Word: violinists
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...such a world, a professional recital given by a 16-year-old like violinist Sarah Chang is certainly no uncommon event. Chang was one of the wunderkinds, of course--she made her New York debut with the New York Philharmonic at age 8 and is the youngest performer ever to receive the Avery Fisher Career Grant--but she grew out of her child prodigy title long before she stood on stage at Symphony Hall last Friday night. Chang is no longer miraculous for her age for the same reason she's allowed to drive a car: simply...
...ease, as author Annie Dillard once wrote, is the way of perfection, violinist Gil Shaham may be the classical music world's most polished performer. By the end of his performance with the Boston Symphny Orchestra Saturday night, he had convinced the rapt audience at Symphony Hall that Mendelssohn violin concertos simply grew out of his gleaming Stradivarius without effort, toil or even a few hours' practice...
Granted, Mendelssohn's Violin Concerto in E minor is one of the most popular and playable concertos in the violin repertoire. Upon the advice of the violinist for whom he wrote the concerto, Mendelssohn avoided difficult technical writing, not because it would make the piece inaccessible, but because it was not essential to the piece's form. Nothing, in fact, is superfluous to the concerto's form. Critics called this straightforward style innovative and even revolutionary in the then-stagnant concerto repertoire...
...Billboard classical chart last week was The Vienna I Love (Philips), a collection of waltzes, marches and snippets from familiar operas, performed by Andre Rieu, a Dutch violinist who looks a bit like Mel Gibson. At No. 8 was Rieu's From Holland with Love. Poised just below the chart was his newest release, Strauss Gala. This impressive lineup has made Rieu, at least for the moment, one of the hottest acts in classical music--rivaling Luciano Pavarotti, Kathleen Battle, even David Helfgott, whose recording of Rachmaninoff's Third Piano Concerto returned to the top spot, ending the Dutchman...
Though far from a world-class soloist, Rieu is a perfectly respectable violinist and conductor, and he has a knack for picking danceworthy tempos. His slickly polished albums may not be especially demanding, but they aren't gimmicky either; he doesn't play reggae versions of Tales from the Vienna Woods or pose in a G-string for publicity shots. All he does is look handsome and make music--a concept as old-fashioned as the music he makes. Therein, in fact, may lie the real secret of his success: the perpetually hummable tunes of the 19th century waltz king...