Here’s a five-star review from El Mundo on the 17th of Sep 2017.
I’ll include the whole page as a PDF as well.
Suzy’s translation in the comments below.
Here’s the PDF file of the entire page: Concert Review from El Mundo
I’m the son of Patrick of Meadows.
Translation by Suzy:
An elegy (Tchaikovsky) and a tango (Piazzola) were the farewell on the return of Misha Rachlevsky to the Deià Festival, on a special night dedicated to the memory of Patrick Meadows, creator of the festival who died a few months ago. The truth is that a token of affection like this one was missing, in which the pianist Susan Bradbury and John, the son of Meadows, appeared as the main instigators. In fact, an affectionate memory, which was extended to Stephanie Sheppard, faithful companion of travel and project.
In the closing concert of the Deià Veladas Musicales, in 2016, the invited choir, Studium Aureum had already dedicated that concert to the memory of Sheppard, buried a few meters from San Juan Bautista.
Rachlevsky, an old acquaintance of the Deian rendezvous came, conducting Kremlin Strings, which is the latest expression of his enthusiastic dedication to the string orchestra, which began in the 1980s with the New American Chamber Orchestra. Fourteen musicians, mainly young, follow to the letter his indications of a marked expressive character. The program was centered on the homage to Meadows, choosing for the occasion some of the pieces shared by Rachlevsky and Meadows. The Russian director put the accent on the interpretation of In memory of Henri Temianka by the German-American composer Tom Schnauber composed in the late 90’s and a piece especially appreciated by Patrick Meadows.
Although, as is characteristic of Kremlin Strings, the highlight of the evening came at the end with the interpretation of the well-known Tchaikovsky Serenade for strings , with that spectacular first movement that surely was what led the composer to point out that the more String instruments the better. Here were seven violins, three violas, three cellos and a double bass. Enough for the intensity that Mischa Rachlevsky projects when he raises his baton.
In the first part the dominant juxtaposition was between romanticism (Schubert) and an incipient and decisive Arnold Schoenberg, who had initially written Transfigured Night for string sextet and which shows first signs of the atonality that will arrive with force soon after.
The Kremlin Strings concert, was not a concert framed in the XXXIX Deià Festival, but an absolutely necessary one, while we wait for greater intensity in the references to Meadows when the next edition begins. Emotive the memory of his words, which he wrote when in 2008 he decided to leave the direction of the Festival. The sea horizon was already beginning to fade.