The Week in Reviews, Op. 474: Isabelle Faust; Leila Josefowicz; Nemanja Radulovic

November 5, 2024, 3:38 PM · 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.

Violinist Isabelle Faust. Photo by Marco Borggreve.

Isabelle Faust performed Ondrej Adámek’s violin concerto "Follow Me" with the London Symphony Orchestra.

The Guardian: "Faust delivered the hugely demanding solo writing with her usual virtuosity and total commitment, her phrasing as honeyed and supple as it might have been in a more familiar work."

Leila Josefowicz performed the New York premiere of Luca Francesconi’s "Duende: The Dark Notes" with the New York Philharmonic and Susanna Mälkki.

Bach Track: "The violin part, filled with whirling scales and fractured arpeggios, certainly requires a performer with the virtuosity and frantic energy of Josefowicz to do it full justice."

Nemanja Radulovic performed Aram Khachaturian’s Violin Concerto with the Philharmonia Orchestra.

Bach Track: "...he plays like an absolute angel, caressing the strings like crushed silk to turn the middle movement of Aram Khachaturian’s Violin Concerto into an Armenian lullaby."

Chouchane Siranossian performed works by Vivaldi, Veracini, Tartini and Locatelli with the Venice Baroque Orchestra in Coral Gables, Fla.

South Florida Classical Review: "The violin’s pyrotechnics (in Tartini's Concerto in A Major) suggest the high-jinks of Paganini a century later and Siranossian dashed them off with devilish verve."

Yo-Yo Ma and pianist Kathryn Stott performed in recital at the Barbican.

Bach Track: "In last night’s recital, the extent of the intimacy between them was clear for all to see: here were two people with complete musical knowledge of each other being simply happy to be in a room playing for their friends – the Platonic ideal of chamber music."

Maria Dueñas performed Sibelius’s Violin Concerto with the Philharmonia Orchestra.

The Times: "It wasn’t surprising, I suppose, that the Spanish soloist often burnished the solo line with Iberian sparkle and fire, but this didn’t help the concerto’s dark Nordic profile."

The Junction Trio performed in recital at 92NY.

Blog Critics: "...one could imagine that violinist Stefan Jackiw, cellist Jay Campbell, and pianist Conrad Tao did little else but woodshed and concertize together...The three formed the Junction Trio almost a decade ago, but with their busy and eclectic individual careers they don’t appear as such all that often."

The Isidore Quartet performed at the Kennedy Center in the Fortas Chamber Music Series.

Washington Classical Review: "Not surprisingly for a group still in their 20s, some dubious interpretive decisions were in evidence, alongside some exquisitely unified playing."

The Jerusalem Quartet performed a concert at the Celebrity Series at Jordan Hall.

Boston Musical Intelligencer: "The Jerusalem Quartet took the Celebrity Series Jordan Hall audience on an exhilarating high-octane ride that started and ended with Haydn."
Boston Classical Review: "... despite the night’s sometimes edgy production, the ensemble’s command of their repertoire’s spirit and character felt, on the whole, unfailingly correct."

Ray Ushikubo performed Sibelius’s Violin Concerto with the Colburn Orchestra, conducted by Esa-Pekka Salonen.

San Francisco Classical Voice: "...he brandished it with a pure, thick tone quality, not much vibrato, sustained emotional legatos in the second movement, and just enough technical mastery to ride through the thorny traps that Sibelius sets in the finale."

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The Week in Reviews, Op. 474: Isabelle Faust; Leila Josefowicz; Nemanja Radulovic

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