The Week in Reviews, Op. 508: Pekka Kuusisto; New Hollywood String Quartet; Joshua Bell

July 15, 2025, 5:02 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. Click on the highlighted links to read the entire reviews.

Violinist Pekka Kuusisto. Photo by Bard Gundersen.

Pekka Kuusisto performed the Sibelius Violin Concerto with the Boston Symphony Orchestra and Thomas Adès.

Boston Musical Intelligencer: "Kuusisto’s forthright, unaffected 'once upon a time' opening drew a brief acknowledgment from Thomas Martin’s solo clarinet. Then he went on to tell his story, with natural, improvisatory phrasing and a mini-cadenza that was a study in light and shade, before sliding effortlessly into the understated anguish of the Largamente second theme. If his tone seemed a little less plush than it did in 1996, it now has more edge and weight and bite."
Bach Track: "Pekka Kuusisto’s interpretation...offered a welcome departure from heroic posturing and Romantic lushness: personal, understated, yet vividly communicative. His tone was slender but penetrating, his phrasing imbued with a freedom that felt instinctive rather than idiosyncratic. The opening unfolded with a kind of quiet daring – soft-edged, with lines etched rather than sculpted. The famous cadenza, with its extended role as structural fulcrum, emerged with natural shape and internal logic."

The New Hollywood String Quartet performed a series of concerts for its Summer of Angels Chamber Music Festival.

San Francisco Classical Voice: "(Leonard Slatkin's) eloquent Hollywood lore (about his parents, Felix Slatkin and Eleanor Aller, founders of the original Hollywood String Quartet) was a hard act to follow and almost stole the show. But the members of the NHSQ — first violinist Tereza Stanislav, second violinist Rafael Rishik, violist Robert Brophy, and cellist Andrew Shulman — rose confidently and sensitively to the occasion. Their refined, committed, and technically polished approach paid fitting homage to the rich and passionate performing style of their musical forebears."

Joshua Bell, pianist Jeremy Denk and cellist Steven Isserlis performed works by Gabriel Fauré in New York at the 92nd Street Y.

New York Classical Review: "The esteemed composer, pianist and pedagogue could hardly have asked for more imaginative and tuned-in renditions of his scores than those provided by this threesome and their associates Irène Duval, violin, and Blythe Teh Engstroem, viola, who joined in at program’s close for the Piano Quintet No. 1 in D minor, Op. 89."

Stefan Jackiw performed Bruch’s "Scottish Fantasy" with the Aspen Music Festival Chamber Symphony and Marie Jacquot.

The Aspen Times: "Jackiw found the necessary finesse, but he had to play against a higher volume than seemed appropriate."

Alexandra Conunova, cellist Brannon Cho and pianist Beatrice Rana performed in recital at the "Classiche Forme" chamber music festival Lecce, Italy.

Bach Track: "Conunova and Cho delivered a poised but softened interpretation (of Ravel's Sonata for Violin and Cello) – a tour de force in itself, less a high-wire act than a pastel rendering of music drafted with the exactitude of a blueprint. Their coordination was tight and to the point, and the second movement’s guitar-like pizzicatos and harmonics came off cleanly. "

Julian Kainrath won the senior category and Yoojun Curtis Lee won the junior category in the 2025 Ysaÿe International Violin Competition in Liège, Belgium.

The Strad: "Junior category players performed a study or caprice for solo violin, one virtuoso piece for solo violin and the first movement of a violin concerto. In the senior category, contestants played the first movement of either a Beethoven, Schubert or Brahms sonata; a solo violin sonata by Ysaÿe; and the first movement of a concerto from a set list."

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The Week in Reviews, Op. 508: Pekka Kuusisto; New Hollywood String Quartet; Joshua Bell

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