The Week in Reviews, Op. 247: Tai Murray; Jennifer Koh; Julian Rachlin; Richard Tognetti
In an effort to promote the coverage of live violin performance, Violinist.com each week presents links to reviews of notable concerts and recitals around the world.
Tai Murray performed in recital at the Phillips Collection.
- Washington Post: "Murray plays with a fierce intensity and commitment that gave each of the works a veneer of greatness....But I wished she had thrown in a contrasting piece of a different kind of musical substance."
Tai Murray. Photo by Marco Borggreve.
Jennifer Koh performed Gyorgy Ligeti’s Violin Concerto with the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra.
- Los Angeles Times: "By the time she tore her way through Ligeti’s densely textured and polyrhythmic five-movement work, which features an extravagantly complex cadenza in the finale, Koh’s violin bow seemed to have little horsehair left. Throughout, she displayed commanding strength and stamina, meeting Ligeti’s indication in the score to play with 'crazed virtuosity.'"
Julian Rachlin and Sarah McElravy performed Mozart's Sinfonia Concertante and the Bach Double with the Naples Philharmonic.
- Naples Daily News: "It was probably the most graceful interpretation I've ever heard of the work. I would have listened to them play it again gladly."
Richard Tognetti performed and conducted the Beethoven Violin Concerto with the Australian Chamber Orchestra.
- Brisbane Times: "Tognetti chose to play a "synthesis" of the cadenzas created by the eminent violinists throughout history: Henri Vieuxtemps, Ottokar Novácek (incorporating timpani), Fritz Keisler, Leopold Auer and Ferdinand Laub. The result was a curious combination of homage to past superstars and an exhibition of Tognetti’s own considerable expertise."
- The Daily Telegraph: "...the overall impression was that Tognetti’s experiment on this occasion was not a complete success."
- The West Australian: "Tognetti’s rendition of the violin concerto was as nearly nude as is legal, a stripped-back timbre playing with tempi and intonation, pushing the edge of interpretation. Minimalist in signature, he swept from a sylph-like opening to full voice to ethereal harmonics. Dynamics ranged from barely there cadenza passages, clear as a bell, to plangent chords in full ensemble, underpinned by Brian Nixon’s timpani."
Renaud Capucon performed the Korngold Violin Concerto with the Sydney Symphony Orchestra.
- The Sydney Morning Herald: "French violinist Renaud Capucon had the perfect sound for Korngold's Violin Concerto in D, Opus 35, playing with the vivid expressiveness Hollywood made famous, but with never a hint of cloying sentimentality."
Roger Wilkie performed the Brahms Violin Concerto with the Long Beach Symphony.
- The Grunion: "He let Brahms’s great music speak for itself, while adding his own personal touches here and there."
Mayu Kishima performed Shostakovich Violin Concerto No. 1 with the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra.
- Performing Arts Hub: "Kishima’s understated authority and powerful playing style are tailor made for Shostakovich’s chaotic and emotive compositions....With the orchestra swirling around her like a tempest, Kishima refused to budge and her total command of tempo was as thrilling as it was moving."
Richard Lin performed the Korngold Concerto with the Singapore Symphony Orchestra.
- The Strait Times: "Lin possesses unbridled virtuosity, but it was left to Bakels and the SSO to create the richly romantic atmosphere, which lies at the heart of Korngold's work."
Please support music in your community by attending a concert or recital whenever you can!
You might also like:
- Violinist.com interview with Tai Murray: Eugène Ysaÿe's Six Sonatas for Solo violin
- Violinist.com Interview with Jennifer Koh: Bringing Music into the Present
- Interview with Julian Rachlin: bows, viola, conducting and more
Replies
It sounds like Tai hit it out of the park but the reviewer was just not in the mood for virtuoso works.
I mean, the reviewer didn't actually talk about how she played, just that double-stops (abstractly) can cause intonation issues, and that The Last Rose of Summer was not gratifying to listen to, but doesn't make it explicit that Murray's playing didn't do the piece justice or detail any particular issues with her playing, so you end up not understanding whether the reviewer likes the piece and Murray didn't play well, or that the reviewer just doesn't like the piece and that Murray is presumably at fault for her choice of programming.
I mean, I'm all for calling out a bad performance, and I respect that people have different opinions on how a program should be laid out, but the "review" is a baroquely inept piece of writing.
The following tweet would convey the same thing:
"Tai Murray played a bunch of pieces for solo violin and I didn't enjoy myself"
Or why not just tell the truth and write:
"I sat down in a room and picked lint out of my belly button for an hour"
Which at least relates back to the human condition. Sometimes I wonder if classical music reviewers even show up to the concerts that they write about, or if at this point, newspapers just figure that any gray-haired person who has watched an episode of Frasier should be reviewing concerts.
No, she is an expert and a good writer, and she was probably being as honest as she could be. (Rest assured, there are plenty of reviewers out there that have no business doing what they do, but IMO that does not apply to her.) But the nature of writing a lot of reviews really is just a difficult situation. Not everything is going to be what you want to hear, or what you want to hear at 8 p.m. on a Saturday night in November, even if you might have enjoyed it at 2 p.m. on a Sunday afternoon in July. I find it to be some of the most difficult writing that I ever do; it always takes me four times as long as I think it's going to take, even for a pretty short review. And I have the benefit of being able to take a pass; if I feel like there was much to appreciate but I just can't authentically appreciate it, I can just not write the review. I don't think she has that luxury. That said, it would be interesting to hear what others felt about Tai's recital. There was enough in that review to assure me that there was plenty of impressive violin playing!
Well, "The Last Rose of Summer" sometimes sounds like more effort than it's worth when played by the biggest stars. It sounds to me like the reviewer was disappointed to attend a truly solo violin recital without any Bach.
It's a hard war for the performer to win, though. If you play all-solo, you have to choose your program SO carefully, and maybe Bach is too obvious. Then again, if you perform with a pianist, then the critics expect two hard-core sonatas PLUS an encore or two.
By the way, if you're over your limit for WaPo articles, the trick is to press the "X" (stop download) button on your browser before the pop-ups appear. Takes a bit of practice, but as violinists, we're used to that, right?
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November 21, 2018 at 06:26 PM · That Tai Murray review is really condescending.