September 2, 2005 at 10:39 AM

GLAMOURGIRL Julia Fischer with *the* record deal and
competitionwinner and GLASSESGIRL Antje Weithaas without a recording
It is an unfair world. Another german violinist “professor” in Berlin on violin Antje Weithaas, born in 1966, has never recorded a cd. In 1987 she was winner of the Kreisler Competition in Graz, and went on to win the Bach Competition in Leipzig in 1988 and the International Violin Competition in Hannover in 1991. Roland Herrera made in the discussion about the Julia Fischer website (initiated by her father) a very good point and also my big frustration on 17 januari 2005 not to record the well known evergreenviolinconcerto’s (Beriot v.c. 1,8,9 is recorded by Takako Nishizaki 2-7, 10 never):
Please would you suggest to your daughter that she record a Viotti ( not the 22! ) or De Beriot or Similar French Concerto ? The point is there are 3,000 Brahms (nothing against) recordings.. but hardly any top soloist records a Viotti or a Rode or any French 1800 Concerto... Yet all the Violin students know and need fine examples of this repertoire. Please consider this... an alternative would be to record Rode caprices or Kreutzer or Mazas selection or Dont.... I'm sure Ms. Fischer will see I have a valid point... If she were to record a cycle of Viotti's 29 Concerti with a top Orchestra I'd get all my students to buy them ! Seriously, there is no CD of a Rode or a Kreutzer concerto... So that's enough of my (and many other Violinist's .... after all we are the people who buy CDs... The average Joe Bloggs buys 1 CD of 4 Seasons during his lifetime )
Daddy Fischer replied on 18 januari 2005: “The subject of "what to record next" seems a bit off topic to me. On the other hand part of an artist's profile is also her choice of repertoire. We should not try to influence it from the outside. “
Also Harry Colier said on 15 march 2005:
Ah for some Wieniawski 1st and 2nd concertos, Hubay, Goldmark, Saint-Saens 1st and second concertos, Vieuxtemps 4th, Elgar concerto, Britten concerto, Myaskovksy ... Please not more Sibelius, Tchaikovsky, Mendelssohn, Bruch and Prokofiev!

Daddy Fischer made a bad point saying things like: “It is her choice what she wants to record. And we don’t have to influence her from outside.”
She is only 21!! Her repertorieknowledge of violinconcerto’s is poor at that age. Of course she knows the evergreenviolinconcerto’s and people like Colier, Herrera and me as violinconcertocellector (see my 108 violinconcerto-cd’s on www.violinist.com/blog/jenohubay )are waiting for rarities.
Although Julia is a good violinist and perhaps will become a great violinist (), other aspects I see. I don’t think she will do competitions like Hannover or Indianapolis or Queen Elisabeth in Brussel, because she only can “lose??” there as an only 21 year ‘old’ violinist. Record-companies give the record deal in this television- and internet-era (both good for the promotion of violinists) to young and good-looking violingirls like in popmusic good looking girlgroups like Destiny child (split up), Three Degrees and boygroups like Take That (also split up) or Boyzone or the Backstreetboys and Westlife. Boys- and girlsbands who made simple music, which sells very good for a broad public, but not of the level of Carlos Santana, Yes, John Mc Laughlin or (electric violinist) Jean-Luc Ponty. They are just products of recordcompanies.
Although I am a big fan of violinist Janine Jansen, who had recorded for Naxos chambermusic of Robert Helps, Harbinson and E. von Dohnanyi, for the big recordcopmany Decca she recorded on 1 cd 38 minutes and some seconds for 21 euro the 4 seasons of Vivaldi (Julia recorded 3!!! violinconcerto’s on 1 cd) for the 1000th time and some short mostly well known evergreen short pieces for violin and orchestra for her first Decca-cd and reached GOLD = 15.000 sold records. On her website www.janinejansen.com she wear a very very thin and sexy dress with some butterflies on it.
She is like Julia a good violinist but also typecasted as fotomodel and good-looking girl.
Antje Weithaas is not a beautiful glamourgirl and she wear glasses and no lenses and no sexy dresses and would be a type who wants to record rarities and not the well selling evergreenviolinconcerto’s, so not interesting enough for the BIG? recordcompanies.
For a graet violinist like Arthur Grumiaux as an old man with a fat belly and a double chin I think there would be less room in this television and internetera. I don’t think he would have a website now, like other older great violinist who are still living.
The best comparising of a well selling boy band and commercial product is André Rieu (also like Janine Jansen form the Netherlands, my country) and although in his fifties, still slender. Easy listening violinmusic, even the evergreenviolinconcerto’s are too difficult for him as a former professional second violinist of a regional professional orchestra. (but I have seen him 3 times, sorry, I also wanna have fun) and he plays mainly polka’s and walses from Johann Strauss, like an die schone Blaue Donau, Wein Weib und Gesang, Kaiserwaltz etc. Or Vanessa May with her Toccata of Bach with a beat coming out of the sea with her bikini and a transparantelectric violin.
But after the well known sonates and partitas of Bach (often recorded) of Julia I don’t expect much from Janine Jansen or Julia Fischer concerning rare violinconcerto’s and rare pieces recorded in the near future although, thanks that you forwarded my list of rare violinconcerto-cd’s to Julia , which you removed from the guestbook to Julia , Frank-Peter Fischer.
Janine Jansen and Julia Fischer must make name in their first cd’s and don’t take risks with obscure repertoire.
The graet singer Cecilia Bartoli is more a pioneer and also popular even with obscure material like Gluck in her first cd’s. She also had recorded on cd (commercial succesful!) unpublished music of composers like Salieri, a bit well known from the film Amadeus (Mozart) If she was a violinist I think she would have recorded the 2 unpublished violinconcertos of the pupil of Paganini: Camillo Sivori.
But I must be positive. On Julia’s website I saw some rarities:
Svendsen
Romance for violin and orchestra, op. 26
Schumann
Concerto in d minor
Ysaye
Andante op. posth.
Sibelius

Suite for violin and string orchestra, op. 117
Respighi
Poema autumnale
Maazel
Music for violin and orchestra
Achron
Hebrew Melody
Ernst
Etude No. 6 “The Last Rose ”
Grand Caprice op. 26 “Erlkönig”
Bach
Sonata for harpsichord and violin in b minor, BWV 1014
Sonata for harpsichord and violin in A major, BWV 1015
Sonata for harpsichord and violin in E major, BWV 1016
Hindemith
Solo sonata, op.11/6
Kodaly
Duo for violin and violoncello
Saint–Saëns
Violin sonata in d minor op. 75
Penderecki
Cadenza

I will also put this, next to “violin discussion”, on my weblog for possible reactions.

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September 2, 2005 at 10:39 AM

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