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The Week in Reviews, Op. 539: Tracy Silverman, Augustin Hadelich, Veronika Eberle

March 3, 2026, 2:33 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.

Tracy Silverman performed the world premiere of Daniel Bernard Roumain's concerto for six-string electric violin and orchestra, "America, To US," with the Oakland Symphony.

• San Francisco Classical Voice: "Silverman brought all the virtuosity of a romantic showpiece to this new instrument, transforming it into something both wholly new and uncannily familiar. Particularly striking was his off-the-string playing, where the grittiness of his bouncing bow, distorted by the pedals, took on a percussive edge."

Augustin Hadelich performed Thomas Adès’ "Concentric Paths" Violin Concerto with the Boston Symphony Orchestra and Adès.

• Boston Classical Review: "Daunting though the score may be, it proved child’s play for Thursday’s soloist, Augustin Hadelich. Playing with impeccable precision and outstanding projection, the Italian-born fiddler imbued even the knottiest passagework with an inviting sense of direction and musicality."

Veronika Eberle performed Beethoven’s Violin Concerto with the Royal Scottish National Orchestra and Jörg Widmann.

• : "Eberle’s playing is a thing of beauty. She gives her violin a singing quality that not many can match, but there is variety and twinkling drama to it, too. In Beethoven’s Violin Concerto, her playing ranged from prayerful beauty in the slow movement, to freewheeling ease in the finale, or tentative searching in a first movement whose recapitulation preparation was nail-bitingly intense."
• Edinburgh Music Review: "Veronika Eberle...played Beethoven’s notes beautifully and played Widmann’s cadenzas with gusto."
• Edinburgh Guide: "... it was she who had recorded new cadenzas for the Violin Concerto written by Jörg Widmann during Covid. We heard those cadenzas played not just by the solo violin but by timpani and double bass. And just as Jörg Widmann had intended, his musical language altered the familiar Concerto - whether for the best, but perhaps better as an interesting alternative."
• Vox Carnyx: "The ultimate outcome was one of the longest Beethoven Violin Concerto performances I’ve heard in a long time."

Valentin Mansurov performed the world premiere of Paul Moravecwith's "Lullaby" with the Palm Beach Symphony, after violinist Vadim Repin was dropped from the program over his ties to Russian president Vladimir Putin

• South Florida Classical Review: "Mansurov played in an assured manner, particularly for a last-minute replacement, with a rich, warm tone that expressed the work’s lyric heart without overpowering it with excessive vibrato."

Ning Feng performed solo works by Bach, Ysaÿe and Paganini in a recital for the Foundation for Chinese Performing Art at Jordan Hall in Boston.

• Boston Musical Intelligencer: "Alone on stage, he evoked rapt audience concentration."

Daniel Pioro performed the world premiere of Jonny Greenwood’s Violin Concerto with the Hallé orchestra.

• The Guardian: "A dim recollection of Vaughan Williams’ The Lark Ascending amid nightmarish pitch bends was especially haunting. But despite Pioro’s virtuosity (fearless in the violin’s stratosphere), the Hallé’s honeyed tone and Tieppo-Brunt’s air traffic control gestures, the piece felt oddly formless."
• The Times: "...the solo violinist (the impressive Daniel Pioro) stood at the centre of a semicircle of 56 solo strings (mysteriously not the 68 players Greenwood has talked about) that atmospherically echoed and amplified the soloist’s material, sometimes sounding deceptively like an organ or synthesizer."
• Bach Track: "More lyrical and tonal components push through the new work, too, including fleeting references to Vaughan Williams’ The Lark Ascending and Elgar’s Nimrod....the pieces belonging to this musical jigsaw all fall very effectively into place."

Gil Shaham and pianist Orli Shaham performed the world premiere of Reena Esmail’s Double Concerto with the National Symphony Orchestra and David Robertson.

• Washington Classical Review: "Gil Shaham’s dulcet top register proved an asset in the middle movement, in some more soloistic writing, including a brief section accompanied solely by piano."

Vilde Frang performed Bartók's Violin Concerto No. 2 with the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra and Iván Fischer.

• Colin's Column: "(Conductor Iván Fischer) was at-one with the ingredients of the Violin Concerto No.2, alive to distinct details to create a lively basis for Vilde Frang to give an impassioned account of the solo part – buzzing and electrifying in the outer movements, with heartfelt expression to the fore in the second. "

Carolin Widmann performed Korngold's Violin Concerto with the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra and Tianyi Lu.

• Arcana: "It was such a balance between effusiveness and discipline which came across most clearly in Carolin Widmann’s playing, by turns tensile and expressive so that the music retained its focus throughout."
• ReviewsGate: "This concerto is a fiendishly virtuosic work. Widmann was completely on top of its technical demands while also managing to play with a massive range of colour and plenty of subtle nuance. "

Concertmaster Diana Cohen performed Bruch’s Violin Concerto No. 1 in G minor with the Calgary Philharmonic.

• Yahoo News: "Cohen’s way of playing took the audience back to the era of Jascha Heifetz, David Oistrach, Nathan Milstein — all celebrated virtuosos in the Russian mould — and delivered a passionate account of the concerto. Fingered octaves, wide leaps, and super-fast passagework were taken as if they were nothing, and all delivered with a powerful, compelling romantic sound."

Nicola Benedetti performed the Mendelssohn Violin Concerto with the Scottish Chamber Orchestra and Maxim Emelyanychev.

• Edinburgh Music Review: "Melancholy-tinged sweet-toned lyricism poured from her Gariel Strad and filled the hall with a 'song without words,' with phrasing that drew the listener into the romantic narrative. "

Noah Bendix-Balgley and cellist Bruno Delepelaire performed the Brahms Double Concerto with the Berliner Philharmoniker and Tugan Sokhiev.

• Colin's Column: "Brahms’s final work involving the orchestra...received a magnificent performance, Noah Bendix-Balgley and Bruno Delepelaire, individually expressive and duetting with fraternity, a flexible reading fully supported by their colleagues and Sokhiev, chamber music writ large symphonically presented and developed, digging into the music’s emotional potential."

The Danish String Quartet performed a concert at Jordan Hall in Boston.

• Boston Classical Review: "If only (Maurice Ravel) could have been at Jordan Hall on Friday night when the Danish String Quartet wrapped their first concert in Boston since 2023 with an exquisite, diaphanous account of his Quartet in F major....it was a picture of totally natural, unaffected musicianship from four artists engaged in the work they were born to be doing."

Patricia Kopatchinskaja performed the Berg Violin Concerto with the London Symphony Orchestra and Gianandrea Noseda.

• Bach Track: "Berg’s final masterpiece unfolded with beauty from both soloist and conductor. Breath was held during the rising and falling arpeggio figure that Benjamin Britten quoted in his Hymn to St Cecilia and it remained held until the cathartic reference to the aforementioned Bach chorale in the closing minutes."

Please support music in your community by attending a concert or recital whenever you can!

You might also like:

• The Week in Reviews, Op. 538: Anne-Sophie Mutter, Christian Tetzlaff, Leonidas Kavakos
• The Week in Reviews, Op. 537: Hilary Hahn's Return, with Philadelphia Orchestra
• The Week in Reviews, Op. 536: Alexi Kenney, Maxim Vengerov, David Kim

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