’s Marche miniature, giving Abdiel a chance to show that he understood the Viennese style, followed by the last movement of Three Romances by Robert Schumann, a fitting conclusion to a 90-minute feast of youthful playing.